Fox News' Trotta Still Doesn't Get It: I Want Her Rape Apologism Off the Air
I had mistakenly thought that Fox New's Liz Trotta could not spew anything more hateful or ignorant than last week's broadcast claiming that military women should expect to be raped. How wrong I was.
While Trotta presents a multitude of straw man arguments, each as tempting as the last to chase down the rabbit hole, I will, unlike her, attempt to stay the course with this. This week, she attempts to defend herself from her critics, whom she claims simply do not understand what the military is "really" like. Because we apparently need a journalist to tell us Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen what it's like to be in the military. It is clear from her scripted response that Fox has not required her to read any of the actual complaints. Had she taken the time, she would know that the mass majority of those who spoke out against her are far more aware of our military and how it operates than she.
Trotta boasts of "tours of duty" during various wars in which she was imbedded, again, not as a soldier, but as a journalist. I find it ironic that Ms. Trotta claims to have earned the respect of the troops, the troops she is defaming and the troops who so adamantly want her gone. She says she has nothing but respect and admiration for our nation's service members, yet continues to denounce the contribution of the some 20% who happen to be female and to consider the rest capable of rape. Amazing, coming from someone who, in the same breath, claims to be "very sensitive to the needs of the forces." Which needs would that be, Ms. Trotta? Your supposition on their need to rape when at war?
Her stance could not be more insulting to the many thousands of honorable men who have fought in combat for our nation and would never -- I repeat, never -- do what she claims is a "basic instinct" for men. And the man who raped me never saw a day of combat in his life. There was certainly no "war zone" in Camp Pendleton, California.
Liz Trotta so grossly misses the mark, not only in her understanding of the military, but in her understanding of rape psychology, as to harm the cause of those of us diligently working to actually solve the problem. It is not the "feminists" who are raping men and women in the military. It is not normal, good guys who allow their testosterone to "rule" while on the battlefield. Rape exists, to make it plain and simple, because rapists exist. As I said in my personal letter to Fox News, removing women from our armed forces will only serve to increase the number of male victims. It will not solve the problem.
The only way to solve the problem of rape and sexual assault in the military is to prosecute and imprison the rapists. That's it. To allow them to continue their crimes, claiming it was simply a matter of foregoing the "male/female niceties" when under the pressures of combat, is not just excusing a felony, it's not just telling the victim that's what they deserve for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time -- it is allowing the Department of Defense's statistics, which she loves to quote, to continue to escalate unabated. Rapists are violent, twisted criminals who will not stop until someone stops them. Until we extinguish the misguided and antiquated views of sexual crimes that justify such horrific actions, nothing will change.
It is for this reason that I implore all of you to join me in demanding Fox restore some level of respect by removing this woman from their broadcast. If we all boycott their channels, if we all write letters and make phone calls, they will listen. Please stand up for the many men and women who are survivors of rape and sexual assault, and are continually shamed into silence by those who agree with the sick perspective of Liz Trotta. Let us not allow her a platform to continue to spill out this divisive hate speech any longer. America, civilians and military alike, deserves better.
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