It’s called “Calendargate,” and it’s raising the question of what — and whom — the right-wing war on “wokeness” is really for.
While most people were enjoying the holidays, extremely online conservatives were fighting about a pinup calendar.
Last month, Ultra Right Beer — a company founded as a conservative alternative to allegedly woke Bud Light — released a 2024 calendar titled “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America 2024 Calendar.” The calendar contains photos of “the most beautiful conservative women in America” in various sexy poses. Some, like anti-trans swimmer Riley Gaines and writer Ashley St. Clair, are wearing revealing outfits; others, like former House candidate Kim Klacik, are fully clothed. No one is naked.
But this mild sexiness was just a bit too much for some prominent social conservatives, who started decrying the calendar in late December as (among other things) “demonic.” The basic complaint is that the calendar is pandering to married men’s sinful lust, debasing conservative women, and making conservatives seem like hypocrites when they complain about leftist immorality.
Do you have to practice being that condescending or is it a natural ability? First, there’s no such thing as a conservative man who actually respects women, so this “division” is really just a disagreement about how they want to be disrespectful - via mildly titillating pictures, or via religious control.
Second, I spend huge amounts of time in ex-fundie communities, and both religious and secular conservatism are basically the topic of conversation. I know what conservative women consider to be “respect,” and was applying their standards to this subject. Even by their absolute bottom of the barrel expectations, men are letting them down in this case. The only men on “their side” still view women as property and are only really upset because they think women should only be showing their bits to the man who owns her.
Do you think the conservative women who appeared in the calendar agree with you? I would guess they don’t. So it seems to me your understanding of the spectrum of opinion is clearly missing something.
Maybe your views on this are out of whack because of spending “huge amounts of time” in a community with a view of conservatism skewed by their unique experiences? That’s not a knock against doing so or against those people, just that fundies have particularly extreme experiences of politics and religion which is bound to mean you hear a lot of outliers.
I am not conservative but I don’t think looking at mildly titillating pictures of women is disrespectful, and I think that’s an opinion which is pretty common across the political spectrum in the West.
Well since my original comment was exclusively addressing the women who were offended by the calendar, I thought it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t talking about the women who participated, but please, feel free to write a few more paragraphs showing me that you either didn’t read or didn’t understand what I wrote.