Thanks to colleague Rachel Sklar for the original tip on this piece. 

I would say this is in the category of… “you can’t believe it,” but these days there is nothing about today’s GOP I can’t believe anymore. From forced pregnancy, to forced ultrasounds (trans-vaginal or abdominal), to denial of care for rape victims, and denial of both health and pay inequities, the GOP is going out of its way to tell us exactly how they feel about women.

And now this: An anti-gay New York GOP legislator has decided that women are not acting “feminine enough,” so… he will teach us how to be feminine.

This is reported from Joe. My. God. 

Anti-gay New York GOP state Sen. Marty Golden thinks women need to start acting like proper ladies. And he’s going to teach a class on how to do just that. City & State reports:

Later this month, Republican State Sen. Marty Golden’s office is holding a career-development event for women in his southern Brooklyn district teaching them “Posture, Deportment and the Feminine Presence.” That’s according to a taxpayer-funded mailing being sent out in Golden’s district, which an offended reader passed along. The taxpayer-funded event – presented by a “certified protocol consultant” – is part of a series teaching women in Brooklyn “what’s new in the 21st century as it relates to business etiquette and social protocol.” More details are also available on Golden’s Senate website, including the fact that women in attendance will be taught to, “Sit, stand and walk like a model,” how to, “Walk up and down a stair elegantly” and “Differences in American and Continental rules governing handshakes and introductions.”

According to Joe. My. God., “Golden says his classes are meant to help young women get jobs, therefore you are paying for it.”

Of course, assuming women need to be taught how to be “proper ladies” means to this guy that they should be quiet, demure, undemanding of their rights, available for sex whenever men demand it, willing to endure forced pregnancy and childbirth, submissive to their husbands and (white) male politicians and religious figures. And I am sure we should stop asking for things like pay equity.

In turn, I will be offering members of the GOP, Tea Party, fundamentalist right-wing nutcases, and those Blue Dog Democrats complicit in their agenda to attend a class on how not to be idiotic, sexist, misogynistic pigs, but something tells me that attendance will be low, because you’d have to have some measure of self-awareness to even decide you needed help.

And, somehow, I don’t think tax-payer funding would be available for said class. Just sayin’.