My favorite tweet on election night came from Alec Baldwin:

You know your party’s in trouble when you read this:A: The rape guy lost.B: Which one?

— ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) November 7, 2012

It sort of sounds like a joke Tina Fey (or her alter ego Liz Lemon) would write, and while funny, it’s also very depressing. That there were actual candidates representing a major party on the ballot that thought of rape as anything other than a violent crime is astounding. But sadly, it’s been par for the course this year.

Though the most pressing issue for most voters was the economy, 2012 has felt like the year of “I Can’t Believe We’re Still Fighting For This,” which is basically like the buttery spread but with more misogyny. I was raised on the ideas that birth control will always be there for us and that rape is a brutal crime and violation of another person’s body (with no “silver lining”). This election, however, demonstrated that these ideas hadn’t achieved the widespread acceptance I (and many others) had previously assumed. It seemed that the jury was still out on “rights,” “equality,” and “science.” Because this jury closely resembled the one in Twelve Angry Men.

In the months leading up to the election, I found myself getting progressively angrier. I couldn’t believe that progressive women were still putting out fires I had long thought extinguished—whether it’s fighting for insurance coverage of contraception or access to an abortion even if a woman isn’t bleeding to death. Every time a male Republican politician opened his mouth to explain rape, pregnancy, and motherhood to women, I felt my blood pressure jump.

I’ve had more than my fair share of “mansplaining” in the two-plus decades I spent as an Orthodox Jew. (God, am I ever grateful for introduction of “mansplaining” to the lexicon. Would that I had known about it fifteen years ago while I was still a student in yeshiva high school.) In school and out, rabbis were gracious enough to explain the ritual restrictions placed on women, because they knew us better than we knew ourselves. They told us that females were more spiritual, elevating us to unearned spiritual heights in order to keep us out of public synagogue life. (You don’t need to do that cause you’re so much holier than men. What?) They told us we were all destined to become mothers and therefore didn’t need to bother ourselves with time-bound positive commandments cause we’d be caring for babies. Elaine, you gotta have a baby.

During the domestic policy debate, Mitt Romney did an excellent job mansplaining how he understands the needs of working women by repeatedly insisting that females who have families should be allowed to go home early to care for them. As if childcare is the only thing a career woman would be concerned about—and the only acceptable reason a woman, or anyone for that matter, would need to leave work early. (Also he said “if” a woman chooses to work at least three times during that debate as though not working was a realistic choice for most women.)

Well, for all the male politicians who claimed to know women better than we know ourselves, they were mostly resoundingly defeated on Tuesday. The rape apologists, from the vice presidential nominee (though he did keep his congressional seat) on down were voted out of office by the very constituency they professed to understand so well.

But it’s just not the defeat of some openly and dangerously misogynistic legislators. This election has also brought the number of women in the Senate to 20, an all-time high. Some of these women are particularly inspiring progressives, including Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay senator.

Increased female representation in Congress and other governing bodies is essential and not just because all women think the same about all issues. We’re not exactly a monolith. But the more women (and other genders and orientations) present in government and positions of power, the less “mansplaining” we’ll be subject to. I might vehemently disagree with some female elected officials, but at least I won’t have to deal with them explaining women like they’re a relationship expert for Cosmo or the authors of The Rules. (Unless one of these women happens to teach my high school’s “Family Living” class, which prepped us for marriage after graduation and stood in as our sex education. Learning about the different colors of menstrual blood is the same as learning about STIs, right?)

Does this mean that I won’t have another rage fit in a few weeks or months when some conservative politician or pundit or rabbi says something deeply sexist? I’m sure I will freak out. The basic conversation about women’s right and opportunities hasn’t shifted all that much despite the recent electoral success. Merely defeating odious men who have no compassion for rape victims is not really a breakthrough.

But despite my traditionally pessimistic nature, I’m feeling very optimistic right now. (I even re-watched will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” video from 2008. God help me.) With more women in Congress (and with Obama likely to appoint new justices to the bench), I’m hopeful that one day in the not-so-distant future women’s reproductive rights no longer need to be explained and translated quite as much. Like all majority rights, I’d like them to become so accepted and normalized that they’re taken for granted, allowed to fade into the background and not be given much thought, just as men’s Viagra and vasectomies don’t get the full congressional treatment. (And certainly not by a panel of women to the exclusion of men.) They’re just there, like background noise, no mansplaining necessary.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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• From the artist who brought us Rahm Emanuel with pancakes on his head, NSFW Mitt Romney art in time for election day. [Flavorwire]

• From Buchenwald clothes washer to bespoke presidential suit maker, the amazing story of Martin Greenfield. [Washington Post]

• There’s a crocodile loose in the sewers of Gaza. Someone get this guy a Twitter account. [Al Arabiya]

• Taylor Swift’s inspirations? Lena Dunham and Gywneth Paltrow, obvi. [Vanity Fair]

• Ivanka Trump’s? Daphne Guinness and Blake Lively. [NY Mag]

• Conan O’Brien found Woody Allen’s Star Wars Episode VII audition tape. [Team Coco]

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Playwright David Mamet, who publicly disavowed his former liberal leanings, has made quite the strong-worded endorsement for Mitt Romney in the Jewish Journal. In it, he makes repeated reference to children, which makes us think of his daughter Zosia, better known as the clingy, image-conscious Shoshanna Shapiro on Lena Dunham’s HBO series, Girls. Needless to say, Shosh would be mortified.

Here’s what Mamet has to say to “those Jews planning to vote for Obama:”

Are you prepared to explain to your children not the principles upon which your vote is cast, but its probable effects upon them?

Irrespective of your endorsement of liberal sentiments, of fairness and “more equal distribution,” will you explain to your children that top-down economic policies will increasingly limit their ability to find challenging and well-paid work, and that the diminution in employment and income will decrease their opportunity to marry and raise children?

Will you explain (as you have observed) that a large part of their incomes will be used to fund programs that they may find immoral, wasteful and/or indeed absurd? And that the bulk of their taxes go to no programs at all, but merely service the debt you entailed on them?

Will you tell your children that a liberal government will increasingly marginalize, dismiss and weaken the support for and the safety of the Jewish state?

Shoshanna is so not talking to him right now. Mamet, meanwhile, is the guest of honor at tonight’s Manhattan Institute Wriston Lecture, an honor typically reserved for the likes of Condoleezza Rice, George Will, and the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Mamets. So hot right now.

A note to a stiff-necked people [Jewish Journal] Previously on Jewcy: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Shoshanna?
Lena Dunham Wants Your First Time Voting to Be Special
David Mamet Abandons “Brain-Dead Liberalism”

(Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for GLAMOUR)

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In a confusing turn of events, Harvard law professor and staunch Israel supporter Alan Dershowitz debated Orthodox Jewish rapper Shyne on their chosen candidates for the next week’s presidential election. The Belize-born rapper, who was deported from the United States after serving nearly nine years in prison for his involvement with Puff Daddy in a 1999 high-profile club brawl, recently endorsed Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

In the debate, Dershowitz explains why he is voting for the president’s reelection, while Shyne expresses concern about Obama’s foreign policy. Referring to the president, the rapper says at one point, “When he says things like ‘there needs to be daylight between the United States of American and Israel,’ those are very dangerous philosophies to have in the climate that we have with a Hitler-esque president of Iran.”

“It reminds me of 1938, with the appeasement, with Hitler, and just the underestimation of the evils that lay in the global jungle,” Shyne added. He also expressed worry that First Lady Michelle Obama is more concerned with obesity than she is with inner-city violence.

The debate was hosted by the website Deeyoon, whose homepage features other debates like the misspelled “Should Israel Remain the Undivided Capitol of Israel?” “Are Israeli Settlements Good for Israel?” and “Godfather 1&2 vs. Scarface.”

Watch for yourself, and let us know who you think ‘wins.’

(Image via the New York Times)

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• Filming on the Darren Aronofsky biblical epic Noah, in Oyster Bar, N.Y., was postponed because of Hurricane Sandy.

• From the archives: Five Questions With @ElBloombito, a parody account of Mayor Bloomberg’s spanish skills.

• Speaking of Bloomberg, his ex-wife’s penthouse now costs $5 million more.

• Yowza: Ben Affleck almost directed the Homeland pilot.

• Mitt Romney, not voting for Jewish values.

• Donna Karan’s new book chronicles her late husband’s life and work.

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First he became a man. Now, he’s a high school graduate. That’s right, people: Drake, born October 24, 1986, has fulfilled the requirements needed to graduate high school. We’re verklempt, really.

97% on my final exam. 88% in the course. One of the greatest feelings in my entire life. As of tonight I have graduated high school!

— Drizzy (@Drake) October 18, 2012

It must have been hard for Drizzy to concentrate on that final, what with Shyne—fresh off his rant against Rick Ross’ Black Bar Mitzvah mixtape—getting all up in his business about his lack of street cred. The Orthodox Jewish deported rapper and Mitt Romney supporter told MTV News, “I would really prefer Drake to sing about girls and sing about being a good kid from Canada and whatever that entails.”

Mazel tov, Aubrey. Next stop Degrassi: Drake: the College Years.

Related: Watch: Drake’s HYFR Bar Mitzvah Wins Best Hip Hop Video at MTV VMAs
Matisyahu Says He’s More Jewish Than Drake, Even Without His Beard
Drake Buys a House That Might Have a Mechanical Bull
It’s Drake’s re-Bar Mitzvah, and You’re Invited!

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• Jerry Stiller played the role of Hitler in a high school play.

• A look at the new cookbook from two Jerusalem-born star chefs, helpfully called Jerusalem: A Cookbook.

• Dominique Strauss Kahn opens up about the lavish sex parties he regularly participated in. Gross.

• Jerry Seinfeld’s stand-up is comedic comfort food, says the New York Times.

• Orthodox rapper Shyne, who was deported in 2009 and therefore can’t vote in a U.S. election, endorsed Mitt Romney.

• Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner (is he? isn’t he?) jumped from space this weekend. What did you do?

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Sarah Silverman released a new election video, and it’s filled with just as many f-bombs as you’d expect. The video is designed to shock, of course, but also to educate those affected by new voter ID laws. Silverman argues that the “super fucked up” laws, while claiming to prevent voter fraud, actually make it more difficult for members of certain demographics to vote.

Less vulgar than her last video, in which Silverman offered to scissor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson if he donated to Obama instead of Romney, this one urges voters in states affected by the new laws to find out what kind of identification they’ll need to vote, and make sure they have it on Election Day. The video is on a site called Let My People Vote, which is funded by the Jewish Council for Education and Research.

Watch Silverman’s latest foray into politics for yourself:

Previously: Sarah Silverman Wants to Scissor Sheldon Adelson for Obama
Update: 100 People Make ‘Schlep’ to Florida on Sarah Silverman’s Whim
Sarah Silverman Wants You to Schlep Your Fat Jewish Ass to Florida

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Silverman also gives a visual example, using a small dog, of the sexual favor she’s offering the Jewish billionaire (to climax, she promises). She points out that all the other Republican billionaires are giving money to Romney, but “How many of them are getting scissored by a bikini-bottomed Jewess with big naturals?”

This isn’t Silverman’s first foray into politics, of course—in 2008, she famously urged Jews to go down to Florida and tell their grandparents to vote for Obama—but this year she’s going big. In an interview with Vanity Fair last week, Silverman shared a joke she had written with the Republican National Convention in mind:

I wanted to say that during that week, we should hold a vigil or ask for a moment of silence for the literally billions of tiny Republicans who will be lost in hookers’ assholes that week. I told it to my dad and he said, “You mean vaginas!” And I said, “No, Daddy. Because they don’t want to get [the women] pregnant, and they don’t want to wear condoms.” And he was like, “Oh, you’re right.” It was such a messed-up conversation.

(Art by Margarita Korol)

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• The Onion looks at Mitt Romney’s campaign promises vis a vis Israel.

• Alice Walker, a supporter of the BDS movement, won’t let her novel The Color Purple be translated into Hebrew.

• Noted pugilist and sometime rapper Drake told MTV that he wants to “bring people together” with his next album, which will be his third.

• This week’s New Yorker features a story, “Means of Suppressing Demonstrations,” by 25-year-old Israeli writer Shani Boianjiu.

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