It’s been something of a rocky round between women and Rick Santorum in the past, as he seemed to have had a special way of offending some female or another at nearly every turn. And now that he’s gracefully bowed out, we’d like to gracefully thank him. Because, in as much as he said almost everything wrong that he possibly could—single moms are creating criminals! Birth control is immoral! Women cannot control their emotions! (Wah!)—he may have done more for women than the cool, collected, reasonable and pro-woman Barack Obama ever could. This is a counterintuitive argument, of course, but there’s a truth here: When people say extreme things that showcase ignorance and irrelevance, other people are better able to counter their statements with rationality and intelligence, and tend to come out all the better for it. (See “Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke.”) It throws the ridiculousness in high relief, if you will. So while many will say Santorum (and more broadly the entire GOP) set us back 50 years, or even 60, we’re going to say, sure, maybe he thrust the conversation back into the Mad Men era for a moment…but in doing that, the rest of us have become that much more adamant about taking it back to 2012. Or at least, that’s the upside. In honor of this momentous occasion, a little walk down memory lane with our favorite Santorum statements about women (and sometimes men, too): [Click through for the rest:]