For years now, Rush Limbaugh has been at the front of the Republican lines. He has his own talk show, has published several books, and has been shoving conservative agenda down the throats of Americans for quite a while. He’s spoken out many times against feminism, whether it’s by referring to us as “feminazis”, or deducing that “Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.” Plain and simple, he’s an outspoken misogynist. Howsoever, recently, he got himself caught up in a bit of a scandal. As you’re probably aware, the government has been dealing with the very broad issue of contraception. Republican leaders held a forum on the issue, during which there were no women speaking. When Democrats hosted a meeting later on, they included Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, who gave a testimonial about women who need birth control for medical reasons. She specifically talked about how some women who attend Catholic universities have to spend close to $3000 out of pocket on birth control, and that’s on top of their school health insurance. However, Rush Limbaugh didn’t exactly hear that. Instead, he went on the attack mode; “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.” (Source: Krystal Ball of the Huffington Post). Obviously, Rush missed the overall point of Ms. Fluke’s statement. She was talking about women who medically use birth control, and yet, he simply used it as a jumping point to further put the female gender and our sexual actions on the chopping block. Nobody deserves to be called a slut simply because they demands equal access to a form of health care. Nobody should be publically humiliated because they speak out on the behalf of an entire group of people. To show his support of Sandra, President Obama gave her a phone call, and thanked her for “”helping to amplify the voices of women across the country,”. Truly, that’s all she was doing. She wasn’t requesting to be paid for her sexual endeavors, nor was she inviting Rush Limbaugh to make disgusting comments about her body and what she chooses to do with it.
There’s been so much public turmoil about the issue that many have called upon Rush’s advertisers to pull their ads from his show and website as a result of his sexist words. Today alone, three of Rush’s biggest advertisers, AutoZone, Sleep Train, and Quicken Loan did just that. This is a huge victory for the issue, but there are still plenty of his fiscal supports who need to hear from us. If you yourself would like to get involved, the hash tags on twitter are going out as #BoycottRush and #StandwithSandra. Or, here’s the link to an online petition: http://leftaction.com/action/boycott-rush
I could not agree with you more. I think all women should be on birth control and the government should pay for it. I don’t understand why there’s a war on women. We shouldn’t be fighting, we should be loving each other and using contraception except for the gays, lesbian and transgendered who don’t need birth control.
Men are always shoving their ideas on women, like when men insist that women shave their legs. As a man, I like a natural looking woman, with all the body hair that nature intended. In fact, one of my friends finds ‘bushy’ women to be a turn on! I say “Viva la difference.”
Of course this is really all about men controlling women’s bodies. Abortion on demand is the law of the land so women can have as many abortions as they want. Its not like men have anything to do with conception, so why should they have anything to say about about legally sucking out a small clump of cells from a uterus?
I do not know if that sandra girl shaves her legs, but she is attractive and I am glad that she is on birth control and has access to abortion. If she got pregnant it would be very inconvenient to her career and she might have residual weight gain even if she carried the cells to term and gave it up for adoption. Men are the first to call women fat, but they don’t understand what it is like to have a baby.
As a man I wish I could have a baby so I could understand what it would be like. Of course, I would probably choose to abort one if I wasn’t ready or it wasn’t the right gender. I’d feel pretty rotten about a woman whose child I was carrying to tell me that I couldn’t abort the clump of cells that was growing in my nether regions.
Even if I could get pregnant, I definitely would not shave my legs.