A few years ago, radio personality Don Imus lit a firestorm of controversy after making several derogatory statements about the Rutger’s Women’s Basketball team – calling them, “nappy-headed hoes.” Soon after the backlash, sponsors pulled their backing, and Imus was fired. History, as the cliché goes, has a way of repeating itself.
Fast-forward to only a few weeks ago and another radio personality, Rush Limbaugh, finds himself in similar hot waters. Limbaugh, a giant among conservative radio hosts, castigated Georgetown student, Sandra Fluke, characterizing her as a “slut” and “prostitute.”
Slate of March 8, 2012, further elucidates, “Limbaugh told Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who recently argued that health insurers should be required to cover contraception. ‘Ms. Fluke, have you ever heard of not having sex?’
Limbaugh asked on his radio show. ‘Did you ever think about maybe backing off the amount of sex that you have?’ In lieu of birth-control pills, he offered: ‘I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want.’”
A few weeks later, it’s tempting to say the American public’s response to the audacious comments made by Limbaugh is a waste of time or exaggerated. After all, as the Daily Beast of March 6, 2012, reports, “Being too extreme has never been a problem for el Rushbo. Appeals to conscience and individual kindness weren’t going to provoke an apology alone. His email offering an initial apology after several days of attacking Fluke came because advertisers were heading to the exits. And the exodus hasn’t stopped.”
The closing sentiment about advertisers leaving Limbaugh certainly taints the apology with disingenuousness. However, being
a shock-jock isn’t enough to pardon his incredibly insensitive remarks. Any leniency toward the comments made by a nationally renowned and hugely popular personality should be taken as – at least at some level – an acceptance of misogyny.
Bonnie Morris, a professor at George Washington University published an Opinions Editorial in the March 9, 2012, Washington Post. In it, she poignantly posits: “As a women’s studies professor, I deal every day with how words such as ‘slut’ — and a lack of access to contraception — affect the young women I mentor. That we’re returning to this sort of mentality, akin to stoning the female non-virgins among us, with the attendant double-standard for sexually active young men, is as frightening a parallel to Taliban-style intimidation of women as anything I’ve seen in a while.”
We should contemplate what the reaction would be if Rush Limbaugh were to say something racially explosive – something reminiscent of Imus’s statements. I sincerely doubt there would be any talk about the comments not warranting severe reprimand. When viewed in this light, the response to the comments provides valuable commentary on our societal opinion of women and women’s health issues.
Put as simply as possible, our taking Limbaugh’s comments seriously transcends Limbaugh himself and provides a valuable insight into shifting views of women and, more importantly, women’s empowerment.
Rush Limbaugh may just be a loudmouth simpleton willing to say anything that garners him more viewers. Yet by sheer reality of his popularity, what he says is worth our scrutiny, particularly when it is as tasteless and offensive as his outbursts against Sandra Fluke. Rush Limbaugh may not get fired and marginalized like Don Imus, yet we should hope that our unwillingness to accept inflammatory racial and sexist rhetoric will be applied to the hateful speech offered by Limbaugh.
