Why Rush Isn’t The Worst

Rush Limbaugh’s statements about Sandra Fluke, and his pathetic apology, made me so mad I couldn’t see straight. I daydreamed about confronting him face to face and giving him a piece of my mind and possibly throw a pie in his face. I talked about it. I wrote about it.

I still wish Rush Limbaugh would choke on his tongue, but unfortunately, his voice isn’t what scares me. No, what really scares me is the number of women who have lashed out against Sandra Fluke for an initiative that we, as women, should all agree on. Yesterday, I read on Newsweek that Patricia Heaton from “The Middle” issued a Twitterpology for things she said about Fluke via Twitter, and frankly, she makes what Rush Limbaugh said sound nice!

I watched a clip from The Daily Show with John Stewart and was horrified to see women equally opposed to contraceptive coverage for women – not because it infringes on religious freedoms, but because women don’t have a constitutional right to have sex. Whereas men don’t need to have their right to have sex protected under the constitution, women do.

But the thing that really scares me is that women don’t even need have men like Rush Limbaugh degrading us for trying to protect our reproductive health rights because we have women to do it! Patricia Heaton should be ashamed for the things she said on her Twitter postings. We should be raking her over the coals the way we have Rush Limbaugh because it is even more disgusting that one of our own kind has taken to publicly humiliate another woman for standing up for what she believes in.

Women policing women is not news. Simone De Beauvior wrote about it in The Second Sex. Men don’t have to work very hard to “put us in our places” because women will do it for them faster and more cruelly. I think a lot of us are guilty of doing it without even realizing it. I didn’t realize I did it until I read The Second Sex in a feminist literature class and was in a discussion about the way women police each other.

But publicly condemning men and not holding women just as accountable can be disastrous. If we want equal rights, we have to treat men and women equally, even if the rest of society doesn’t offer us the same courtesy. And if we want men to take us seriously, we need women in the media and congress who are supportive of women’s rights. It’s been asked “Where are the Women?” and the answer is right in front of us. Just not women who believe in women. I fully support the feminists’ call to put more women in congress, but I think we also need to make a push to get feminist commentators in the mainstream media.