The Problem With Rush Limbaugh Isn’t The Word “Slut”

You’re familiar with the recent firestorm surrounding Rush Limbaugh, right?  The one about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who spoke to Democratic Representatives about birth control and was subsequently the target of an ongoing attack by Limbaugh?  And how advertisers then began pulling financial support for his radio show in response to criticism of Limbaugh’s remarks?  OK.  Discussion in the mainstream media about what Limbaugh said has generally centred around his use of the word “slut”, but I think that really misses the point.  The reason I’m bringing this up now, nearly a month after the story broke, is because a number of incidents have occurred lately that indicate to me that the misunderstanding about what is actually at issue here is causing people to make all sorts of problematic comparisons with situations that are not materially similar.

Writing at The Daily Beast, Kirstin Powers argued that “liberals” are just as guilty of slut-shaming as Limbaugh is.  She provides many examples, some of which are pretty on-point, like Chris Matthews’ attacks on Hilary Clinton, and some of which are entirely unrelated to gender, like the non-gendered insults lobbed at Michelle Bachmann’s intellgence.  Next came some comments made by Louis C.K. about Sarah Palin, and I saw a couple of people question why C.K.’s remarks didn’t receive the kind of attention that Limbaugh’s did, generally with the assertion that he was getting a free pass because he’s liked by lefties.  Some of his remarks were pretty reprehensible, like saying that Sarah Palin had a “retard making cunt”, while some of them were bizarre drunken nonsense; what does “I want to rub my father’s cock all over Sarah Palin’s fat tits” even mean?  At any rate, I think he should have come under more serious scrutiny for his remarks, but I also don’t think they’re comparable to Limbaugh’s, for reasons I’ll get to in a minute.  Finally, today the New York Times published a piece by Bill Maher in which he says that “If you see or hear something you don’t like in the media, just go on with your life.”  The article compares a light satirical remark on the state of race in U.S. politics by Robert De Niro with Rush Limbaugh’s vicious verbal tirades against Sandra Fluke.

So why aren’t these situations comparable to Limbaugh’s assault on Sandra Fluke?  Because the problem isn’t that Limbaugh called her a slut.  Part of the problem was the sustained, long-term nature of what Limbaugh said.  But it was also about the worldview he espoused; take a look at some of his remarks in more detail:

So, Ms. 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, and I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.

This quote gets at the heart of what’s really worth being outraged about here.  Slut-shaming is a real and serious problem, but Limbaugh is going far beyond slut-shaming.  He’s articulating a worldview in which women are objects who ought to do what men want and not trouble them otherwise.  He equates “taxpayer” with “male” when he says “if we are going to pay for your contraceptives”, suggesting that women are not really citizens and ought not be able to set public policy.  He indicates that women’s bodies are merely tools for the enjoyment of men, saying “we want something for it”.  He engages in galling hypocrisy, saying that women need to avoid sexual activity while simultaneously telling them to provide sexual pleasure to him.  He also implies that having children is strictly an issue for women; he repeatedly attacks women for using birth control, but never once attacks men for agreeing to have sex with them and never once mentions that, if birth control isn’t used and a child is born, the male is equally responsible for the upbringing of that child.  This isn’t about the word “slut”, this is about Limbaugh telling women to shut up, know their role, and do what men tell them to do.  Men, on the other hand, can and should engage in sex in any way they want, including in ways that seek to exploit “slutty” women.

One other significant difference between Limbaugh’s remarks and the others mentioned above is that Limbaugh is not merely engaged in making insulting remarks; he is engaged in an ongoing effort to deny to women what to most of them (in my experience, anyway) is a fairly basic right – control over their bodies in regard to procreation.  This is why Maher’s suggestion that women who “don’t like” what Limbaugh said should “just go on with [their] life” is asinine – unlike De Niro’s joke, which simply disappears and has no further effect on the world if you ignore it, ignoring Limbaugh’s attack on reproductive rights (and all the similar attacks by others) could easily result in very serious real world consequences for millions of women.  Ignoring his remarks won’t let people get on with their lives in peace and quiet, it will let people like Limbaugh erode important rights that women have gained as a result of decades of difficult, but ultimately successful political campaigning.

So let’s stop pretending that what Limbaugh said is comparable to what’s been said by people like Chris Matthews or Robert De Niro or Louis C.K.  It’s not, because it’s about a sustained, broadly misogynstic attack on women – particularly reproductive rights – and the only way to make it go away is by fighting to prevent it from happenning again.