TwitterHistorian Nancy Cohen says Rush Limbaugh is just the tip of the iceberg, that there’s a sexual counter-revolution out there that wants women barefoot and pregnant again.
Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, one of six judges for the pageant, speaks during a Miss America news conference in Las Vegas Jan. 27, 2010 . Limbaugh drew fire Friday, March 2, 2012 from many directions for his depiction of a college student as a "slut" because she testified before Congress about the need for contraceptive coverage. (AP)
Rush Limbaugh’s nationally-broadcast attack on a young female law student as a “slut” and a “prostitute” who should post videos of her sex life online has lit up the social media world and millions of conversations in the last week. Dozens of advertisers have pulled their commercials from Limbaugh’s show.
He says he’s not worried. That it’s like losing “a couple of French fries” at the drive-thru. My guest today says there’s a bigger story here. A deep pushback against cultural change and the advancing rights of women.
This hour, On Point: a cry of sexual “counter-revolution.”
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests
Nancy Cohen, is a historian and author of Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution Is Polarizing America.
Mary Kate Cary, is a former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush. She blogs for U.S. News & World Report. Her latest article on Rush Limbaugh is here.
From Tom’s Reading List
The Washington Post “Cohen’s theory goes like this: the sexual revolution gave us feminism and gay rights, which led to a shadow movement, a Republican backlash that was “ideologically powered, strategically organized, and well-financed.” This shadow movement has had staying power, she argues, influencing power politics for the past 40 years.”
Media Matters “Looking back though, there was a key moment when conservative voices could have helped Limbaugh avoid this crisis. There was a moment last week when they could have weighed in on the budding scandal and tried to alert Limbaugh that he was wading into dangerous territory by acknowledging, however timidly, that his sexist comments about Fluke’s sex life were uncalled for and disrespectful. ”
National Review “Despite the White House’s rather successful efforts to reframe the media and congressional debate over the HHS “contraceptive mandate” as a right-wing jihad against “women’s health” — a cynical ploy aided and abetted by Rush Limbaugh’s one-man circular firing squad — the real battle against the mandate and in defense of religious freedom has continued. ”
Excerpt: Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution Is Polarizing America
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