Well…He Did it Again
This is becoming all too familiar. On Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh was talking about the Supreme Court’s upholding of President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act on his show. One man called in to complain that voting should not be in the hands of 18 year olds. Limbaugh responded saying, “When women got the right to vote, that’s when it all went downhill. Because that’s when votes started being cast with emotion and maternal instincts that government ought to reflect.”
Laughing nervously after his caller tried to bring it back to the age argument, Limbaugh tried to cover his tracks by saying, “I’m just joking about the women’s vote… I’m just a bit frustrated here.” His reasoning is totally logical, right? When anything happens in the United States that Limbaugh doesn’t agree with, he blames it on the opposite sex. To Rush, all women are overly emotional and their maternal instincts lead them to make crazed decisions with their voting trends. That’s really damn sexist.
Perpetuating stereotypes of women as “overly emotional” and dominated by their “maternal instincts” is part of what creates the patriarchal divide in U.S. politics. This is particularly problematic when you consider that women represent 51% of the population in the United States. The fact that they didn’t get voting rights until 1920 is highly embarrassing.
Limbaugh’s comments reveal his deeply rooted misogyny. Most people understand that women voters are not some monolithic block. Women’s political ideologies run the entire political spectrum. While we may not all agree with Elizabeth Warren or Congresswoman Bachmann, it is clear that both women deserve the right to vote.
Rush, once again you leave us speechless…and not in a good way.
Published by Kate McCarthy on 07/05/2012