Rush Limbaugh's Contraception Controversy

I feel like I've taken a time machine back to the 1950s, because somehow one of the central political debates in recent weeks has been over birth control. The controversy stems from the Obama administrations mandate that Catholic hospitals have to provide birth control. It's been fodder for both sides, with liberals shocked at the seeming backwardness of the right in 2012, and conservatives seeing it as clear evidence of secular society's erosion of religion values. The controversy has been stirred up in recent days, as Rush Limbaugh attacked a young law student who wasn't permitted to speak at a hearing about the matter.

Limbaugh, perhaps channeling his fallen comrade Breitbart, called the young woman a "slut", a "prostitute", and alleged that the woman was having so much sex that she couldn't pay for all of her contraception. The next day, Limbaugh said "if we're going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch." Today, Limbaugh said that her parents should be embarrassed of her and go into hiding in shame. The whole conversation is classic Limbaugh, he's a polemicist, a shock jock, who's built his career on savagely attacking his enemies. Of course, Limbaugh is a disgusting pig, and an outright misogynist, but I think many already knew that.

What's jarring about this attack is the frank nature with which he's framing the battle over social values. Usual such arguments are shrouded in religious language which is code for patriarchal control over women's bodies, but Limbaugh just went ahead and made the point crystal clear. I'm glad Limbaugh made these comments because they explicitly reveal the base nature of the conservative argument over birth control. They don't care about women's health, or even social values, they are scared of oversexed young women who challenge their patriarchal view.

I've often thought that misogyny, like other forms of bigotry, is based in fear. Men who are misogynistic are intimidated by women. It's a classic overcompensation, they lack self-confidence in dealing with women so they create a schema in which men, by right, dominate women. Limbaugh illustrates this view when he says that we should all be able to watch this young woman have sex. He sees a woman's sexual identity as public domain. Limbaugh, Breitbart, and the whole gang of right wing bullies claim to fight against a society which is being degraded, but it's merely their power as white males that's being degraded.