Rush Limbaugh Would Like To Use Your Family Values To Keep His Network Afloat
Big newsflash here but apparently Rush Limbaugh isn’t a hit with women. It didn’t really take his tirade against Sandra Fluke to solidify that sentiment, although his slut-shaming of a 30-year-old Georgetown law student didn’t exactly help matters. But having recognized that ladies aren’t too pleased with his programing, the radio personality is reaching out to conservative women everywhere with an online campaign entitled “Rush Babes for America.”
That’s right ladies across the aisle. You too can aspire to be one of “Rush’s Babes” by putting your family values to his highly conservative, yet more so bombastic name. Rush explained his incentives for “Rush’s Babes for America” as a contrast to those darned “femi-nazis”:
”[They] claim to represent all women, and in reality they represent a tiny number of highly-agitated activist types basically miserable and unhappy women, for whatever reason. And they’ve turned them into liberal activists and agitators and community organizers. So I wanted to come up with a contrast to the NAGs [National Organization for Gals], to the NOW [National Organization for Women] gang”¦start this group dedicated to the values that most women hold dear: family, the American values of the founding, freedom, and capitalism, and most important of all not being told by anyone else how or what to think.”
The assertion that all women should be thinking the same way just because they’re women is an innately problematic and demeaning one, of which has prompted many attacks on conservative women such as calling them “men with breasts.” One of “Rush’s Babes” initial Facebook posts draws attention to Bill Maher‘s distasteful attack on young Bristol Palin, as well as President Obama‘s acceptance of his donor money in the wake of his support for Fluke.
While denigrating attacks on conservative women should also be criticized — and very well have been in corners of the feminist blogosphere — something tells me there isn’t much lady empowerment to being one of “Rush’s Babes.” Although the term has supposedly been derived from the term “Rush’s Babies” to suggest those who grew up listening to him, “Rush’s Babes” has a distinct Hugh Hefner quality to it as evidenced by the svelte blue pin-up that sits across the title. Some mothers would gladly tout their family values while being referred to as a “babe.” But the implication that these women are somehow truck driver flap accessories befit to adorn a logo should raise red flags for conservative women too.
(photo: facebook.com)
