A Letter To Rush Limbaugh From A Feminist Elder

Dear Rush,

As a fem­i­nist, I’ve tuned in to your show off and on since the early 1980’s when you first became a national talk show host. Peri­od­i­cally, I’ve lis­tened to your show in order to know what’s going on at your net­work, the EIB (Excel­lence in Broad­cast­ing) Network.

Inter­est­ing word, excel­lence. Web­ster defines it as ‘the qual­ity of being out­stand­ing or extremely good”. This label fits you to a T, for indeed, you are out­stand­ing and extremely good all right. You are an out­stand­ing exam­ple, indeed, you are the very essence of ten thou­sand years of misog­y­nis­tic treat­ment of women.

When you speak against women, as you did with San­dra Fluke last week, you’re not only speak­ing with your own per­sonal voice, you’re echo­ing all the col­lec­tive male voices through­out human his­tory that have used their power to den­i­grate, dom­i­nate and con­trol women.

We get it Rush. We know you hate us. And maybe you feel jus­ti­fied. Per­haps you had a mother who abused or aban­doned you and maybe you feel jus­ti­fied for feel­ing as you do about women who own their power and who don’t abdi­cate it to a man.

And no, this is not a mass indict­ment of all men by another femi-nazi, man-hating woman. I hap­pen to love men, hav­ing been mar­ried to a cou­ple of them and loved a few more.

I love men who know them selves to be more than their bank bal­ances, more than their job titles, more than the num­ber of sex­ual con­quests or tro­phy wives they’ve had. I love men who see beyond the cul­tural def­i­n­i­tions of who they’re sup­posed to be, espe­cially as dic­tated by peo­ple like you.

I love men who in know­ing them­selves to be more than their net worth, more than their golf scores, or the num­ber of cars or jet air­planes they own, can look in the mir­ror and see beyond appear­ances, see their inner beauty, lis­ten to and trust their heart.

I love men who can be spa­cious enough to let their women shine, secure enough to let their women be as big and as beau­ti­ful as can be. I love men who are hum­ble, and who inspire women to feel safe enough in their pres­ence to open to their deep­est, most vul­ner­a­ble self.

I love men who aren’t afraid to be wrong, men who have the courage to say that they don’t always have the answers. I love men who have a regard for what’s sacred, what’s holy, what’s unnam­able, what’s invis­i­ble. I love men who don’t take a woman’s love or any­thing else for granted. I love men who get that a woman in her power is the most beau­ti­ful crea­ture on the planet. Oh, I love that kind of man!

So let’s be clear Rush, although I might be a lib­eral, elder, fem­i­nist, one you would undoubt­edly call a femi-nazi, I’ve been close to enough men in my life to get who they are and I’m very happy there are two dif­fer­ent gen­ders on the planet.

What’s more Rush, I know you really don’t care what I think about men or what I think about you for that mat­ter, and I under­stand your point of view. You, after all, are the famous one with mil­lions of lis­ten­ers on your EIB net­work and I write a blog read by a few hun­dred or maybe a few thou­sand people.

But for what it’s worth, Rush, just as like when you spoke and behind you were thou­sands of years of misog­yny, I know that I am also speak­ing not just for myself. My voice echoes mil­lions of women, prob­a­bly more than the num­ber of your lis­ten­ers, through­out human his­tory who now say, “enough”!

We have had enough. Women have had enough with the snarky sex­ual innu­en­does. We’ve had enough of being de-valued and dis­counted because we have vagi­nas. We’re done with laugh­ing away our dis­com­fort for fear of being ridiculed or accused of being too weak, too angry or too sensitive.

We’re no longer will­ing to pre­tend we don’t feel angry when a man demon­strates his igno­rance about women in the way you did last week. Not any more, Rush. I must thank you for going over the line the way you did, for while you have brushed up against the line of inde­cency many times over the decades, this time you finally crossed it.

And now, all bets are off. You have unleashed a giant. And we vote! And we buy things! And we know who the adver­tis­ers are who con­tinue to sup­port your show. And we know who has pulled their ads from your show. And we’re keep­ing track.

Did I men­tion that we buy things? We buy flow­ers and mat­tresses and soft­ware and com­puter back up and inter­net ser­vices and we do have a choice about who to give our busi­ness to. And Rush, you can count on that we, and I don’t mean just women, we women and the men who love us and who love women, the men who have moth­ers, sis­ters, wives and daugh­ters, we will no longer sup­port any com­pany that adver­tises on your show.

For, Rush, we will not stand for what you stand for. We will not stand for women being treated, talked to, or talked about in the way that you talked about San­dra Fluke. And we will not stand for those who stand for you or the likes of you. We will not stand for you or any­one, dis­re­spect­ing the ones who brought you here, the ones who raised you, bathed you, fed you, changed your dia­pers, and wiped your fevered brow.

Rush, it is time for you to go. What you stand for is over. You had a good ride. You rode to the top. You’ve been a king-maker. You’ve sat in the seat of power of one of our country’s main polit­i­cal par­ties. You’ve been the mas­ter pup­peteer. So don’t be greedy now. Your time is up.

Human­ity is mov­ing on and we are mov­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion as you. I know it doesn’t look that obvi­ous that we are part­ing ways, for you still appear to wield con­sid­er­able power in the halls where power counts. But like a big ship chang­ing course in the mid­dle of the sea, this ship called human­ity, is turn­ing around. And you rep­re­sent exactly what we are mov­ing away from. We are headed down the path, on which men and women know they are just two sides of the same coin called human­ity. We trea­sure our­selves and one another. We love and respect all life, humans, plants and ani­mals. We respect our mother, the planet. We live in an abun­dant uni­verse and know there is a place for every­one. Even you, Rush. We even have a place for you.

How would you like a part time job work­ing at a women’s health clinic near your home there in Florida. Newt could prob­a­bly get you a job work­ing the night shift as a jan­i­tor or maybe you could even dis­pense con­tra­cep­tives to those crazy college-aged women down there. You know, the ones who are hav­ing so much sex they can’t afford to pay for it? (You might want to do some home­work on how con­tra­cep­tives actu­ally work, Rush.)

To your con­tin­ued excel­lence,
Dr. Judith Rich

Tagged as: Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke, The Rush Limbaugh Show