At The Nation, Katha Pollitt parses what happened with Sandra Fluke when Rush Limbaugh grabbed hold of her story and distorted it for his own political ends:
In testimony she was barred from giving at Darrell Issa’s all-male hearing, Sandra Fluke told the story of a fellow student at Georgetown law, a lesbian who, because of Catholic strictures, was denied insurance coverage for birth control pills needed to control her ovarian cysts. Unable to afford the pill herself, the woman eventually had to have an ovary removed, with serious consequences to her health and fertility. Please note: this woman’s tragic story is not about nymphomaniacal “co-eds.” Nor were Fluke’s other examples: a woman with suspected endometriosis, a rape victim who assumed Georgetown wouldn’t pay for treatment and a married couple who couldn’t afford contraception. Fluke did mention the humiliating experience of one woman, who discovered at the pharmacy that her insurance wouldn’t pay for birth control and who had to leave empty-handed because she couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket. Maybe she was the hot babe. Fluke said nothing about her own contraceptive needs or her own sex life. No matter. By now you surely know how Rush Limbaugh played the story . . . .
And at the Open Salon blog, Chauncey DeVaga explains why (white heterosexual) men like Rush are out of control right now, and what makes them tick as they try desperately to reassert their (imagined) loss of control:
Citizenship in the United States is gendered—the Constitution had to be amended in order to give women the right to vote. Citizenship is also racialized—Jim and Jane Crow white supremacy were formal systems of racial hierarchy that deemed black Americans as second class citizens, and where any white person, regardless of their mediocrity and low accomplishments, were judged to be better than the most gifted, genius, moral, and brilliant person of color.
Race and gender also intersect. (White) manhood has defined itself by controlling access to women’s bodies. Historically, white manhood has also been validated through efforts to dominate and control the bodies of people of color: in particular, those of African Americans. The American rituals of racialized violence, political exclusion and oppression, discrimination in the labor market, and the violent spectacle of the lynching tree, were/are means through which conservative white masculinity, specifically, and white identity, more generally, were validated.
As DeVaga notes, because conservatism defines itself as standing athwart history and shouting, Stop!, the more embattled those leading conservative movements feel themselves to be, the more rigidly authoritarian--and, often, outright fascist--they become. Embattled conservative elites have no other option, when they feel their control is contested. Because they have defined themselves as the all-important brake on movements for necessary social change that they will permit to move forward only if their hand is on the brake.
Hence Rush. And the U.S. Catholic bishops. And Santorum and Gingrich. And the Republican party, as it now configures itself.
On the graphic, which is from the David J. and Janice L. Frent Collection, see PBS's "American Experience" website on Reconstruction.
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