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...sex and the misogynists




I am aware there is a war against women's healthcare going on in this country...I'd heard the disrespect with which access to healthcare is joked about by men like Rick Santorum's backer Foster Freisstalking.  I heard him talk about the good old days when he said, ''You know, back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. Then gals put it between their knees, and it wasn't that costly.''


But I had no idea the war had turned so unbelievably slimy until I heard Rush Limbaugh repeatedly attack the charactor of Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who had testified before congress regarding a woman's right to contraceptives as a part of health insurance coverage. She was not asking for the government to pay for contraceptives, she wants employers and universities to offer health insurance that includes contraceptive coverage...



There is a growing movement to deny reproductive healthcare for women of every socioeconomic group even though access to birth control has a huge impact on state governments. A study by the Brookings Institute shows that every dollar Medcaid spends on expanding family planning programs save a a state $5.62 by reducing unintended pregnancies.   But nowhere in Flukes testimony did she discuss anything personal or even contraceptives for limiting unwanted pregnancies.....
She limited her testimony to contraceptives that are prescribed for things like excessive bleeding, debilitating cramps, cysts, irregular periods, etc..



Limbaugh..."So Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal," he said. "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch." 


Rush Limbaugh has a history of making misogynist remarks but I was still stunned when I watched and heard the 50 plus times he attacks Sandra Fluke.. It appears that today there are still many people who believe a woman who wants access to affordable reproductive care is a slut, a prostitute...that she wants to have.. "repeated, never-ending, as often as she wants it sex." That she is a slut for having sex, and a prostitute for wanting her insurance company to provide coverage for her birth control...

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was arrested not long after she opened the first birth control clinic 100 years ago...When the judge sentenced her he said that a woman did not have..''the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.''  It seems that in we haven't come very far, when women are still being vilified for asking for the freedom to be in control of there own bodies.



Limbaugh..."What does it say about the college co-ed Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says she must be paid to have sex?" Limbaugh asked on his show last Wednesday. "What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex, she can't afford the contraception. 
She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."


Limbaugh.....''Folks, for all the hilarity that’s contained in what’s going on here . . .
here’s a woman exercising no self-control. 
The fact that she wants to have repeated, never-ending, as often as she wants it sex''



Rush's ugliness

No matter where you fall on the issue his rabid attack on her is stunning...
jaw dropping...
not only because he obviously never listened to her testimony, 
but it seems his rage is caused by idea of a woman having consensual sex..
Might it be something he's never experienced?
These kind of attacks are about silencing women...
Who will want to speak up for women next...who dare?

Sandra Flukes response



49% of large group health plans do not routinely cover birth control
97% of large group plans cover prescription drugs, but only 33% of those plans cover oral contraceptives, which are the most popular method of reversible female birth control in the country
A paltry 15% of large group plans cover the five most common forms of birth control: oral contraceptives, diaphragms, IUDs, Depo Provera, and Norplant
Women age 15-44 pay 68% more for out-of-pocket healthcare costs than their male counterparts, largely due to the cost of reproductive healthcare








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6 comments:

Laura said...

Julie thank you for posting this thoughtful, responsible post. It is all quite terrifying as a mother of teenage daughters, one with bleeding irregularities (by the way)...such brazen disrespect for women is intolerable. I tend not to get too political online, that just isn't my way, but we have to raise our voices and be heard...protect each other, our sisters, daughters, mothers, granddaughters.

Thank you so much for you lovely comment on my blog this evening as well... It brought tears to my eyes.

julie said...

Laura, thank you for coming to visit and for your supportive comment regarding this post. It is frightening...The right to make choices about our bodies are being taken away. The right to have our reproductive medical needs met is being taken from us. It's surprising to me how many people do feel like Rush does...Have his mindset. I think it scares them to think that women might actually want to have sex. But of course the bigger issue is the control men lost when women got the pill...what changes. A woman had the freedom to decide when she was ready to become a mother...she no longer had to fear pregnancy from a brutish husband..It set women free to join the workforce and have their own money...This movement is doing everything they can to take away a woman's healthcare and to take us back to a time when women had so many less options..This is serious stuff far beyond who a woman is having sex with or how often...sigh...As you can see I have a lot to say on this subject.. lol....and dear Laura you don't need to get very political online...your blog is a light in the world..your voice....you know, I am never going to forget what I heard today on your blog..your voice..xoxo

Snowbrush said...

Well, Julie, you and I feel the same about much of what the leaders--both popular and political--of this country say and do. I listen to these Republicans, and have to hand it to them, they don't sweeten down anything. They take what we already knew to be their goals, and they come right out and admit to them. The following is something I found out about this morning, and have been thinking about it all day. Of course, the mainstream news doesn't consider such things worthy of mention. After all, the adventures of the Kardashians are certainly more important.

http://rt.com/usa/news/348-act-tresspass-buildings-437/

By the way, I have NO idea how to receive blog comments now that the button for receiving comments is gone. When I went to the Google help menu, I was told to push the "receive comments" button! Do you have a clue what's going on here?

AkasaWolfSong said...

Julie...this whole issue makes me literally ill at heart. In 2012 for this issue to even be being debated leaves me scratching my head in consternation, and then getting angry and wanting to take a broom to the backsides of these people who refuse to see the broader humanitarian issue of it.

I totally aligned with Sandra Fluke when she was speaking of her friend who needed contraception for medical issues. In the 90's I began to grow very large uterine fybroids and was bleeding so heavily and for so many days a month it left me with what the doctor diagnosed as Gross Anemia...I normally had a 21 day cycle and for 21 of those days bled 10 to 12 so my body did not have time to restore itself...at that time they put me on Depo to control the bleeding, and to shrink the fybroids. I had no insurance at the time but a lovely young Doctor from Massachusetts who was in our area in our Low Income Health Center giving of her time and knowledge...without her I'd have probably bled to death.
So this issue is very near to my heart and one I can get politically raging about. The thing of it is, is that we women need to stick together and let our voices raise high so that what happens to our bodies is regulated by us and not by some disrespecting politician or ignorant newscaster who think women should be kept pregant and barefoot, and as if we are all unintelligent humans. Okay...I'll get off the soap box now but I am soooo glad you shared this today!
Thank You for using your voice to inform and support Julie...I remain in deep gratitude to women who speak their minds and hearts.
Many Blessings,
xoxoxo

julie said...

Snow...No they don't sweeten things...seems that don't have to...remember my post about the shooter in Berkeley...how he just stood there, cool and calm shooting into that home...he wasn't afraid that anyone would try to stop him..and it seems the people that are so swiftly taking our rights have nothing to worry about either. We all seem to be waiting for it to get worse...yikes...!! Happy to know that you read RT too...I love Thom Hartman..
((Akasa)...so much that isn't right...I don't even know what to say...Grateful you found the help you needed when you needed it...If you have a minute go to the link that Snowbush shared...It's titled Goodbye, First Amendment. xo...

Snowbrush said...

I'm caught with your latest posts, I see, having already read this one.

What strikes me about it right now is that these Republicans talk as if none of the progress that has been made toward gender equality in the last 40 years ever happened. They're hateful men who appear to represent a whole lot of hateful voters.

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