Rush Limbaugh defends his use of the term “feminazi” as “right” and “accurate” in response to a June 22 Washington Post article on Sen. Richard J. Durbin’s (D-IL) controversial floor statement that referenced Nazis. The Post article mentioned Limbaugh’s use of the term “feminazi” as well as other examples of recent political debates in which Nazism has been invoked. From the June 22 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
In The Washington Post we get a little story: “Tips for the Democrats, Hint: Next time don’t compare anybody to Hitler.” And by the way, the only reason they’re doing it is because Rush Limbaugh invented the term “feminazi.” That’s the sum total of the Washington Post story — Durbin did it because I popularized it first with “feminazi.” I haven’t used that term on this program in years. But it still gets to ’em, doesn’t it? And you know why? [chuckles] Because it’s right. Because it’s accurate. [laughs] And I’m not going to apologize, but I will apologize if it hurts your feelings. But you know what? I think if you’re offended, it’s your problem. It’s not mine.
Interesting that he claims he hasn’t used that term in years – I have heard him use it on several occasions while trolling across the dial. Media Matters notes that Limbaugh referred to the National Center for Women & Policing and the Feminist Majority Foundation as “feminazis” on his May 27, 2004, broadcast, for example. And here’s another where is is reminscining about an event at New York’s 92nd Street Y also attended by CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield:
It was a frosty evening that night. It had to be, what, back in 1992 or ’93? And I’ll tell you what got me in trouble. Greenfield said, “You really used the word ‘feminazi’? Do you not think that’s an upsetting word to Jews?”
I said, “Well, I don’t think it should be. I mean, if you look at what abortion is, it’s almost comparable to what happened in World War II.” Pfft! Man, you could have felt the ice…”
What is a feminazi? Wikipedia defines: A feminazi is a neologism and invective term of the words feminist and Nazi, used predominantly in United States conservative political rhetoric, to characterize women whose ideas they disagree with as misandrous. That is as having a hatred of men. The term was popularized by prominent broadcaster Rush Limbaugh, who credited his friend Tom Hazlett, a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, with coining the term. In the extreme formulation, feminazis are seen by conservative commentators as women who persecute men. The term “Feminazi” is not self-applied by any feminist movement or group. The term is often used as a derogatory term for feminist.
Trivia: A similar term Femnazi was coined earlier as the name of the male hating female inhabitants of the fictional planet, Femnaz, in a Legion of Super-heroes story from a 1964 issue of Adventure Comics written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel.
What is missing from this definition – fine as far as it goes – is that the hard pseudoreligious right attaches the “Nazi” part of the word to condense a framing of abortion as genocide. Feminazis are defined as pro-abortion, although the term seems to be applied to all feminists, regardless of the topic, as well. That’s already a significant spin of rhetoric. It implies moral bankruptcy and invokes the familiar thought-constellation of “baby-killers, destroyers of life, murderers.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who was truly pro-abortion. I don’t know anyone who would not prefer that abortions were completely unnecessary in all circumstances. Abortion rates (legal or otherwise – you don’t really think there are no abortions when they are illegal, do you?) go down when there is family-planning, birth control, sex education, and honest discussion – when there is less rape and incest and poverty, and so on. The religious right doesn’t seem much concerned about these issues, in contradiction to their claims of moral superiority. How many of the poor are consigned to death or misery under the grand plan of their pro-rich policies? Who wants to cut social programs? No – it’s not about life. It’s about controlling women. They’ve even got some women on board with this. Sheesh. What a classic projection to accuse women of hating men in order to support attitudes that are intended to control women, their bodies, their sexuality, and their choices.
The “knocked-up” women of the rich have always had the option of abortion at the convenience of their men, but I am more concerned about people whose lives can be destroyed rather than Vanessa missing a semester at Yale or disappointing her soon-to-be hubby Biff or whatever. I’d not like to see a return to the days of backalleys and wire hangers. If this were really about “life,” the children born would be welcomed, healthcare would be provided, and so on – not to mention that such folk would have to be opposed to the death penalty. Some of these folks want to bring back stoning (don’t believe me? do a little research of your own). It’s interesting that there are few vegetarians among the hard right – a cow is much more sentient than an 8-week old fetus that doesn’t even have any brainwaves (i.e no consciousness of any kind).
I am also very concerned that fewer doctors are receiving the training to do the basic procedure, which has other uses (as most women know).
Abortion is a complex and ethically-fraught topic. To rhetorically conflate those pro-choicers who are perhaps more familiar with the raw edges of human experience – and who wish to allow women the space for more control over their own bodies and futures without the intervention of patriarchal government structures – with “Nazis” is dishonest, more so than Durbin’s remark. Such women for personal choices in these areas are nothing like Nazis – the ultimate “anti-choice” and “anti-freedom” power structure of the last century. Let’s not forget the men who are for choice either – how many men are forced into shotgun weddings anymore?
Hard-liner anti-choicers consider my ruptured ectopic pregnancy (that nearly killed me and for which there was no hope whatsoever of the survival of the fetus) as an abortion – tell me, what was the alternative?
Roe v Wade was the compromise on a very controversial topic. If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one. If your sister is raped by your dad, you work it out as best you can using your own decision-making process, with your own network of advisors, and within your own relation to the sacred. And if your child is slated to live three years in horrible pain before dying – and you decide that such a life is better than no life, it is your decision. If your child is born into abject poverty, and that’s ok with you, go for it. If you’ve not raised your children with an understanding about sexuality and their responsibilities because you fear that talking about sex makes it happen, if your boy doesn’t carry a condom because he is in denial that anything will happen, if your daughter enters a fugue state in which she denies she is even pregnant….and you will support and welcome such children to such unprepared parents – that is also your choice. But all the feel-good religious talk in the world isn’t going to matter so much when you and friends and family members are actually confronted with some of the very difficult possibilities surrounding sexuality and reproduction. Talk to your parents and grandparents, look around you. In such cases, there is often no right answer, and the question is who makes the decision? I think that people should be able to make decisions about ethics and religion themselves, especially when it has to do with their own body – and yes, the women has the primary decision-making authority (unless the man wants to carry the pregnancy to term). Besides, in this day and age, education is not only about pregnancy – it’s also about disease. To be uninformed and uneducated and in denial is not only stupid, it’s dangerous.
As a former evangelist and a religion scholar, I know that there is not much in the way of biblical support for being against sex education or birth control. The example of Onan – used against both birth control and masturbation – was an example of someone disobeying God’s weird command (in the circumstances) to have sex and produce a child with his dead brother’s wife. Really read that narrative and then try to justify the arguments! He “spilt his seed upon the ground” (Genesis 38:7-9), but it was the reason and motivation for doing so that was – in the context – wrong. The sin was disobedience – refusing to give his brother’s wife an heir. How many people would accept the surrounding circumstance – that you should marry and have sex with your dead brother’s wife?
In any case, pro-choice views do not imply hating men at all – but only resisting those structures and those men who view women as property, with bodies to be controlled by them. I don’t hate men. I’m a married mom – and my husband values my feminism, and shares my views as part of human rights. There are men-haters, of course (although I suspect not nearly as many as women-haters) but the two groups of “men-haters” and “feminists” are not identical.
Still, “feminazi” is a clever twist of rhetoric. It’s catchy. And it certainly has been effective. Fewer and fewer women self-identify as feminists anymore. Many don’t even realize that there are dozen of kinds of feminisms. All that subtlety and complexity and public discussion – gone. I think that some of the feminists moved on too quickly from real social issues into language politics – and got sidelined at a crucial moment. The messages have not reached popular understanding. I still run into folk who believe it’s all about not shaving or about burning bras!
We are becoming barbaric again – and it isn’t even in the service of any recognizable religious values. The judeo-christian values – caring for the poor, compassion, forgiveness, grace, communion, and so on – are not in evidence – only the ancient controls over the people, and these taken out of context.
All of this for Mammon – money, power, corruption – and supported by the most spectacular examples of repulsive false prophets I could have imagined.