Feminazi

In his 1992 book, Limbaugh credited his friend Tom Hazlett, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, with coining the term. In the book, Limbaugh also stated that the word refers to unspecified women whose goal is to allow as many abortions as possible, saying at one point that there were fewer than 25 "true feminazis" in the U.S.Limbaugh has used the term to refer to members of the National Center for Women and Policing, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the National Organization for Women, and other organizations at the March for Women's Lives, a large pro-choice demonstration.

There were times when Limbaugh shied away from using the term due to the controversy it caused. In 2000, Limbaugh found it expedient to defend his use of the term, and make distinctions and changes in its use. According to Slate.com, in 2000:

In 2005, however, Limbaugh defended his use of the term: "I haven't used that term on this program in years. But it still gets to 'em, doesn't it? And you know why? Because it's right. Because it's accurate."

Other political commentators have also made comparisons between militant feminism and totalitarian ideologies. In 1994, Camille Paglia described some feminist groups as "Stalinist" for engaging in what she describes as censorship and quashing of dissent. In 1983, a year before Limbaugh debuted as a political talk-show host, anarchistBob Black wrote an essay called "Feminism as Fascism."

In a 1996 interview, Gloria Steinem characterized Limbaugh's use of the term “feminazi” as ironic since feminists and other political dissenters were among the victims of Nazi concentration camps and Nazi work camps. According to Steinem, "Hitler came to power against the strong feminist movement in Germany, padlocked the family planning clinics, and declared abortion a crime against the state—all views that more closely resemble Rush Limbaugh’s." In her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Steinem elaborates on the repression of feminism under Hitler, noting that many prominent German feminists like Helene Stöcker, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin and Clara Zetkin were forced to flee Nazi Germany while others were killed in concentration camps. The term feminazi functions as a pejorative because it associates or compares feminists with Nazis, which makes the term an example of reductio ad Hitlerum.

According to Helen Lewis, deputy editor of the New Statesman, "the idea of conflating a liberation movement with Nazism is just deeply ignorant. It’s self-undermining, because it’s so over the top." Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, has said that "It’s a desperate attempt to demonise us, and it’s frustrating, because if it wasn’t such an offensive word, you could actually start to embrace it and own it".

Further reading

• Dye, April (30 March 2006). "Angry Feminazis and Manhaters: How Women Develop Positive Feminist Identities in the Face of Stigma". Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Women in Psychology, Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor, MI.
• Ferree, Myra Max (2004). "Soft Repression: Ridicule, Stigma, and Silencing in Gender-based Movements". In Myers, Daniel J.; Cress, Daniel M. (eds.). Authority in Contention. Research in social movements, conflicts and change: an annual compilation of research. Vol. 25. Emerald Group Publishing. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-7623-1037-1. ISSN 0163-786X.
• Hazlett, Thomas Winslow (December 1987). "H.L. Mencken: The Soul Behind the Sass". Reason. We could really use him now, what with Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Tip O'Neill and Jerry Falwell, Gary Hart and Donna Rice, the Moonies, the feminazis, the Naderite crusaders, and the television evangelists.
• Limbaugh, Rush H. (1992). "The Limbaugh Lexicon". The Way Things Ought to Be. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-67-175145-6. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Martirosyan, Lucy (August 3, 2016). "Check out this cumbia response to the word 'feminazi'". Public Radio International. Archived from the original on November 9, 2016.
• Rudman, Chelsea (12 March 2012). "'Feminazi': The History Of Limbaugh's Trademark Slur Against Women". Media Matters for America.
• Skutta, Peter (1997). "Linguistic politics and language usage in the debate on "Political Correctness"". hausarbeiten.de.
• Waisanen, Don (2013). "An Alternative Sense of Humor: The Problems With Crossing Comedy and Politics in Public Discourse". In Rountree, Clarke (ed.). Venomous Speech: Problems with American Political Discourse on the Right and Left. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. pp. 308–9. ISBN 978-0-31-339867-4. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)