I can't believe I am giving him this much energy.

Aka Pot meet out of touch kettle.

I have never liked Rush Limbaugh. There are many reasons but I won't get into them. But this week he said something that really upset me, not because I am liberal but because I am a woman who lives in modern America. This week he implied Michelle Obama is fat and unhealthy. Like her or not  agree or not he can go ahead and say what he wants about her she is a public figure. 
This is what he said: 
"The problem is, and dare I say this, it doesn't look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritionary, dietary advice. ...I'm trying to say that our First Lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue[.]"
Now the part of that statement that upsets me the most is the part that people aren't talking about. It doesn't have anything to do with Michelle Obama, I would like to think I would be just as upset if he had substituted Sarah Palin or Christine O'Donnell . The part that is upsetting is that he implies that healthy women look like the women on the cover of Sports Illustrated. They don't, the average BMI in last years Sports Illustrated swimsuit addition was under 17. (For those of you that don't know that is underweight bordering on dangerously so. So you know the opposite of Mr. Limbaugh.) This is what makes me ill. That men anywhere, especially those with a microphone are that out of touch with reality. Men in fashion who object to having to put *gasp* women with healthy BMI's in their clothes don't claim they are healthy, they claim it is art. Mr Limbaugh is not claiming that these models are beautiful, or that they wear a swimsuit well, he is claiming that they should be held up as a model of health. Living with fifty other women you see what eating disorders do to people and if the image of health is a woman who is starving herself what are we telling girls we are going to continue to do this to generation after generation.
I am frustrated with myself that I am not more articulate, because I feel as if I could write pages about sexism and image and media and the way women see themselves. But I am so upset that some big fat jerk thinks that anyone who doesn't look like a swimsuit model is fat and therefore that I am fat makes me want to scream "shut up lard butt" like some eight year old. I know for him it is just one more thing to get people riled up about. But to me it is the sorority sisters who was addicted to drugs (mostly legal) to stay thin, the friend who planned meals around purging, the women with lung cancer who couldn't quit smoking because they were afraid to gain weight, the girl down the hall who had a heart attack because of anorexia, the sister who defines herself in beauty, the gym addicts and girls who fear food. And me who could never live up to what sports illustrated thought was beautiful so I took it out on myself and those scars won't fade. For us we see a woman with a healthy attitude towards food, who exercises, who has had two children  and who is lauded as beautiful by designers.   
I know Rush probably didn't think about this when he was making these statements. He probably didn't mean to imply that ninety percent of women are unattractive. But that is why he doesn't deserve consideration when it comes to women's beauty or health. I have never been so happy not to have a radio.

Plus I think most women would prefer vogue anyway.

 

Oh and what I wouldn't give for her arms.