Women’s rights activists are leading a “Rock the Slut Vote” online effort to register women to vote and cast their ballots against Republicans in 2012. The name is a reference to Rush Limbaugh’s use of the word to describe law student Sandra Fluke, who testified before Congress in support of contraceptives. “If the GOP thinks throwing the word ‘slut’ at us at this point is going to silence women, they have another thing coming,” said Susan McMillan Emry, the site’s founder. Following the national backlash over Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut , “Rock the Slut Vote” is now aiming to “diffuse” the offensive term, Emry said. Taking a vein from comedian Jeff Foxworthy and his “You might be a Redneck if…” jokes, Emry’s website gives visitors 22 reasons why “You might be a slut.” One of the signs you’re a quote-unquote slut: “If you’ve ever used contraception.” Or “if you’re still downloading Dixie Chicks music” or “if you don’t go to church.” The site aims to “re-appropriate” the word “slut” so that the radio host and other Republicans cannot use it to “bully and silence women,” Emry said. “It’s really about taking the power away from that word more than about Rush Limbaugh. He gave the word the notoriety but we are trying to take it back.” Emry said the “Rush Limbaugh mess,” the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding and recent efforts in state Legislatures to restrict access to abortions and contraceptives “compelled” her to create the site. “Originally my intention wasn’t so much to have a platform as to find a voice myself,” Emry said. “It was good for me personally because I felt so much outrage.”
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Sluts Unite: Women’s Rights Activists Lead Voter Registration Drive, Decry GOP, Rush Limbaugh
