Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called the viral video of a New York City woman being harassed on the street “a massive failure” of modern day feminism on his radio show Thursday. “The early feminazis of the modern era led the charge against this wolf-whistle, catcall business,” Limbaugh said. “It’s been happening since there’s been men and women … Feminism in the ’60s and ’70s was supposed to wipe this out.”
Limbaugh continued, “What we are living here in the middle of is the failure, a massive failure, of modern day feminism. Modern day feminism was going to protect women from this kind of mean-spirited, extremist, boorish, predatory behavior, and it hasn’t.”
He concluded by saying, “To a certain age group, this is a brand new offense. It’s a brand new problem. They’re so young they have no idea we’ve been here, done that, on this.”
The video, created by Rob Bliss Creative along with the nonprofit Hollaback!, follows a woman around New York City for 10 hours and shows more than 100 instances of catcalls and unwanted comments about her appearance. The two-minute video is intended to raise awareness about the prevalence of street harassment, and has been viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube.
But Limbaugh took issue with the production of the video, saying, “She’s not walking the business district of midtown. She is walking neighborhoods that in some cases many people wouldn’t go if they didn’t have to.” He added that many of the remarks by men in the video were compliments, and therefore misrepresented as harassment.
Shoshana Roberts, the New York City-based actress in the viral video, told msnbc’s Tamron Hall Thursday that she was shocked at the volume of comments made at her in neighborhoods she walked around daily in Manhattan. “Quantifying it is blowing my mind. I cannot fathom the numbers myself,” Roberts said.
Traci Lee