She’s in Time’s finalist group (sorry, this is presented as serious click bait) — a group that included Gabby Douglas, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Sheldon Adelson (!?), Paul Ryan (!?), Joe Biden, The Higgs-Boson, Malala Yousafzai , among others. Conservatives are having fits that Fluke is included, with this bit being fairly representative:
In a post on his Gateway Pundit blog, Jim Hoft wrote that Time “nominated Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who demanded you pay for her $10 a month birth control pills, as person of the year.” Hoft wrote that the nomination “will put her up there with Adolf Hitler and Yasser Arafat.”
Right. Of course she belongs on this list. Sandra Fluke did something that women don’t do enough of anymore — remind people that women’s issues were not just important, but that there were massive forces aligned to roll back women’s rights. Rush Limbaugh taking so much time and energy to demonize her — well after it was clear that this was hurting him and really helping her — made it really clear what was at stake. When the mouthpiece of the GOP is so invested in working on minimizing reproductive rights as a major issue, you know that the usual forces are gathering. And when they are done, women everywhere will have lost much hard won ground. Not that there hasn’t been ground lost already.
Whether she deserves to win is another QOTD. I’d vote for The Higgs-Boson or Malala Yousafzai. I think.
So what do you think? Should Sandra Fluke be on of the Time Person of the Year finalists? And who would you vote for?