Laura Bassett at The Huffington Post reported Tuesday that Fox Business would not air a TV advertisement by the feminist group Ultraviolet that called for the termination of Fox contributors Lou Dobbs, Erick Erickson, and Juan Williams.
"Lou Dobbs has a problem," an announcer declares in the ad, over tiny out-of-context clips of the men speaking. "Women are winning the bread. Even his own network isn't safe from this source of lady breadwinners. Tell Fox to retire Lou Dobbs, Erick Erickson, and Juan Williams and spare them the pain of equality."
WATCH THE AD:
The controversy stems from a discussion that Dobbs, Erickson, and Williams had on a Fox Business show about a new Pew research study that found that women were the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of families. The panel seemed to all be of the opinion that this trend of women being the primary provider for the family was detrimental to social order and claimed that most natural processes identified the male as the more dominant sex.
According to an Ultraviolet spokesperson, the reason that Fox was not able to run the advertisement was due to certain copyright laws that prohibit the network from airing commercials that contain its own footage. Even if Fox had decided to not air the advert because of its content, which is what the Huff Post headline implies, Fox would be completely within their right to refuse to air it just as they would be with any commercial with the exception of federal election campaign ads.
Regardless of whether the reader agrees with the expressions stated by Dobbs and company about whether or not women should be the primary providers in a family, there should be concerted opposition to the suggestion that the contributors should be fired for these statements. The Constitution of our country protects the freedom of expression of ideas and opinions, and these men were simply expressing their opinions on a historically contested issue. It is actually expected that some people would be in opposition to the statements that were made; however, to claim that someone should be terminated from their employment for merely expressing their opinions is detestable.
