New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp recently took the brunt of another political hit job by the tastelessly liberal Hustler magazine, which criticized her politics and suggested “shutting her up” with male genitalia, and provided photoshopped artwork to that effect.

There is now a big fuss about it, mostly driven by the conservative media, which has been making a larger charge against both the mainstream media and against society at large: why is there only outrage against misogyny when it is directed against liberal women, but not when conservative women are the target?

That’s because incidents like this happen with such frequency and casualness that it’s clear people think there won’t be any pushback if they attack a conservative woman. Back in 2008, when some idiot hecklers shouted “Iron My Shirt” to Hillary Clinton, we talked about sexism for three days. But, like Weigel pointed out, no one at the AFL-CIO even thought twice about not only GETTING a piñata with Nikki Haley’s face on it or hitting said piñata, but similarly had no problem recording the event and UPLOADING IT TO YOUTUBE. If you do something sexist against a liberal, expect a firestorm. If you do something sexist (or pseudo-violent) against a conservative, well, they had it coming.

Right off the bat, this particular argument falls apart: the piñata incident, while tasteless, had nothing to do with gender. The target could just as easily have been a man.

This is either a blind spot with conservatives or it’s a hypocritical oversight: sexism and racism are not when you attack an individual for a reason unrelated to gender or race. Right-wingers seem to think that just opposing a female candidate on her politics is sexist, or blocking a judge on his rulings when he is Hispanic is racist–if said target is conservative, of course.

They apparently do not understand that sexism is when you attack someone because of their gender, or the attack is against the gender itself.

The “Iron My Shirt” incident, for that reason, was sexist: it was a reaction to a woman running for the presidency, and was essentially a symbolic slap in the face against women in general. If the sign had said, “Cut My Taxes,” or even, “Go Home, Idiot” it would not be sexism, as there would be no apparent relation to gender. People have expressed hatred and even symbolic violence against Hillary in the past without it being linked to sexism.

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So, why is there no outcry against the Cupp photo?

Well, first of all, there is outcry against the image, especially in the conservative media. Why not from the left? Um… actually, people on the left are decrying the image. Even Rachael Larimore, who wrote the piece quoted above, took note that Planned Parenthood, the Women’s Media Center, and Sandra Fluke have all condemned the photo. So, what do they want? Every last liberal to shout it from the rooftops? They condemn the lack of coverage–but that charge falls short since all the coverage they provide itself ignores the left-wing outcry.

Second, the source is laughable: it’s Hustler magazine. If they published a similar image of a left-wing female politician, there probably wouldn’t be much outcry there, either. Not every act of misogyny creates a national public debate, only ones that come across as significant. Larry Flynt being an ass doesn’t rate that, any more than do countless right-wing imbeciles in the yahoo gallery doing crap which is just as vile and idiotic.

Which leads to point number three: the visibility of the target. After all, who is S.E. Cupp? If I have seen her before on some news show as a commentator, I don’t remember it. It’s not exactly realistic to expect the media to erupt in a furor every time a second-tier talking head gets snarked by a porno rag.

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However, none of that is the central point here. In fact, misogyny is the issue, but not misogyny against conservative women. The fact is, conservatives in general don’t give a crap about misogyny. How do we know? Imagine the Hustler thing was about Hillary instead of Cupp. Would they be outraged? Hardly. They would probably chuckle over it, and stand ready to castigate any liberal or feminist group that complained. Which means they don’t care about the misogyny, they are instead complaining about the political outcome of misogyny.

But it goes much further than that: it stark opportunism, pure and simple. The recent stir regarding contraception has given Republicans a black eye and made them look bad to women. Republicans in Congress tried to deny coverage of contraception; they refused to hear from women, and instead held a women’s health hearing with an all-male panel, which appeared condescending and dismissive. After Fluke spoke later, Rush Limbaugh called her a slut and a whore, repeatedly. All kinds of other stuff happened on periphery, like the aspirin-between-the-knees remarks.

So now, right-wingers are smarting from that, and they need a way to fight back. They cannot actually come out for women on any substantial issues, of course. So this is their answer.

The Cupp story works for them well: they get to play the victim. They get false equivalency, creating the impression that sexism is equally bad on the left and the right (as if Larry Flynt were equal to Congressional Republicans, Rush Limbaugh, and many other representatives of conservatism). They get to act like misogyny happens against them even more by suggesting that it is simply dismissed and under-reported. They get to paint liberals as hypocrites.

But mostly, they get to act like the whole contraception thing never happened. Like Dan Rather’s error in reporting on a bogus memo meant that George W. Bush got excused for having gone AWOL.

In truth, most of these people probably don’t give a crap about what happened to Cupp–but it’s too good as a political weapon to pass up.

Nor is it just this case; most right-wing cries about sexism are similarly opportunistic. Remember the furor about Sarah Palin and the jogging-suit photos on Newsweek? That did get a lot of coverage, in part because women’s groups did not jump to Palin’s defense. But then again, they had good reason not to: the charge of sexism was petty and weak. Palin had intentionally posed for the photos ; she had chosen the outfit and the setting herself, but expressed outrage when the photos were used. It made no sense. Had Newsweek done something that was actually sexist regarding Palin, NOW and other groups probably would have come out on her side. As it was, the whole incident was more of an attempt to attack groups like NOW, so no wonder they did not chime in.

However, the Newsweek story shows that the whole claim by the right wing is false: the media does pay attention to sexism when it is levied against conservatives; the Slate piece by Rachael Larimore quoted at the top is poorly reasoned, providing poor support and a lack of objectivity. Outrage over “Iron My Shirt” is not equal to the Haley incident, it is more akin to incidents involving Palin. Neither is the Cupp incident equivalent to Fluke.

And yet, despite the rampant opportunism displayed by conservatives in regard to these kinds of stories, the media and the public at large still does treat misogyny against conservative women with equal regard. It’s just that significant acts of misogyny usually go the other way.