The inimitable Katha Pollitt takes on the micro-tempest over Ann Romney's work history:
http://www.thenation.com/article/167456/ann-romney-working-woman
You will want to read the whole piece, but here is an excerpt:
We talk about employment or staying home as a matter of choice, which
obscures what it takes to make that choice: money and a mate. Do books
praising the stay-home life ever suggest that if it’s really best for
children, the government, which supposedly cares about their well-being,
should make that possible for every family? The extraordinary hostility
aimed at low-income and single mothers shows that what’s at issue is
not children—who can thrive under many different arrangements as long as
they have love, safety, respect, a reasonable standard of living. It’s
women. Rich ones like Ann Romney are lauded for staying home. Poor ones
need the “dignity of work”—ideally “from day one.”
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2 comments:
That was both funny and rather insightful. It does seem that society judges the work of parents not by the work they do but by the prestige of their spouses.
Something that caught me off guard though was her line in reference to Romney: "(Don’t be fooled by the gender-neutral language—he’s talking about mothers.)"
Why? Could he not be talking about fathers as well? It is less common, but fathers stay at home and work while their wives work. My high school history teacher took paternity leave because his wife couldn't affors the time off work; he loved it, he felt honored to be home looking after the kids. When we stress that in an ideal world men could raise children while women worked, why would we criticize Romney for using the correct, the appropriate gender neutral language?
Two reasons, I suspect. One is that there are an estimated 150,000 stay-at-home dads, and five million stay-at-home moms in the U.S., so the dads are a statistical fragment. Second is the many other things Romney has said that hint at his hankering, with many other conservatives, for good old-fashioned patriarchy -- though we can expect those to be pretty well etch-a-sketched away now that he's locked up the nomination...
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