Posted on 04/15/2012 8:49:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
Sometimes men should shut up and be good listeners. Especially when the issue is about women. What do men know?
Look, I’ll be the first guy to plead guilty for my gender, that we don’t know anything about women. Zip, zero, zilch. Moreover, we’re listening-challenged — though that, arguably, is a species-wide malady.
Nonetheless, we males still know something about the issue of working mothers versus stay-at-home mothers. After all, some of our favorite mothers were and are working or stay-at-home moms.
We’re sensitive, too — and a tad squeamish — when we see the scab picked off that Superwoman scrape, as happened last week, when Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist, charged that Ann Romney, a stay-at-home mom for five boys and best known as the better half of presidential candidate Mitt, had “never worked a day in her life.”
Mothers who are homemakers and rearing children were outraged. And had every reason to be. Their husbands, as I can attest, were offended as well. As were many others.
Stay-at-home mothers work. Hard. And long hours. So, there!
Hilary R’s off-hand and out-of-mind comment echoed a similar statement from another Hillary R. Back in 1992, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.”
Does anyone believe it harmful for a mother (or father) to stay home to rear the children, rather than to work?
It would be hard to make that case, not if staying at home was a personal choice rationally made.
So, why the condescension from Hillary and Hilary? Mrs. Clinton is too well-schooled these days to repeat her gaffe, and one can easily bet that Hilary Rosen will do her level best to avoid stepping on this land mine again. But do they still harbor the view that mothers who stay home to rear children are second-class, unaccomplished women?
To me, it’s not just that oven-baked desserts taste really good. From a political standpoint, I’d like to know whether someone who seeks to have a finger on so many buttons considers the job of stay-at-home mom to be important. President and candidate Barack Obama was quick to side with his likely opponent’s spouse and come out decisively in favor of motherhood and the baking of apple pies — if not (due to recent food policies imposed on him in his own home) chocolate chip cookies.
Appearing on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Rosen added, after denouncing Ann Romney’s work habits, that “She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and, and, and how do we worry — and, why do we worry about their future.”
See, the damage-control folks argue that Rosen wasn’t attacking Mrs. Romney’s decision to stay home and rear her kids at all, merely her commission of that heinous crime of BWIA (Being Wealthy in America). Get it straight folks, Mrs. Romney’s views are not to be ignored because she’s a homemaker, but because she’s rich.
That bias is supposed to be okay; it’s nearly official national policy. Rich people, unless they’re clamoring for their arms to be twisted so they must fork over more in taxes, are to be shunned, barely tolerated — not arrested, mind you, but certainly watched, shaken down and held in public disrepute.
Thus, though a devoted and hardworking mother, Ann Romney, as a member of this un-trusted class, has nothing to teach anyone.
It’s true that Romney doesn’t worry about budgeting her kids’ meals; she probably never has. She has that in common with the overwhelming majority of Americans — the hyperbolic rhetoric of well-paid political hacks (and Jane Fonda) notwithstanding.
Yet, surely, Mrs. Romney once worried about her sons’ educations. All five do appear to have been well schooled.
Contra the trends of class warfare, I bet we can rest assured that no matter how wealthy a person is, that person will worry about his or her children. Oh, and the future.
And if you prick Mrs. Romney’s finger, she does bleed. Eh?
Funny, though, Rosen’s main assault wasn’t on Ann Romney at all. It was on Mitt Romney. After condescendingly criticizing Mrs. Romney as a non-person, Rosen declared that “there’s something much more fundamental about Mitt, because he seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women. . . . He just doesn’t really see us as equal.”
Tough charge. Yet, Rosen didn’t cite one issue or a single stance taken by Romney to back up her contention that Mitt Romney hates women and wants to make women second-class citizens . . . as Rosen had just attempted to do to his wife.
For the record, Mitt Romney is not my preferred candidate. Yet I respect the wealth he has earned. He may be old-fashioned, but if remaining married to his wife and helping their raise five kids is old-fashioned, let’s place an order for more.
“Shut up and listen”? Man, add on “Or I’ll gut you like a fish” at the end, and it could be my ex-wife talking.
No you dumba$$, what we DON'T see you as is “the same.” Men and women ARE different so get over it. I will continue to open and close the car door for door for my wife (in 33 years of marriage, she's never complained about it once). If shingles start blowing off the roof in high winds, I will get on the ladder and nail them back - because it IS the guy's job to do that.
Equality has nothing to do with identically. It is the way it is. If that ruffles your secular humanist lesbian values, tough.
Id rather have a full time job than be a stay at home mom less work
Excellent point. The author is also right about men not listening. My husband is a great example of that
BTW I did not go to work until my youngest child went to Kindergarten and then I only worked part time and only during the time she was in Kindergarten. My daughter and Son-in-law on the other hand put their son in child care and she really missed the best time of a baby's first year.
...”I’ll be the first guy to plead guilty for my gender, that we don’t know anything about women. Zip, zero, zilch. Moreover, we’re listening-challenged — though that, arguably, is a species-wide malady.”
I hate it when these guys plead “guilty” on my behalf. Is it supposed to be “cool” for men to act as though they don’t have a clue? Maybe it’s more of a thing where some men don’t have a clue as to how to be a real man...
And if we sometimes seem to be “listening-challenged”, it could be that the womem we’re trying to understand to are screeching and wailing over us when we’d appreciate a sober, thoughtful, intelligent and civilized discussion of important issues.
Strong confident women do not need political parties, talking heads and political hacks telling them what they do or don’t do is acceptable, honorable or the right path for them or their families.
There is nothing more dangerous and terrifying to certain women than the woman who doesn’t need or want their opinions, their approval or their company. They don’t need to join the certain women’s company to hear them tear down others so they can build themselves up. The strong woman loves their man and has no desire to be ruler over them (and visa versa).
And as a side note...I loooooooove rich people. A financially poor person has never given me a job, made certain goods affordable to my income level and a whole host of other wonderful benefits I enjoy in life!!
Men usually develop selective deafness over the course of a long marriage for a practical reason.
My dad did, most of my uncles did or have, as have just about every older man I’ve ever known.
Maybe the content, tenor and sheer volume of verbiage has something to do with it?
Nah, he’s a man. They just don’t listen./s
I’m sorry did you say something?
I was out of work for a while back in 1992 and stayed home with the kids (4 of them at the time). After a couple days of it I was looking for a job real hard. “Working” is so much easier and less stressful. Stay at home moms should be almost worshiped! And the thing that best compliments a stay at home mom is a dad that brings home the bacon!
Yep.
"One of these days Alice..."
Outside of Christ man is fallen, dysfunctional. The attempt to find understanding through either sex is futile. Man or Woman can only share their misunderstanding (and even that is used deceitfully to confuse the other for the sake of pride).
Huh? Did you say something dear?
Best smack-down for a femi-nazi I ever witnessed was when I was attending a university in the late 70's. A young gal was running up some stair to get into a classroom building (must have been late for class). An older man (professor?) coming out of the building stopped to hold the door for the young gal. The gal stopped in front of the door and said loudly; "You're holding that door just because I'm a woman!" To which the older man calmly replied; "No, I'm holding the door because I'm a gentleman."
With apologies to Professor Henry Higgins, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man’’?
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