Hilary Rosen / Ann Romney

[Anonymous]

On the contrary - I think Hillary was a perfect example of a political wife overstepping her bounds. That's why they got SO much shit about that! The lesson learned from the Clintons was the First Lady has to stick to a feel-good, charity like mission, such as Reading is Fundamental or MO's health stuff (which she gets crap about).

[Anonymous]

I think the reason SAHM are so upset is because deep in their hearts, they know that the job of staying at home, especially after the children are school age, is not that tough. Add in the housecleaner, baby sitter, accountant and the SAHM have a leisured life, I mean job, compared to WOHM. For that reason, they get so excitable when it is pointed out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the reason SAHM are so upset is because deep in their hearts, they know that the job of staying at home, especially after the children are school age, is not that tough. Add in the housecleaner, baby sitter, accountant and the SAHM have a leisured life, I mean job, compared to WOHM. For that reason, they get so excitable when it is pointed out

Uh, hate to break it to you slick, but the average SAHM in real America does not have much more than an occasional baby sitter.

[Anonymous]

hate to break it to you, but women who work outside of the home do everything that SAHMs do on top of their paid work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:hate to break it to you, but women who work outside of the home do everything that SAHMs do on top of their paid work.

Really? Why do you pay for nannies, cleaners, daycare, and aftercare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hate to break it to you, but women who work outside of the home do everything that SAHMs do on top of their paid work.

Really? Why do you pay for nannies, cleaners, daycare, and aftercare?

not me
I have daycare for when I work, clean, drop off kids, pick them up, miss the social life of a sahm, pay the bills, wonder why my money never lasts. I cook, wash, etc etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:hate to break it to you, but women who work outside of the home do everything that SAHMs do on top of their paid work.

Really? Why do you pay for nannies, cleaners, daycare, and aftercare?

not me
I have daycare for when I work, clean, drop off kids, pick them up, miss the social life of a sahm, pay the bills, wonder why my money never lasts. I cook, wash, etc etc

Sooooo... like I said, you hire someone to take care of your kids. So you don't have a cleaner every two weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the reason SAHM are so upset is because deep in their hearts, they know that the job of staying at home, especially after the children are school age, is not that tough. Add in the housecleaner, baby sitter, accountant and the SAHM have a leisured life, I mean job, compared to WOHM. For that reason, they get so excitable when it is pointed out

I think the reason WOHM are so upset is because deep in their hearts, they know that the job of working away from home, especially after the children are school age, is not that tough. Add in the housecleaner, baby sitter, accountant, and nanny and the WOHM have a leisured life, I mean job, compared to SAHM. For that reason, they get so excitable when it is pointed out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the reason SAHM are so upset is because deep in their hearts, they know that the job of staying at home, especially after the children are school age, is not that tough. Add in the housecleaner, baby sitter, accountant and the SAHM have a leisured life, I mean job, compared to WOHM. For that reason, they get so excitable when it is pointed out

I think the reason WOHM are so upset is because deep in their hearts, they know that the job of working away from home, especially after the children are school age, is not that tough. Add in the housecleaner, baby sitter, accountant, and nanny and the WOHM have a leisured life, I mean job, compared to SAHM. For that reason, they get so excitable when it is pointed out

Fighting over who suffers more only makes you both look bad. Like MIL's in training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the reason WOHM are so upset is because deep in their hearts, they know that the job of working away from home, especially after the children are school age, is not that tough.
Add in the housecleaner, baby sitter, accountant, and nanny and the WOHM have a leisured life, I mean job, compared to SAHM. For that reason, they get so excitable when it is pointed out

SAHM has all day to be the housecleanner, baby sitter, accountant and nanny. Now that is a leisured life

[Anonymous]

Isn't the central tenet of feminism supposed to be freedom from judgment? Who cares what anyone else does! Do what can work for you as an individual and as a family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the central tenet of feminism supposed to be freedom from judgment? Who cares what anyone else does! Do what can work for you as an individual and as a family

+1

[Anonymous]

Frank Bruni -- no Republican sympathizer, he -- wrote a thoughtful column on this. Here's a link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/bruni-working-and-women.html

I agree with many of his points. I especially like this:

What’s most bothersome about Rosen’s comment, though, was its betrayal of what the Democratic Party and feminism at their best are supposed to be about: recognizing the full diversity of human experience and empowering everyone along that spectrum to walk successfully down the path of his or her choosing, so long as it poses no clear harm to anyone else.

I don't think Hilary Rosen is an effective voice for the left, and I don't think she lives in the real world any more than Ann Romney does. It's worth noting that many if not most pundits, on both sides of the spectrum, live in a world that's fairly detached from the workaday economic concerns that Rosen says Ann Romney is unfamiliar with.

President Obama and the people he is associated with are wise to detach from Hilary Rosen and her comments. There is absolutely no gain to be found in devaluing the work that stay-at-home mothers do. I bet Michelle Obama thought it was a particularly dumb thing to say.

[Anonymous]

Again, like so many other debates on this issue, you are ignoring the full text of what Rosen actually said.

She didn't merely say that AR hadn't worked a day in her life. She is somewhat being taken out of context. She was talking about whether AR has had to wrestle with the economic issues most of us confront.

"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country, saying, 'Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life," Rosen said.

"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 why do we worry about their future," Rosen continued, adding that Romney "just seems so old fashioned when it comes to women."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, like so many other debates on this issue, you are ignoring the full text of what Rosen actually said.

She didn't merely say that AR hadn't worked a day in her life. She is somewhat being taken out of context. She was talking about whether AR has had to wrestle with the economic issues most of us confront.

"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country, saying, 'Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life," Rosen said.

"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 why do we worry about their future," Rosen continued, adding that Romney "just seems so old fashioned when it comes to women."

11:07 here. As Frank Bruni points out, many politicians have never dealt with the economic issues many of us face. This is true of both Democrats and Republicans. And many or most professors and economists and other people who advise politicians haven't either. Elizabeth Warren is an exception.

In the end, you know, it was just a dumb remark for Rosen to make. Everyone takes things out of context, whether it's Democrats attacking Romney for saying he isn't worried about the very poor or Republicans assailing Rosen for saying Ann Romney never worked a day in her life. Rosen knows that. You don't hand the other side a sound bite like that. And you don't do it in a way that comes across as a personal attack on a candidate's wife, which is another point Frank Bruni makes. It will be out of the collective mind in a few days, but it leaves a lingering impression that some Democrats don't actually practice what they preach in terms of feminism which is, again, supposed to be about choices.