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[quote=Anonymous]WAMU picks up the story today.  Amazing how the WaPo thinks it's their place to question the judgement of two highly accomplished women on whether they can handle a local elected position in addition to parenthood.

Are Moms Who Run For Office Held To A Different Standard Than Dads? Two Local Candidates Say Yes.
[quote]
https://wamu.org/story/19/06/03/are-moms-who-run-for-office-held-to-a-different-standard-than-dads-two-local-candidates-say-yes/
First-time political candidate Larysa Kautz was excited when she got a call in late April from an editorial writer at The Washington Post this month. This was an opportunity to pitch her campaign for a seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and possibly land a coveted endorsement from the region’s newspaper of record.

But the phone interview with Post writer Lee Hockstader didn’t go as planned, Kautz says. After talking about why she was running and about her experience — she’s a Yale Law School grad and longtime tax attorney — the conversation turned to family.

“I talked about the importance of having the perspective of a working mom with young kids on the board, and there aren’t any with young kids,” says Kautz, who has a three-and-half-year-old son. “And he said, ‘Well, that’s because there are late night meetings and it’s hard work.’ At which point I had to put the phone on mute because I had to gather myself.”

Hockstader, a longtime Post reporter who joined the editorial board in 2004, strongly disputes her recollection of their conversation.

“Any suggestion that moms or dads can’t or shouldn’t hold elective office is completely false, and so is the characterization you mention below,” he wrote in an email, referring to WAMU’s description of what Kautz said he said. “The Post has endorsed scores, probably hundreds, of parents — moms and dads — in races for local, state and federal offices over the years.”

Kautz maintains her memory of the conversation is sound, and showed WAMU text messages she sent to friends immediately after the conversation in which she described what was said.

Setting aside the dispute over what was or was not said, the situation brings to light what many mothers who run for office say is a stubborn obstacle they face: the assumption that they are the primary caregivers for their children. It’s happened on the campaign trail with the women running for president, and it has happened in local races.

In another recent case in Fairfax County, Alicia Plerhoples, who is running for county board chair, says the issue of balancing parenting and politics also came up when she interviewed with a larger group of the Post’s editorial board.

“We had a good conversation about the issues, but then the very last question of the interview was along the lines of, ‘How are you going to be chairman with two small children?’ It’s a fairly shocking question given that it was a room with three other women on the editorial board,” says Plerhoples, who also graduated from Yale Law School, now teaches law at Georgetown and has two daughters.

Fairfax County Board chair candidate Alicia Plerhoples took to Facebook this week to criticize The Washington Post’s endorsements and for asking her about balancing parenting and politics.
Screenshot from Facebook

Fred Hiatt, the head of the Post’s editorial page, says the same question was asked of Jeff McKay, a longtime board member with two young children who received the Post’s endorsement in his campaign for chair.

“It was just a friendly conversational moment about how demanding the job is, not part of any evaluation process,” Hiatt writes in an email. (Hiatt did not respond to a follow-up question about Hockstader’s comment.)
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