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Forgive me; I'm getting political. I saw the press about Hillary Rosen's comments about Ann Romney, and they - and the way that the press uniformly seems to be responding to them - just struck a chord in me.
Short version: Democratic consultant who's trying to help the Obama re-election campaign says that Ann Romney, a woman who stayed at home to raise her five children, "has never worked a day in her life." People explode with rage. Even Barak and Michelle Obama both react to defend Mrs. Romney, and the consultant apologizes. This has set off a ton of debate about the role of women, in and out of the home.
Which, frankly, I think completely misses the point.
Look. It took me a while, but I appreciate and have a lot of respect for stay-at-home mothers. My degree-having mother stayed home for the majority of my childhood, taking care of the house and managing what money my father had coming in and making sure we did things even when it seemed nigh impossible to make three girls do anything. And now that I'm older, I respect that a lot more than I did when I was a kid - honestly, I got a lot of messages at school and at home when I was a kid which I suppose were supposed to inspire girls to be whatever they wanted to be, but that mostly taught me that being a stay-at-home mother was a horrible fate, something you did if you weren't smart enough to do anything else, and that it doomed you to be miserable.*
That might have been partially true, once upon a time, when American wives were automatically expected to stay home and care for the children while the men went out and earned the money. But I don't think it's any of those things, not when it's a choice. The ability to choose (and please notice my emphasis on that word, CHOOSE) to stay home and concentrate on one's home and one's children? It's a privilege, now, like so many other things that people who are able to make that choice take for granted. My mother, who stayed home for over a decade to concentrate on her house and her kids? She had to stop after many years. She didn't choose to, but she had to seek employment. Why? Because despite my father having a full-time management job, there was never enough money. Never enough to keep us healthy, to keep us fed and clothed, and so my mother was forced to do something she might not have chosen to do.
So, on the outside chance that Mrs. Ann Romney might see this, I have a question for you. And I ask it after saying that, yes, I respect your choice to stay home and care for your children. I can only imagine how hard it must have been, raising five young boys! And frankly, the right for a woman to choose to stay at home and care for her family and be respected for it is as much feminism as the right to choose to work outside of the home on equal footing as a man and be respected for it, because it's not about grinding men under our heels (no matter what certain men would say when you ask them that.) It is about the ability to choose our own destinies and not rely on others to choose it for us.
However.
Are you aware that your ability to choose to stay home and care for them was a privilege, and not a right that all American women share? Can you relate to the working women who might want to stay home and spend more time with their kids and not have to trust their loved ones to babysitters and daycare, but who can't make that choice because, for whatever reason, they have to work? How can you relate to the women whose partners are somehow out of the picture, or whose partners just can't find work (or at least enough work to support a household?)
The responses to the comments about Mrs. Romney, while I completely agree with many of them (especially Michelle Obama's response - "Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected." Well said!) are turning this into a feminist debate. And that's good, since it's a thing that needs to be debated. But on the other hand it's bad, because it puts aside another very important aspect of the comments made about her. Namely, the ability of a woman who had the privilege to choose what to do with her life without the welfare of her family suffering to understand and respect the many, many, many women in this country who would like to be able to choose what to do with their lives, one way or the other, but who cannot make that choice without endangering their own health, or their families.
*Kind of like how the attempts to train kids to be leaders inadvertantly taught me - and several other kids I know - that not wanting or caring about being a leader was a horrible, horrible thing, and that everyone HAD to be a leader or they weren't really worth much. But that's another rant.
Short version: Democratic consultant who's trying to help the Obama re-election campaign says that Ann Romney, a woman who stayed at home to raise her five children, "has never worked a day in her life." People explode with rage. Even Barak and Michelle Obama both react to defend Mrs. Romney, and the consultant apologizes. This has set off a ton of debate about the role of women, in and out of the home.
Which, frankly, I think completely misses the point.
Look. It took me a while, but I appreciate and have a lot of respect for stay-at-home mothers. My degree-having mother stayed home for the majority of my childhood, taking care of the house and managing what money my father had coming in and making sure we did things even when it seemed nigh impossible to make three girls do anything. And now that I'm older, I respect that a lot more than I did when I was a kid - honestly, I got a lot of messages at school and at home when I was a kid which I suppose were supposed to inspire girls to be whatever they wanted to be, but that mostly taught me that being a stay-at-home mother was a horrible fate, something you did if you weren't smart enough to do anything else, and that it doomed you to be miserable.*
That might have been partially true, once upon a time, when American wives were automatically expected to stay home and care for the children while the men went out and earned the money. But I don't think it's any of those things, not when it's a choice. The ability to choose (and please notice my emphasis on that word, CHOOSE) to stay home and concentrate on one's home and one's children? It's a privilege, now, like so many other things that people who are able to make that choice take for granted. My mother, who stayed home for over a decade to concentrate on her house and her kids? She had to stop after many years. She didn't choose to, but she had to seek employment. Why? Because despite my father having a full-time management job, there was never enough money. Never enough to keep us healthy, to keep us fed and clothed, and so my mother was forced to do something she might not have chosen to do.
So, on the outside chance that Mrs. Ann Romney might see this, I have a question for you. And I ask it after saying that, yes, I respect your choice to stay home and care for your children. I can only imagine how hard it must have been, raising five young boys! And frankly, the right for a woman to choose to stay at home and care for her family and be respected for it is as much feminism as the right to choose to work outside of the home on equal footing as a man and be respected for it, because it's not about grinding men under our heels (no matter what certain men would say when you ask them that.) It is about the ability to choose our own destinies and not rely on others to choose it for us.
However.
Are you aware that your ability to choose to stay home and care for them was a privilege, and not a right that all American women share? Can you relate to the working women who might want to stay home and spend more time with their kids and not have to trust their loved ones to babysitters and daycare, but who can't make that choice because, for whatever reason, they have to work? How can you relate to the women whose partners are somehow out of the picture, or whose partners just can't find work (or at least enough work to support a household?)
The responses to the comments about Mrs. Romney, while I completely agree with many of them (especially Michelle Obama's response - "Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected." Well said!) are turning this into a feminist debate. And that's good, since it's a thing that needs to be debated. But on the other hand it's bad, because it puts aside another very important aspect of the comments made about her. Namely, the ability of a woman who had the privilege to choose what to do with her life without the welfare of her family suffering to understand and respect the many, many, many women in this country who would like to be able to choose what to do with their lives, one way or the other, but who cannot make that choice without endangering their own health, or their families.
*Kind of like how the attempts to train kids to be leaders inadvertantly taught me - and several other kids I know - that not wanting or caring about being a leader was a horrible, horrible thing, and that everyone HAD to be a leader or they weren't really worth much. But that's another rant.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-20 06:45 pm (UTC)From: