By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard, whether you wanted to or not, about Hilary Rosen’s unkind comments about Ann Romney.
Hilary Rosen, a political consultant who advises the Democratic National Committee, questioned on CNN Wednesday night whether Ann Romney understands the economic issues facing women.
“His wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” Rosen said on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 show. “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 how do we–why we worry about their future.”
I posted something very brief about this on my Facebook page, which elicited a comment from one of my former students (many of whom are distinguished by the fact that they disagree–often quite vehemently–with me…but that’s a subject for another day). My student–a smart lawyer educated at a very good law school, some of whose professors read this blog from time to time (you know who you are)–suggested that Rosen’s intention–executed extremely gracelessly–was to point to the silver spoons in the mouths of both Romneys.
Perhaps so, but that might seem to be a somewhat odd comment coming from a woman who has had a long career as a Washington lobbyist. From what I can tell, she is a “working mother,” but I suspect that she doesn’t have a lot in common with the vast majority of the women for whom she purports to speak. Now, I’m willing to defend her bona fides in a certain way: it’s one of God’s gifts to us that we’re capable of looking beyond our noses and putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. A privileged Washington lobbyist can understand the plight of a working mother in Ellicott City. But if that’s true, then Ann Romney can understand and sympathize with what women are telling her on the campaign trail.
But there’s another point worth considering in all this. Leaving aside the manifold ways in which stay-at-home moms are utterly crucial to their families (some of which–to be sure–can be replaced, however imperfectly, with paid labor of one sort or another), there is this: could the many institutions of our civil society continue to function without the tireless efforts of women who don’t regularly participate in the working world? Where would our PTAs be without our stay-at-home moms (and, to be fair, our stay-at-home dads)? How would our parishes and congregations function without the effort and ingenuity of people whose spouses earn enough to enable them to spend their time in a way that doesn’t yield a paycheck? I realize that there are also men and women who work full-time and still give enormous amounts of time to volunteer organizations. (I’m very grateful, for example, for the men who are willing to go camping with my son’s Boy Scout troop.) But I can’t tell you how many organizations I encounter that rely heavily on the efforts of the kind of women Hilary Rosen denigrated.
In sum, what seems to be missing in Rosen’s world (which is divided between home and work) are those “mediating institutions” that make the role of government less necessary. Perhaps a rather telling oversight on her part, no?
April 12th, 2012 | 1:24 pm
Meh. Just another typical example of the never-ending War On Women being waged by Democrats. I admire all conservative women in politics because I don’t know how they stand the vicious misogyny they’re constantly subjected to (ditto for non-whites and the vicious racism they’re subjected to). Not mentioning the fact that I have no idea what brought this attack about, since it’s not my impression Mrs. Romney is politically involved at all.
April 12th, 2012 | 1:45 pm
I don’t begrudge Ann Romney’s never having a paying job in her life, and I think Rosen’s remarks were ill considered. But Mrs. Romney is not my idea of a typical stay-at-home mother. The typical stay-at-home mom tends to be Hispanic or foreign born. I can’t find any statistics, but I would bet very few stay-at-home mothers never worked outside the home. Also, the typical stay-at-home mother does not have nannies and/or maids. I have a very strong hunch Ann Romney had a lot of paid help that the typical stay-at-home parent does not.
It is largely immaterial for a potential Romney presidency, in my opinion, if Ann Romney was a stay-at-home mother or if she had been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or, anything at all that I can think of. She’s not going to be president, and I can’t imagine any wife has a predictable impact on her husband’s presidency or that any future “first husband” will have a predictable impact on his wife’s presidency. I don’t think stay-at-home mothers would fare any better under a president whose wife was a stay-at-home mother than they would under a president whose wife stopped plowing the field long enough to give birth and then finished plowing.
Why do we even pretend that these things matter?
April 12th, 2012 | 1:57 pm
Why do we even pretend that these things matter?
I will answer my own question. The answer is because campaigns are largely games. You hope your opponent will say something embarrassing so you can jump on it, and if he or she doesn’t, then you distort what your opponent says and attack that. If you say something regrettable yourself, you “clarify,” or say you “misspoke,” and you pretend you have been perfectly consistent even if you completely reverse what you initially said. In many ways, it’s really about lying, but we all accept it, because that is the way political campaigns are run, and for one candidate to try to do it differently would basically be unilateral disarmament. You forego negative campaigning to try and look like a good guy, but if it doesn’t work in your favor, you release a bunch of attack ads.
April 12th, 2012 | 2:59 pm
David,
“Why do we even pretend that these things matter?”
You answered your own question incorrectly. Many people believe these things do matter, in fact they matter very much. We live in an age of identity politics, with race, gender, class, and sexual orientation defining who we are. For a feminist and a lesbian activist like Rosen, her gender and orientation define who she is, and this qualifies her as an “expert” on “women’s issues.” A mere housewife and mother like Ann Romney has nothing to add to the world as defined by Rosen. The latter is refusing to apologize, in part because to do so she would have to renounce who she is…. If the Obama folks want to kill this story, they are really going to have to apply some intense pressure on Rosen. She may buckle, but I can also see her becoming a heroic figure to the LGBT movement by refusing to apologize….
April 12th, 2012 | 3:18 pm
publius,
Hillary Rosen already apologized. I don’t see what in the world this has to do with the LGBT movement. I am sure the topics of discussion matter to many people, but my point was that whether or not Ann Romney ever held a job will have no impact Mitt Romney’s presidency, if he is elected. The whole business is nonsense as part of a presidential campaign.
A mere housewife and mother like Ann Romney has nothing to add to the world as defined by Rosen.
Ann Romney is not a “mere housewife and mother.” She’s the wife of a multi-multi-millionaire, the ex-governor of Massachusetts, and the 2012 Republican candidate for president. She is not at all representative of stay-at-home mothers. But it couldn’t matter less in terms of what a Romney presidency would be like.
April 12th, 2012 | 3:18 pm
Actually, David’s right that this is almost certainly just a “game” to the Democrats, since I’d bet dollars to donuts they scripted and focus-grouped this whole farce. Which makes it all not just blatantly misogynistic but despicably cynical as well.
April 12th, 2012 | 3:24 pm
publius: Rosen’s a lesbian? Lovely. I GUARANTEE that she was picked to deliver this attack for a very specific reason–look for the Dems to imminently accuse the GOP pushback as nothing but a homophobic attack.
April 12th, 2012 | 3:33 pm
Brian,
Yes, Rosen’s a lesbian activist. The mainstream media will downplay that as long as possible.
David,
Rosen’s first reaction was defiance, as is now being reported. She believes every word she said.
Secondly, you don’t know Ann Romney, but you act like you do. Did you know that she is a cancer and MS survivor? Apparently to you she’s “the wife of a multi-multi-millionaire.” So what are you implying with that cheap shot? And who are you to determine who is and who is not representative of “stay at home mothers”?
April 12th, 2012 | 4:03 pm
Brian,
I didn’t mean to imply it was a game to the Democrats and not to the Republicans! Both sides are playing the game, and both sides always play the game. The Republicans are playing the game of trying to turn Rosen’s remarks to their advantage, trying to make it seem like Rosen is contemptuous of stay-at-home mothers. When one side makes a gaffe, the other side tries to blow it all out of proportion. It is really insignificant that Romney’s wife drives “a couple of Cadillacs,” or that Romney’s involvement with Nascar is knowing a couple of team owners. Does this really have anything to do with what kind of president he would be? And did anybody ever hear of Hilary Rosen before she made these remarks? Does she speak for Obama and the entire Democratic party? She’s somebody most people never heard of who made an injudicious remark on CNN, and the Romeny campaign saw a way to take advantage of it. It takes two sides to play a game.
April 12th, 2012 | 4:06 pm
“The typical stay-at-home mom tends to be Hispanic or foreign born.”
Honestly, I have no idea where this assumption even comes from. Speaking as a stay-at-home dad, I know plenty of us in the biz, and I can only think of one Latino, one Latina, and one Indian-American that I know who stay at home with their kids. (And we live in a pretty diverse area.) Overwhelmingly, the stay-at-home parents I encounter are white.
I teach at a local career college part-time, where at least half of my students come from minority populations. One would think that there would be plenty more stay-at-home parents there, according to your rationale, but I can’t think of one.
I guess my evidence is as anecdotal as yours, David, but still, somehow I found yours to be an odd assumption.
April 12th, 2012 | 4:17 pm
David: That’s not at all what I said. I’m not talking about the “game” of trying to spin your opponent’s every comment into something grotesquely offensive. That’s old hat. What I said was that I’m positive that this wasn’t a “gaffe” at all–I think it was all planned out very carefully, with the Dems figuring out who would launch the attack, where to do so to ensure the entirely predictable (because it’s so reasonable) reaction, and then thinking about how to milk it for several days to their advantage. Now the “official” Obama campaign looks gracious for defending Mrs. Romney against this mean attack from someone who has NOTHING to do with them, no way, no sir, cross their hearts. And I guarantee that next you’ll have Dems attacking the GOP as being homophobes for attacking poor ol’ Hilary. Oh look! It’s already happening!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/democrats-respond-conservatives-are-attacking-ros
For once I actually do really hate being right.
April 12th, 2012 | 4:21 pm
Apparently to you she’s “the wife of a multi-multi-millionaire.” So what are you implying with that cheap shot?
publius,
What makes that a cheap shot? I have nothing against millionaires or their wives. However, they aren’t representative of the American population or stay-at-home mothers. Romney’s net worth is somewhere around $190 to $250 million. That puts him rather high up in the top 1% in the United States. (To be in the top 1%, you have to be worth $9 million or more.)
Ann Romney may be the kindest, wisest, most hard-working mother in the country for all I know, but she is not representative of stay-at-home mothers. Does anyone really think the president’s wife should be representative of stay-at-home mothers? What are the qualifications for a first lady? Has anyone ever decided to vote for a president because of his wife? Most people say the vice-president has made a difference perhaps a couple of times in history. But a wife???
The last person who wasn’t a millionaire before becoming president was Harry Truman. Do you think saying that is an insult to Mamie Eisenhower and all the first ladies that followed?
April 12th, 2012 | 4:36 pm
Honestly, I have no idea where this assumption even comes from.
Steve,
My information comes from a news release from the US Bureau of the Census titled Stay-at-Home Moms are More Likely Younger, Hispanic and Foreign-Born Than Other Mothers. What I said would have been more accurate if I had said stay-at-home mothers are more likely to be Hispanic and foreign born than mothers who work outside the home. In any case, being in the top 1% of families by net worth disqualifies Ann Romney from being a typical American in a great many ways. But that would make her pretty typical of wives whose husbands have run for, or become, president.
April 12th, 2012 | 5:20 pm
For once I actually do really hate being right.
Brian,
You’re not fooling anybody. Nobody ever hates being right in a blog comment!
But relax. You are not right. It would have been one thing if people, without reason, claimed Rosen was being attacked for being a lesbian. But the Catholic League said, “Lesbian Dem Hilary Rosen tells Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life. Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own.”
It’s an ugly, gratuitous comment.
April 12th, 2012 | 6:05 pm
Ann Romney is typical of a LDS SAHM.
I recall Mitt Romney talking about taking family vacations where they’d strap the dog carrier on top of the Suburban and drive to see family.
I’m no expert on how the wealthy recreate, but long car rides with 5 active kids sounds like a typical middle-class excursion to me and not for the faint or habitually nanny-employing of heart.
April 12th, 2012 | 6:06 pm
I think we could drop the “stay-at-home mother” title for Ann Romney, considering the fact that her youngest child was born in 1981. She has no doubt moved on.
Descriptions of the Romneys first years of marriage do not sound like they were living on Easy Street. there are tales of living in a basement flat at $62/month, studying with a baby or two or three on their laps. I do not know why they did not then have access to bags of money or liveried retainers. does anyone here know?
Regardless, my own experience tells me that of all people, a stay-at-home mother is keenly aware of the daily economic struggles that families face. Even when the kids grow up and/or the income increases, we don’t suffer sudden ignorance and amnesia.
Rosen’s clueless sneer is all too familiar from so-called “progressives”. She ought to refrain from commenting on the lives of others, especially when those others are like space aliens to her.
and far from being unimportant to the Obamas, I gather that she is so often at the White House that she ought to contribute to the utility bills.
April 13th, 2012 | 8:44 am
“Also, the typical stay-at-home mother does not have nannies and/or maids. I have a very strong hunch that Ann Romney had a lot of paid help that the typical stay-at-home parent does not”
I read this in the Washington Post, so it must be true:
“On Thursday, a Romney aide said that when their five sons were growing up, the family had no nannies, no cooks and a once-a-week housecleaner.”
April 13th, 2012 | 9:31 am
I wonder what the response would be if Rush L. said Mrs. Obama never worked a day in her life?
Why not admit it, a member, with White House access, just demeaned a stay at home mother. This mother, felt is was more important to be at home, then pursue her own “career”. For that Ann was demeaned.
Apparently “choice” is OK, as long it’s the correct choice.
April 13th, 2012 | 9:32 am
David: The Catholic League exists merely to say outrageous things to fundraise for the Democrats, as far as I can tell. The Dems knew SOMEONE would make a crack commenting, no matter how obliquely, on Rosen being a lesbian, and then they could use THAT to stir up their own base. Heck, they were probably hoping Limbaugh would say something along those lines. Then they’d be in fat city.
Can this be PROVEN by me? Nah. Only the insiders doing the planning could prove it. But it sure seems awfully likely, and definitely fits the way this has played out. Then again, I’m really, really cynical about politics, while you’re only really cynical, so your interpretation obviously is different.
April 13th, 2012 | 9:35 am
The whole “only rich people have the luxury to be stay-at-home moms” meme is quite bizarre. Maybe it’s because I recently moved away from LA, where the cost of decent child care is more than a mortgage is in most of the country, but the argument seems to me to be completely bonkers and at odds with how Americans really experience economic reality.
April 13th, 2012 | 9:42 am
“On Thursday, a Romney aide said that when their five sons were growing up, the family had no nannies, no cooks and a once-a-week housecleaner.”
Women voters take note! The poor woman was exploited! A man who does not get his wife more help than that to raise five boys is not fit to be president! :P
April 13th, 2012 | 11:26 am
“I will answer my own question. The answer is because campaigns are largely games. You hope your opponent will say something embarrassing so you can jump on it, and if he or she doesn’t, then you distort what your opponent says and attack that. If you say something regrettable yourself, you “clarify,” or say you “misspoke,” and you pretend you have been perfectly consistent even if you completely reverse what you initially said.”
In other words, if you are callous enough to be a political candidate you are probably callous enough to blow up large parts of the world should circumstances dictate?
April 13th, 2012 | 12:31 pm
David,
The reason that it matters is that for the last several decades the feminist Left in this country has said that stay-at-home moms live in ‘comfortable concentration camps’ and that they debase themselves by actually having and raising children. This view has been absorbed by most of the Democratic party, and now we’ve heard it expressed in a clownish but frank fashion.
April 13th, 2012 | 12:57 pm
In other words, if you are callous enough to be a political candidate you are probably callous enough to blow up large parts of the world should circumstances dictate?
justin taylor,
I don’t know where in the world you found that in what I was saying.
My point is that truth isn’t respected in political campaigning. I don’t think it is too strong to say that much of politics is about lying, and it is just accepted. Take a look at Politifact and see the statements currently rated. They are
4 True
2 Mostly True
2 Half True
2 Mostly False
4 False
4 Pants on Fire
My favorite example is in the 2008 campaign, when McCain, in the midst of great economic crisis, said, “The fundamentals of the American economy are strong.” It was a bizarre statement to make at the time, and within hours the utterly ludicrous “clarification” was that the “fundamentals of the American economy” were the “American workers.” So if you said McCain was wrong to say the fundamentals of the American economy were strong, you were criticizing the American worker, and how dare you!
Which do you think would be of most importance to any candidate of any party in a campaign—a statement that was true, or one that was distorted, misleading, or downright false but nevertheless most effective when tried on focus groups?
What is amazing to me is that a great many Republicans are convinced that much of what I have said is true of Democrats, but not Republicans, and a great many Democrats see all these faults in Republicans but not in Democrats. The tools of politics and political campaigns are used by virtually all candidates of all parties. It’s not about truth. It’s about winning.
This is not to say that the whole thing is so totally corrupt that we should have nothing to do with it. I don’t see cause to be totally cynical and say it doesn’t matter who wins, because they are all the same. But if you are crazy enough to feel the other side is “playing politics” in the presidential campaign and your side is not, you’re deluded.
April 13th, 2012 | 3:04 pm
You answered your own question incorrectly. Many people believe these things do matter, in fact they matter very much. We live in an age of identity politics, with race, gender, class, and sexual orientation defining who we are. For a feminist and a lesbian activist like Rosen, her gender and orientation define who she is, and this qualifies her as an “expert” on “women’s issues.”
I also think it’s plain these things “matter” because Rosen is threatened by everything Ann Romney stands for.
It is important to people like Rosen that every aspect of motherhood be a “choice”. It’s okay to “choose” to stay at home to raise your kids, if you can afford it (though even this rule seems to be rather unequally applied; if Ann Romney were a liberal Democrat, would it still be true that she is not qualified for an opinion because she’s never done a day’s work in her life?). But it’s important that the emphasis be on how staying home with one’s kids is a choice – neither better nor worse than other options – and that, furthermore, it be seen as a luxury.
But social conservatives don’t tend to believe that. They tend to believe that having an at-home parent is better than day care. That all families should have such options available to them. And that’s IMO the real threat.
Romney & Obama have distinctly different and very incompatible visions of how policy will affect family. Obama’s vision is a world where the government, not the family, is primarily responsible for providing for a family’s needs. In Obama’s vision, the government provides everything from day care to three meals a day for the kids. But there’s a cost – one that needs to stay hidden for his vision to stay popular – which is that the more empowered the government is, the less empowered individual families are going to be. We are not pulling resources and power out of nowhere; we are redistributing them away from where they’re at right now.
April 13th, 2012 | 5:05 pm
I also think it’s plain these things “matter” because Rosen is threatened by everything Ann Romney stands for.
This kind of egregious hyperbole is what makes a great many sane people shun politics. Hilary Rosen and Ann Romney no doubt have some major disagreements on political matters, but in all likelihood, as American women (and mothers), they probably agree on more than they disagree on. We are not going through The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness. Even the most conservative Republicans are not opposed to everything the most liberal Democrats stand for (and vice versa). This is still one country, and both liberals and conservatives are Americans who obey the laws and live under the same constitution. What we have going on right now are presidential election campaigns, not preparations for civil war.
April 13th, 2012 | 8:13 pm
This kind of egregious hyperbole is what makes a great many sane people shun politics.
I don’t think it’s hyperbole at all to argue that Hilary Rosen favors a model where mothers are expected to work while the government raises the kids.
Nor do I think it’s an overreach to argue that she therefore has good reason to find Ann Romney threatening. Ann Romney is smart and well-educated and could have had a career, but she instead threw her manpower into building a strong, healthy, successful family.
The very comparison between Ann Romney and Hilary Rosen is itself an argument in favor of the idea that children are better off when their parents take family seriously and make a commitment to it (rather than treating it as a lifestyle choice with obligations that should be viewed as strictly optional).
It’s a zero sum. The two models aren’t compatible. Ann Romney stayed home because she believes doing so was better for her and her family (notice they’re all one unit, not two units in conflict). If Ann Romney is right, then Hilary Rosen is wrong – day care is not ‘just as good’, and outsourcing motherhood is not the same as doing it yourself.
Another zero sum: Obama’s vision of “Big Brother’s got your kid”, vs. the conservative defense of the way things are now – where children are cared for by families. If Big Brother wins, then those who come from broken families parented by indifferent, uncaring and/or incompetent parents will be better off, but those who come from healthy, intact, strong families will be in conflict with the state.
April 15th, 2012 | 6:07 pm
Mitt Romney flashback: Stay-at-home moms need to learn ‘dignity of work’
April 15th, 2012 | 11:46 pm
stay-at-home moms need to learn ‘dignity of work’
No, welfare moms need to learn ‘dignity of work’.
Stay-at-home moms work for their family. Welfare moms are like what a stay-at-home mom would be if she were unemployed.
Welfare is unemployment benefits for homemakers. Yet even though these families (not all welfare recipient single parents are women, btw) are paid to do nothing except care for their children, their children are overwhelmingly neglected.
Welfare recipients don’t just get cash benefits. They get Head Start and other day care benefits and they get all of their other needs cared for. Yet welfare recipients have children that are more, not less, likely to be inadequately nourished, unprepared for school, unattended, and neglected.
Comparing a welfare recipient to a woman who actually cares for her family is an insult to all the women who work so hard to keep their families intact, healthy, and well-cared-for. The fact that a woman is on welfare is indicative that this woman has failed at all the tasks that make homemakers worth the money they aren’t paid…
…although one could argue that they are paid, in that their husbands are worth more in the marketplace – and a good stay-at-home mom is necessarily a woman who does not view herself as an economic unit separate from, and in competition with, her family, but as part of the family (so her well-being is tied to, rather than being in rivalry with, the family unit’s well-being – so her husband’s success increases her happiness, rather than threatening it….)
April 16th, 2012 | 9:40 am
The fact that a woman is on welfare is indicative that this woman has failed at all the tasks that make homemakers worth the money they aren’t paid…
Blake,
What contempt you have for poor women.
April 16th, 2012 | 2:41 pm
Blake,
What contempt you have for poor women.
On the contrary.
My family has seen more than one welfare recipient.
It’s deadly. A family that loves its members will keep them out of that hole.
It’s a death trap.
April 16th, 2012 | 2:50 pm
It’s a death trap.
Let me elaborate:
The persistent desire to see comments about things like the “dignity of work” and other criticisms of left wing handout culture as punitive fail to understand the motivations.
There is no way to give out such handouts without changing the person who receives those handouts. They must give up something of themselves in order to receive the charity.
This is because of the way the charity is dispensed, and also because of the strings put on the charity. Left wing advocates will argue that there are no strings put on the charity, but in order to believe this to be true, one must be a hardened and literal materialist – capable of dismissing all evidence not only in spiritual forces, but in psychological ones as well.
Dignity is not a euphemism here. In order to receive charity through left wing programs in the US, one must sell their dignity, their sense of future and sense of possibility, their sense of worth, and any identity that contains imagery of potential self-sufficiency. This is the price that we require as a prerequisite of welfare in the US.
The ugly reality is that whenever you set up a system dispensing free goodies, there are going to be people who want to cheat or game the system. So of necessity we must design a system that is inherently degrading – and even that is not adequate to eliminate people gaming the system; they do anyway.
The only way to design a system that does not have this flaw is to not make it about free goodies and giveaways – to help those in need, but to demand that somehow they give equal to what they get. This is one absolutely essential key to the dignity that a working man has, that a welfare recipient does not.
We actually demand more than merely opportunity cost, identity, potential, dignity, and sense of worth. We demand things we don’t even have the vocabulary to describe. We demand that struggling families break up rather than stick together. We demand that children be labeled and stigmatized in ways that separates them socially from mainstream society. We demand all sorts of inhumane things.
The one with contempt is the one who keeps these programs in place even though there’s ample evidence that the only people who are “helped” by such programs are Democratic politicians.
April 16th, 2012 | 3:57 pm
Yes, I know. It is more honorable for a woman to become a prostitute than to accept welfare. I have heard all this before.
April 16th, 2012 | 5:56 pm
Yes, I know. It is more honorable for a woman to become a prostitute than to accept welfare. I have heard all this before.
Are you suggesting that my criticisms are valid, but it doesn’t matter, because there is no possible alternative except to have no system at all (and then women will be forced into prostitution)?
Or are you suggesting that when I say people should give back, I’m suggesting we should force them into prostitution as a precondition for receiving assistance? (Because I’m not – I actually have in mind more successful programs that have two distinguishing features: the first being that anyone who wants to can participate – there’s no need to qualify or establish eligibility – and the second is that the aid doesn’t come free, but requires that people give back as they are able as a precondition of aid.)
My criticisms are not only valid but important. I am not arguing that I want women to be forced into prostitution, and I think it shows bad faith on your part to suggest such a thing.
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