Pundit Hilary Rosen committed a mortal sin of American politics: She spoke the truth with a microphone on.
“What you have,” she told Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night, “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?” Rosen observed. “His wife has actually never worked a day in her life.”
With that, the storm erupted.
Of course stay-at-home moms “work,” women from Barbara Bush to Michelle Obama quickly asserted. All that housekeeping and child care is a lot of work. President Obama, apparently needing more distance from Rosen’s comments, suggested Thursday that candidates’ spouses should be “off limits” altogether.
And surely, taking care of a family is hard work. In Ann Romney’s case, managing the very elaborate Romney establishment — five children, three or four houses and two Cadillacs — probably takes as much labor as most jobs in the market economy. Within 24 hours, Rosen was apologizing to all those women laboring in their homes for implying that they don’t work.
In the furor, everyone seemed to forget that unpaid mothers and household work are not what the discussion is about. Republicans are not talking about how jobs for stay-at-home moms have decreased under Obama.
They are talking about how paid work for women has suffered. Mitt Romney said this past week that 92 percent of the jobs lost under Obama were lost by women. Erick Erickson, a Republican commentator who joined Rosen on Cooper’s CNN show, argued that the president is responsible for the decline of women’s jobs in the paid workplace.
And work as she may, that’s one place Ann Romney has never been. She has spent her life in the private precincts of the marital workplace, where emotional ties replace the financial norms of the factory or office.
Now, she has emerged to campaign for her husband and to explain to him what women want. “I’ve had the fun of being out with my wife the last several days on the campaign trail,” Mitt Romney told Fox Newsthis month. “And she points out that as she talks to women, they tell her that their number one concern is the economy.”
At a recent campaign event, Romney said he wished his wife were there to help answer a question about female voters. “She says that she’s going across the country and talking with women, and what they’re talking about is the debt that we’re leaving the next generation and the failure of this economy to put people back to work.”
When Ann Romney’s husband, who faces a gender gap in some polls, uses her experience and insight as a megaphone for women’s concern over fewer paid jobs, he mistakenly assumes that all women are fungible. Which was, I take it, Rosen’s original point.
Although Ann Romney may be a fine spokesperson on some issues, the dirty little secret of angling for female votes is that while all women’s work, inside or outside the home, has the same worth, as Michelle Obama and Barbara Bush sweetly expressed, all women do not have the same interests. Women who work in the home do not have the same interest in the recovery of the formal job market as women who have to work for pay. Indeed, wage-earning women probably have more in common with their paycheck-dependent male co-workers on the subject of economic recovery than with household laborers such as Ann Romney.
Unemployment is not the only issue on which women in the formal workplace split from their informally occupied sisters. Equal pay is another. And that is more complicated for Mitt Romney, given his support of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who led the charge to repeal his state’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which protected women against pay discrimination. Recently, a Romney aide was unable to say whether the candidate supported the latest addition to federal equal-pay law, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which guarantees equal pay for equal work.
Women whose work consists of caring for their households and children don’t need to worry about being paid less than their male counterparts. First, they aren’t paid at all, in any formal sense, and second, unless their husbands take a male spouse alongside them — an unlikely social development — they won’t confront sex discrimination at their workplace. Actually, Romney himself, a proud member of the capitalist economy and of a religious minority with a history of discrimination, has more in common with female workers than his wife does in discouraging arbitrary workplace discrimination. Ann Romney huffily reminded her husband’s detractors that some of his best employees have been women. But they were his employees; why is he using his wife to get that message out?
Ann Romney could of course speak for some interests common to all women (and not common to men). All women, for example, have an interest in controlling their reproduction. They may choose to put the issue in the hands of some god, or they may choose to control it themselves, but it is an issue on which women as a group differ from men as a group. What might Ann Romney say about the interest of women in birth control?
Or in breast cancer detection and research, an area where women have an interest different from all but a tiny handful of men? When the Susan G. Komen foundation announced cuts to breast-cancer-related funding for Planned Parenthood, Mitt Romney might have had his wife address that issue, in which, as a breast cancer survivor, she happens to have a real personal stake.
Many women in the market economy share with women at home a desire for a more forgiving workplace, one where they could both work for pay and have better family lives. Maybe Ann Romney would like to address the relentless Republican opposition to the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Although Democrats, who are especially dependent on female voters in swing states, probably don’t think so, Rosen’s gaffe may be a blessing. It’s time to stop treating women as if we were one monolithic interest group. In the highly contested demographic of white female voters, married women such as Ann Romney who derive their livelihoods from the success of their husbands vote overwhelmingly for the GOP. And Republicans such as Wisconsin’s Walker tend to look after the interests of men, in, say, being paid more than women with the same job. Maybe Democrats ought to concentrate on those voters — single women, wage-earning women — who do have an interest in equal pay.
After a whirlwind few days, Rosen on Friday canceled a scheduled appearance on “Meet the Press.” In a statement, she explained that she had said everything she wanted to on the matter. “I apologized to Mrs. Romney and work-in-home moms for mistakenly giving the impression that I do not think their work is valuable. Of course it is. I will instead spend the weekend trying to explain to my kids the value of admitting a mistake and moving on.”
But what if Rosen could teach her kids something more valuable: what it means to say something true and difficult, and stand by it. Her comments were uncharacteristically tone-deaf. But her call to focus on those women who are really hurt by job losses was pitch-perfect.
Linda Hirshman is the author of “Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World” and the forthcoming “Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution.”
Ms Rosen was right and there really is no need to apologize for telling the truth. Ann Romney, as pleasant and gracious as she is appears to be is as tone deaf as her husband .Both were born into significant wealth and have lived lives insulated and isolate from the middle and lower class. While it is possible for people of great wealth to recognize, empathize and work on issues that concern the un-wealthy Ann and Mitt don’t appear not to have made that effort. That Mitt thinks Ann can be an advisor on issues concerning women who raise kids, work outside the home, juggle finances, cooking, cleaning, driving, sickness and exhaustion with no help and no vacations is indicative of his lack of understanding about the issues that effect 85% of the country that is middle and lower middle class.
Rosen was very unfortunate in speaking in a manner that allowed her opinion to be distorted by turning aspects of her speech into a soundbite. She never said raising children was easy (she is a mother herself after all). There is a huge difference between holding a job to make money and the job of raising children and that was the discussion at hand.
Anne Romney was supposedly a voice of the economic issues women face and Rosen was asking (maybe impolitely so) how is that possible? The Romney’s have vast economic freedoms. Anne Romney, in fact, never had to get out the door at 7AM while first ensuring the kids were ready for school, had their homework done, would be feed, etc. before going to a job, dealing with a workplace, a boss, etc. That’s a different kind of job. Clearly. Many women don’t have the freedom to make such choices that Anne Romney has been able to make.
On top of this, I find it sickening that we continue to demand apologies that don’t make a difference in the world. Manufacturing outrage in order to gain political ground is just another new issue we face with these for-profit 24 hour news channels/cycles.
“impolitely” being the keword. She meant to put down housewives, regardless of the above stated “that’s not what the issue is”. Militant feminists have been abusing and attacking housewives who choose to stay at home and focus on the domestic scene since as long as I can remember back in the 60s. Many women choose not to have a career and it is a valid choice. It may not be the real issue at hand in Rosen’s comment, but the dig was there just the same as always. Many women PREFER the domestic life and value it. Not all who choose this can really afford it, but they find a way to make it happen. The breakdown of the family being a goal of militant feminists, many women of the middle class were wrongly led out to work in the 80s when and all it did was cause enormous stress on the family and had children left alone to raise themselves. Only some women made enough for it to have been worthwhile. To all younger married women with children out there……you do what is best for you and your own household……..not what feminists tell you to do.
She meant to bring attention to the fact that Mrs. Romney has never had any economic concerns because she has never had to worry about losing a job or had any money concerns. She has no experience in the workplace, so has no idea what women face into today’s economy.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand. But too many are hypnotized by spin that they can’t think for themselves.
She is a housewife herself, so your entire rant is meaningless and baseless.
So, Linda Hirshman is standing up for all of the women who have lost jobs under the Obama regime.
Perhaps she failed to hear how the Romneys started out, and she really does not have a tender heart for people who EARN the money they have acquired. Her article and her credits say it all–liberalism reigns with her.
Poor Mitt, starting off dirt poor–wait! He was the son of an auto executive, a prominent politician. Grew up in an affluent suburb. Attended prep school and got funneled into college though he hadn’t been a star pupil. Had ministerial deferments that saved him from Vietnam. Gained experience interning for both parents’ political campaigns (his mother ran for senator).
Earned a law degree and soon joined Bain–soon becoming famous for leveraged buyouts. He’d buy existing firms with money mostly borrowed against their assets, and sell them off in a few years at a profit. CEOs got sweetheart deals. Workers got laid off.
For example: “Bain Capital’s acquisition of Ampad exemplified a deal where it profited handsomely from early payments and management fees, even though the subject company itself ended up going into bankruptcy. Dade Behring was another case where Bain Capital received an eightfold return on its investment, but the company itself was saddled with debt and laid off over a thousand employees before Bain Capital exited (the company subsequently went into bankruptcy, with more layoffs, before recovering and prospering). Bain was among the private equity firms that took the most fees in such cases.”
This how Romney “earned” his millions (billions?).
I hope you recognize the bias in your statement.
Once again, Ms. Romney is being minimalized in a manner I have not witnessed in the political arena in my adult life. If Ms. Romney had worked as a, say lawyer, would she then be able to comment on what a stay at home mother wants? If she were a corporate attorney, would she be competent to advise her husband on, say, health care reform? What about nutrition for children? If Ms. Romney had no children, would she be barred from advising her husband about women’s concerns about child care and education?
This pernicious idea that Ms. Romney may only offer an opinion on a subject that she has personally experienced has apparently caught on with the left. But it makes no sense. Is not Ms. Romney intelligent? Does she not have ears to hear, eyes to see and a mind to understand with? Can she not relay the concerns of the women she speaks with in a reliable and competent manner?
Oh, if she had worked outside the home–then she would not be held to the restriction of only speaking about what she has personally experienced. But she was a stay at home mother–so, of course, she is too stupid and out-of-touch to have anything valuable to say in this campaign.
It’s women who work outside the home who are the targets of the most vicious Republican attacks. Mrs. Romney has no experience working outside the home. No need for her to spend an instant worrying if her boss could fire her without cause, or pay her less because she’s female, or dictate what can be covered in her health insurance policy. Not a moment’s personal concern for her, about whether she dare leave a horrific job that provides health insurance she couldn’t get anywhere else.
Ann Romney has worked hard at being an executive’s and a politician’s wife. Neither are easy jobs. She does both gracefully.
Hilary Rosen was not criticizing Ann Romney. Read the entire transcript. She was criticizing Mitt Romney . A man who, if elected has promised to cut health services, income, educational opportunities, safety nets, job security, legal redress and child care for the average woman.
Whether or not at stay at home mom works or not is the red herring that Republicans have, with faux indignation dragged out to distract from policies that will hurt women and children.
That’s because……. Hillary feminist said “has never WORKED a day in her life” and she said it in a rude way. …… women who work “at the expense of” their children, wrongly following the militant feminist agenda (to break down the family), are NOT doing something “good”. Ms. feminist could have worded thing differently but she chose to sound belittling to women who don’t choose to focus on career over family life. “home making cookies” is also a phrase often used by liberal feminists who seek to “force” women who don’t want a career to abandon the domestic lifestyle they choose to have. It IS a major dividing point between liberal and conservative women. Someone mentioned above the experience of trying to get kids taken care of in the morning before leaving for work etc……….. many of us DON’T WANT THAT LIFESTYLE. (I have done it) We are able to make it (even if just barely) and that is the life putting family over career in importance that we choose. For the past 30 years (though I have worked …when the hours were right to not be negative to my family) I am fully aware that feminists do not allow me the choice to choose the domestic life. Many working women of the 80s ended up divorced. That is just what the feminists wanted with their humanist anti-Christian agenda. Some of us are highly sensitized to it. We know their rhetoric very well. Feminists do have a well-known agenda to break down the traditional family. This may not have been Rosen’s main point in her recent statements, but the standard feminist propaganda was there.
It wasn’t a discussion about lifestyle. It was a discussion about economic concerns. Work refered to wage-earning work, obviously. The only one espousing rhetoric is you.
“Once again, Ms. Romney is being minimalized in a manner I have not witnessed in the political arena in my adult life.”
You didn’t pay attention to the “swift-boating” of a decorated soldier did you?
Fox News minimizes our First Lady every single day, so don’t give me that bull.
Being from the actual working class…I am qualified to state that neither Ann or Mitt have ever been part of the “American Workforce” ! Let alone understand our plight ! “God save America” if Mitt is ever elected president !
OhOh bama=Jeremiah Wright=Van Jones=Al Sharpton=Louis Farrakan=Saul Alinsky=OhOh bama=George Soros=Marxism???? Are you and this country worth more than this type of tyranny?
Really weird math… an example of the sort of tyranny that this sort of irrationality posing as rational thought would create, if Republicans were elected.
but they are great at firing people ‘in’ the workforce…..
That’s funny. I ,too am from a working class family,and do not see how a President and his wife,who have received almost everything they have for free,makes them a friend of the working class. This country would be a lot better off with successful families like the Romney’s,than they would with people like the Obama’s who would not be anywhere if not propped up by the government. The Romney’s are fine,imperfect,people, and would make a great,first family. BTW, I am middle class, and happen to like my, “plight”. If you do not like yours,you may have made some poor choices in your life which are no fault of mine or anybody else’s but your own.
Thank you Hillary Rosen for saying that Ann Romney doesn’t have the experience necessary to comment on women who work on jobs outside the home. Thank you CNN,ABC,and CBS news channels for pushing this idea as well. Where were you in the 2008 presidential campaign when OhOh bama commented on his more abundant leadership that he and the major news channels were stating to the public compared to former Governor Sarah Palin? One sided argument and with delusionable reality.
Few people who don’t have to work for weekly paycheck can relate to the economic challenges of those who have no choice, male, female or otherwise.
Many people have lost their jobs…everyone must understand that you cannot vote once every four years and expect change. The Presidential election is nothing but a front man for international issues. We beat up the president for things congress cannot agree on. The next president will have to deal with the same issues and same critics. We have to breath fresh air into congress by voting out the old senators that has held those positions for decades. We need compromise to make change.
I think the newer members of Congress are actually the problem, the ones that graduated from the University of ALEC
What an age when one has to apologize for telling the truth.
Hilary Rosen didn’t bring up the subject of Ann Romney. Mitt Romney did. Then in a typical GOP move to demonize the truth the republicans blamed democrats for reacting to it.
The real Irony here is that Ann Romney never raised her kids at all. Their many NANNIES raised those kids. So it is very true that Ann Romney never worked a day in her life, the NANNIES DID. Just more LIES from the Romney Family.
I think that people miss understand Romney when he said he listened to his wife. She talks to women and then tells him what women are saying to him. Also just because she has money does not mean she is not a working woman. Good heavens she is a wife and mother even is she is rich she still has the job of taking care of her family. There have been many wealthy women who did not work out of the home to be wives of a president. Also so a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints she has had many calling in the church that have her working with women of all classes and situations. I was a stay at home mom until my children went to school then I taught school for 18 years. It is a big job whether you work or stay at home. Being a mother and wife is a big job. I am a democrat and think your attack of Ann is unfair you don’t know what she does or doesn’t do.
Mary: The current Republican indignation has been ginned up so you will believe that Ms. Rosen was belittling Ann Romney and stay at home moms. Ms Rosen was doing neither. She was criticizing Mitt Romney and his anti-family policies. Read the transcript instead of listening to the fake hysteria.
You didn’t listen to the interview, did you? You simply took the Republican indignation added your own bigotry and ran with it. Your comment is neither intelligent or worthy.
At this point it doesn’t matter if MS Rosen was right or wrong Oboma has thrown her under the bus and she will NEVER be allowed in the White House again. BTW what does she know about the average woman? She is a rich lesbian lawyer who purchased her kids. I really don’t think she speaks for the average woman.
Unlike Ann Romney, she didn’t claim to speak for or to the average woman. She was actually criticizing Mitt Romney’s policies.
“Or in breast cancer detection and research, an area where women have an interest different from all but a tiny handful of men?” You must mean the tiny group of men who get it…not the HUGE number of men who support their loved ones with it.
That said, to all my friends in our base who still think “women belong in the home:” nothing is going to turn back the clock to what, you believe, was a better time in America.
Feminists have managed to change society so that now it is hardly possible to be a stay at home mom. But it can be changed back to the natural way that has worked best since ancient times. The modern family is so torn apart these days “because of feminist and radical liberal agendas”. They are trying to return the world to ancient Paganism–a lifestyle of perversion and other such things. They have been systematically breaking down the family and Christianity for 30 years. A few women have made it to high paying careers where they make a lot of money and can afford to pay for services (propaganda that was put out in the early 80s). The majority of women are just stressed, trying to work at a career and take care of their family (unable to afford to pay for nannies etc.). If you let them lead you to divorce, and into a situation where you now have created a lifestyle where you have to work (at a job you don’t enjoy), I don’t understand why you ever thought the feminists were people you should follow? Obviously this battle is not really about recent comments made by a radical liberal feminist. It is an opportunity for 30 years of pent up discontent (with feminist agendas) to be vented once again. Although I do not like liberals, I do admire Michele Obama’s statements when her husband first took office, that she was “not missing any of her daughter’s recitals” etc. for her new role in the White House. In other words, her children come first before the job. And that is the way it should be. Her strong maternal instincts do come through. Hilllary Clinton, on the other hand gives the impression that her career is her entire identity. That a woman can achieve a high position…..so what? There have been queens in the history of the world who have run countries. Who cares? The women who run strong family oriented households are the basic framework of society. The broken down society we have now is because women followed the wrong people, who deliberately derailed them. It is only a few women who can have a high level career that is not at the expense of their family. If you have children and a marriage, THAT is your priority. The job is only to assist your family. If you need to be Hillary Clinton, don’t have children. And don’t insist that all other women have to have that goal. If the lack of support and cooperation tof all women will keep you from being a Hillary Clinton (and that’s why you feel you have to force others towards “your goal”, just too bad. And yes, the clock CAN be turned back to what is natural and what is really wanted by normal women. It was OBVIOUSLY “a better time in America”. This short experiment with the unnatural lifestyle will not last.
Not really sure what “normal” women are. You are right, tho…it was a “better time in America”…for *some* Americans. Today, not withstanding the few remaining radical feminists, women can work in the home because they want to…not because that’s all that’s left to them.
Right on. It’s all about autonomy and choice. Another benefit of the inroads made by feminism is that dads no longer are stigmatized if they make the choice to stay home and raise the kids. The far right gets confused when the sexes are considered equal under the law because it undermines their determination to dominate and control women.
If you think it is important for mothers to be able to stay home and raise children then you need to advocate for the wages and tax policies that will allow families to have only one bread winner. Unfortunately, the anti-feminist, pro stay at home mothers are also Republicans that are committed to low wage, anti-union, anti-family policies and a tax structure that favors the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower classes.
Irregardless to Ann’s life and finances. Most stay at home moms are the ones who take care of the finances. That is they purchase items, for the home and all the needs of the family. they balance check books and they make financial decisions. Not to mention they are dependent on the income of the husband who may have been affected by the downed economy. Being a stay at home mom doesn’t mean you are ignorant of the economic situation of this country. You are probably more attuned to the economy. Because lets face it you are in the economy. You have friends who confide in you. You have your husband and other family who confide in you. You have access and time (only if you have kids in school) to the internet and are able to do research about what is going on. Unlike those male or female in the workforce. Who can only do their research while on their off time. By insulting Ann Romney for being a stay at home mom she insulted other women who choose this as their life’s work as well. It is the most important job anyone can ever have. No other job is as important than being a mother or father. Both are vastly important. Rosen needs to learn how to speak in a way that gets her point across without it being so easily misunderstood. Besides what does she know about stay at home moms. She most likely has never actually taken care of her kids and she probably has a nanny and an accountant to take care of her kids and finances. The moral to my statement. Being a stay at home mom does not make you ignorant to the plight of those who work outside the home.
Rosen did not insult Ann Romney or any stay at home mother. Maybe you should read what you wrote. In one sentence you say that Rosen should not insult Ann Romney and then further down you say that Rosen should chose her words to better get her point across. Seems to me that you got her point. Why do you continue the argument and the confusion.
I agree, and I would add that a return to the 1950’s lifestyle where the majority of mothers were home tending to their households and raising their children (a valuable thing for society as a whole), would eliminate the need for problems in the workplace regarding women. That world (an era when the porn industry was not empowered and most people were good and decent people), was a much better world and certainly better for the children–who lived “a wholesome lifestyle”. That is the lifestyle that I, and many others, want. In that world, and throughout time, the very poor have always had to work, and always will. What changed in the 1980s is that the middle class women, who didn’t have to work, were made to feel that they must leave the domestic life (because a handful of feminists who were anti family wanted to be able to have high paying careers…. needed because they didn’t have husbands). They have now changed society so that many more women no longer have a choice. Or so they think…… To women who are not enjoying their careers outside the home, or for whom a job is causing too much stress on the family………….. go home! Start a home-based business. Or work only part-time, if you really need to. Divorce for stupid reasons also reinforced the need for more women to have jobs. It was all planned by the feminists as part of break down the family… to help force more women to leave their homes. They have a carefully calculated plan. Don’t follow them! A job is for the benefit of your family, not at the expense of it. Invest in your marriage. If you listen to feminists they will lead you to divorce (on purpose). This can of worms has been re-opened because it’s something that has been festering for 30 years. The original feminists after the Civil War (when some poor women needed to work to survive, but weren’t allowed to) is when the feminists did something needed. But forcing “all” women to work later in the 2nd wave, was not something good for society as a whole.
Nice anti-feminist lecture. It doesn’t speak to this issue as Rosen wasn’t criticizing stay at home mothers. And if you think Romney will advocate for your point of view you should check out the videos where he tells women they ought to work outside the home for the benefits they will gain.
Hilary Rosen has two adopted children. She did not insult Ann Romney. She did not criticize stay at home moms. She was commenting on Mitt Romney’s anti-family policies. Read the entire transcript.
Ann Romney is and has always been a woman of great privilege. However, she has shown herself to be nothing more than a shill for her husband and for his harmful policies. Given her serious health struggles and her cadillac healthcare, one would think that she would have the humanity to distinguish herself by championing the plight of those less fortunate than she who also have serious health struggles with minimal to no healthcare coverage.
There is nothing admirable about how Ann Romney has joined in the spin and manipulation of Rosen’s poorly chosen words. Instead of taking the high road she has sunk to the lowest political level, bragging about how this dustup has been her best birthday gift. I do not think the American people so stupid and gullible.
Remember Elizabeth Edwards, who, despite all of her many struggles always spoke to her own privilege and never gave up working tirelessly for the average person and for their struggles. Quite the contrast.
Tell Hillary Rosen all is forgiven,Anne re-gifted (she’s so phony she make Mitt Romney look real).
I will believe the Republicans high indignation on the part of stay at home mothers when they stop enacting anti-family, anti-union, low wage, punitive tax policies on the middle and lower class so that women can stay home and raise children. Until they do, their support for women in the home is just political hot air and smells fetid.