Saturday, April 21, 2012

The Slugfest: Hilary Rosen vs Ann Romney


If you haven’t heard of Democratic Strategist Hilary Rosen or the comments she made about Ann Romney never having worked a day in her life, then you aren’t paying attention.  It has been all over the news lately.  Her words started off a virtual ‘fire-storm’ as the pundits would call it.  Everyone from the right and the left has scrambled to be heard on this issue.  And yet, the excessive heat hasn’t caused the nuclear core of political punditry to reach critical mass and melt a hole to the core of the earth. Shocking.

As soon as the words were uttered you would have thought Atlas faltered in his grip on our fragile planet. But then the day grew dark in natural order and the sun rose in the morning just as it always had.  But the indignation continued as Democrats distanced themselves from Ms. Rosen’s opinions while Republicans attributed them to the president and his staff.  And the flurry of angry rhetoric continued again through the night and into the next day and so on and so on, ad nauseum.

You may ask yourself what was in Hilary Rosen’s words that created such pandemonium that conservative mothers were shielding their children’s ears and shouting in disgust.  If you must know I’ll tell you.  But first, prepare yourself, send your children from the room for it’s too hideous to be allowed into the light of day, and because the quote follows these three periods…
“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.”

Crazy, Right?

Okay, okay, slow down a minute. Take a deep breath and hold it because I have a confession to make: I didn’t have the same visceral reaction as the rest of the country.  That’s right.  When I heard her comments I found myself nodding my head in agreement.  And for a while I couldn’t understand why.  It isn’t that I couldn’t foresee the Wrath of the Con brewing in the wings.  The minute her statement met the blogosphere I imagined Rush Limbaugh’s puffed up face and disconnected utterances, spewing more fury at the Democratic Party.  And though I recognized the blitzkrieg assembling on the right side of the aisle, I still didn’t understand why.  Was I missing something?  Surely I had to ponder this more with an honest eye on my own values and experiences as a woman who has both worked and been one of those stay-at-home moms.

Shouldn’t I be defending women who choose nobly to stay at home with their children and raise them with values that ensure their success in the world?  Of course I agree with women who make it their responsibility to raise their offspring rather than allowing society to instill their own sense of right and wrong.  And I do agree that being a mother is a difficult job.  Jubilant interaction with other adults and coworkers is instantly replaced by baby-talk and reading a whole math textbook in order to assist your child with his homework. (Damn you new math!  You’re destroying my aging brain cells and the faith my son once had in me!)  Stay-at-home moms give up a lot to be there for their children. 

As I’ve thought about this, and the more I’ve listened to what is being said in the media with regard to this matter, though, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not the one missing something, It’s everyone else.  You see, the reason I was silently agreeing with Ms. Rosen was because of the content of the discussion, not because I thought she, in any way, believed that stay-at-home moms have it easy.  What Ms. Rosen was saying was that there is a HUGE difference between moms who work and moms who don’t. 

A mom who works outside the home, in most cases, doesn’t have a choice.  It is a matter of feeding and clothing her children and providing health insurance for them that causes her to rise at 5:00am each morning to start her day.  After she has dressed and prepared to leave for work she gets her kids ready to start their day as well. 

She worries about her children as much as the mom who works inside the home.  But she has other things to add to her worries than her daily responsibilities at the office, store, gravel pit, etc… such as whether or not her children have made it home safely from school, or will she return to an empty house and wonder where her babies are.  From personal experience I can tell you that, while she is performing her duties at work and ensuring she’s doing so at a level at or above her male counterparts (so that she can maintain her worthiness status at her job), she’s also worried about whether her kids are finishing their homework and how it was reflecting on their grades.  Because, you see, working mothers care as much as stay-at-home mothers about how well their kids do in school.  But they usually stay up late helping their kids to succeed only to wake up early, early the next morning and start all over again.

The biggest difference, however, between moms in the home and outside the home is the part where she is wondering if her paycheck will be enough to cover their expenses.  Equally concerning is the fear that she isn’t being paid the same as her male counterparts for performing the same tasks.  Is she devalued because she lacks the testosterone to grow a beard or a pair of huevos and instead grew children in her womb and made the more difficult choice of helping her husband to provide a decent life for them?  No wonder there are more women choosing contraceptives to control the timing of their first child in order to establish themselves financially. 

And now, the conservatives who are shouting from the rooftops about the value of women who stay at home with their children are also trying to cut off easier access to birth control through an employer’s insurance, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs.  These same conservatives are voting against fair pay for women and easy access to the legal system in the event they are discriminated against due to the estrogen they excrete.  These types of legislation that effect working women much more than stay-at-home moms are being proposed by Republicans across this country and Mr. Romney has been either silent on these matters or vehemently opposed to the ones that adversely affect working women across the United States.  Has Ann Romney whispered into his ear for these women?  When I hear the comments coming from his lips I can honestly say that if she is, he isn’t listening.  Should I be surprised? Not at all. During this election cycle I have witnessed the laws enacted and the wars being waged in opposition to the strong opinions of the people who will be voting in November.  Will I be shocked if Mitt Romney doesn’t win the presidency?  In no way, shape or form.  But that’s Only My Opinion.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Weighing in on Trayvon and George


I’ve intentionally stayed far from the argument of who was right or who was wrong in the battle over Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.  That isn’t to say I haven’t voiced my opinion in the private confines of my own home, but I haven’t made any public attempt to weigh in on the discussion as there was so much to digest and I hope not to put my foot in my mouth when I’m posting on this blog.  I can honestly say I haven’t always been successful at straying from the foot ingesting processes, though.

What has swayed my decision to go public on this matter are the recent developments in this very controversial and explosive situation.  First there is the matter of media interest.  Of course the voracious hounds would have their say in what is transpiring daily.  Sensationalism is key to winning the ratings game.  But when I read that Fox News referred to a group of protestors – Neo Nazis calling themselves the National Socialist Movement – as a civil rights group patrolling Sanford, I was dumbfounded.  Since when have Neo Nazis been considered champions of civil rights?  So when George Zimmerman decided to give Sean Hannity, political pundit of the Fox News Channel, an exclusive interview, I began to shake my head.  Fox has already shown their bias where race and the circumstances of this case are concerned. It certainly doesn’t help him one bit.

Additionally, the idea that Zimmerman’s attorneys – the ones who have spent most of their time turning the discussion about this situation into a trial on the actions of Martin rather than centering the discourse around focusing on the facts – have decided to dump their client due to his erratic behavior makes me scratch my chin.  It appears that Zimmerman has set up an account through Paypal and Face Book to help pay for his defense, granted interviews without notifying or garnering approval from legal counsel as well as cutting off all contact with his attorneys.  This form of behavior is a sign that Zimmerman is not working on all cylinders. 

First off, let me say that I was born into privilege.  Not because of money as there was little of that when I was growing up, but because of the pasty color of my skin.  The opportunities for me were far greater than others of minority status, greater than those afforded others in this country such as Trayvon Martin.  When I was in high school, if I had been caught with an empty baggy I couldn’t have imagined the administration of my school questioning the residue of that baggy, let alone testing it for traces of marijuana as they did with Trayvon.  As an adult I have found that, if I fall and end up on welfare, those who sit in their towers to judge the underlings will say, “There, there, all will be fine…” If my skin were more of an olive hue or any number of shades darker, the discussion would be quite different.  In this day and age, as with the others before, I would be vilified and denigrated.  Why is that?

I cringed when I heard the statement by temporarily removed police chief, Bill Lee, saying that he wished Trayvon had continued on to his father’s home and not confronted Zimmerman.  He said the outcome would have been different.  And yet, all along I have thought, if only Zimmerman had listened to the police dispatcher and not followed Martin, the outcome would have been different.  Why was the onerous on Trayvon, a 17 year old kid, to make the right choice in this matter rather than the grown-up? He was being followed by a man, an adult with a gun, who had no reason to follow him.  He was probably tired of being labeled because of the color of his skin and tired of being afraid to walk in his own neighborhood because there was always the chance someone would mistake him for a thug because he was darker than you or I.

I think back to when I was his age.  I was a respected, yet feisty, high school student who wouldn’t have thought twice about confronting someone who threatened me or any of the others around me.  I had been known to do so on many occasions in my past.  Had I been followed by a George Zimmerman I would have been no different than Martin and would have turned around to ask him why.  In my circumstance, however, my skin would have been pale in the rain and encroaching dusk.  Zimmerman would have thought twice about raising the weapon to my chest or wrestling me to the ground.  As a matter of fact – I have no doubt – there wouldn’t have even been a conversation about whether or not he would have shot me because the fact remains, being that I’m not a person of color, he wouldn’t have even considered me a threat.  George Zimmerman would have never followed me through that complex because he wouldn’t have made the prejudgment that I was a threat to his community because I’m not black. 

As human beings we can’t help ourselves when we size up another person.  We learn from an early age to analyze any and all situations prior to jumping in, protecting ourselves from a nest of rattlesnakes if we’re not careful about what we do or where we leap.  On that fateful night in February, George Zimmerman sized up Trayvon Martin and made a grave error in his assessment.  His greatest mistake was in not leaving it alone and following the boy until one of them turned up dead.  And now he compounds his troubles by continuing to jump into the fray, or a nest of rattlers as I see it.  All who are involved in this matter should come clean and do the right thing.  All of the evidence should be honestly presented and allowed to be reviewed by an unbiased eye.  And then, whatever justice is necessary within the confines of current state and federal laws, should be administered fairly and expeditiously.  No more, no less.  Only then can this nation begin to move beyond this and have open and honest discussions about how we can change so that something like this doesn’t ever happen again.