Hilary Rosen won’t back down from her absurd statements yesterday on CNN, in which she essentially said that Ann Romney couldn’t be a good spokesperson for women because she was a stay-at-home mom. Now, she’s taken to CNN.com to make her case in print.
Her argument is just as insulting as you’d imagine. She begins by saying that being a mother is “the hardest job I have ever had” – though, of course, she denies the same badge of honor to Ann Romney. But then she moves to her real point: Republicans don’t care about women because they don’t support polices “that would actually help women.” Presumably, she means big government spending policies designed to redistribute wealth. Because when it comes to tax cuts – the single easiest way to return money to families – she’s against them. When it comes to giving greater local control to families on education–the easiest way to improve education–she’s against it (and so is her partner, Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, who stands four-square against any educational reform that would actually help children).
But she’s not done yet. She continues: “Now let’s be clear on one thing. I have no judgments about women who work outside the home vs. women who work in the home raising a family. I admire women who can stay home and raise their kids full time. I even envy them sometimes. It is a wonderful luxury to have the choice. But let’s stipulate that it is NOT a choice that most women have in America today.”
Well, that’s quite a judgment there, isn’t it? It’s a “luxury” to stay at home with the kids. It’s not a choice most women can make. In other words, only rich, pampered women like Ann Romney can stay home with their children. The rest of us women, says Rosen, work for a living.
That’s insanely patronizing. And it’s also insanely wrong. Life is full of choices. Choosing whether to get married. Choosing whether to get pregnant. Choosing whether to stay at home. Maintaining that women have no choice at any point along this line is simple sexism. And maintaining that choosing to get married, get pregnant, and stay home makes one an unfit spokesperson for women is disgusting.
Make no mistake – that’s precisely what Rosen is doing here. In fact, she states it outright:
[I]s Ann Romney Mitt’s touchstone for women who are struggling economically or not? Nothing in Ann Romney’s history as we have heard it — hardworking mom she may have been — leads me to believe that Mitt has chosen the right expert to get feedback on this problem he professes to be so concerned about.
Basically, Rosen is calling Ann Romney a Faux Woman for not working. Apparently, Ann can’t be a source for Mitt on how women feel about the economy, because she’s either not a woman or not in the economy. Once again, this is both reprehensible and stupid.
Clearly, Ann Romney can speak to the concerns of women about the economy because she’s a stay-at-home mother. Mothers don’t just work hard. They make financial decisions. They affect interstate commerce. They make the buying decisions for the family. They make educational decisions. They aren’t barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. They aren’t slaves.
But Rosen thinks they are. They shouldn’t be allowed to speak for women. The only real women are those who agree with Hilary Rosen. The only real women are women who want Planned Parenthood funded with taxpayer cash, support abortion-on-demand (including the right to abort based on sex, which certainly skews against women), and want universal healthcare.
Pathetic. But that’s the way Obama’s Democratic National Committee thinks. Their strategy is divide and conquer. The only real blacks support Barack Obama. The only real women support Barack Obama. The only real Latinos support Barack Obama.
Here’s the truth: the only real bullies and bigots in this presidential campaign support Barack Obama.
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