Editor's note: Andy Hinds is a stay-at-home dad to twin girls born in June of 2009. Before the kids were born, he made a living as a freelance carpenter and adjunct English professor. While watching his kids, he writes at his personal blog, Beta Dad, as well as DadCentric, Aiming Low, and several local print publications in his current hometown of San Diego. He also wastes time on Facebook and Twitter.
Mitt Romney has a problem with women. The margin by which they prefer Obama over him is large enough to override the advantage Romney has with male voters and deliver victory to the incumbent.
It should be no surprise, then, that the Romney team used the occasion of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, to reach out to women. They trotted out some of the most powerful women in the GOP during the week of speechifying, including Susana Martinez, Nikki Haley, Kelly Ayotte and Condoleezza Rice.
But during these speeches, in which women were rightfully celebrated for their many and varied achievements, there were virtually no mentions of any political issues specifically of concern to women voters. That is, unless those women had kids and identified primarily as mothers.
In Mitt Romney’s speech on Friday, he gave a shout-out to the ladies, mentioning all the women speakers who had showed up on his behalf as well as all the other women he had hired and mentored over the years.
Naturally, he saved his wife, Ann, for last, holding her up as an ideal of womanhood and motherhood and saying of her work as a stay-at-home mom: “I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine. And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine. And as America saw Tuesday night, Ann would have succeeded at anything she wanted to.” (Side note: I wonder if Mitt thinks my job as a stay-at-home dad is more important than his.)
Ann Romney’s speech about love on Tuesday was the centerpiece of the Romney campaign’s effort to reach out to women, or more specifically, to moms. She talked about the love for her man, the love for her country and finally “that love so deep only a mother can fathom it — the love we have for our children and our children's children.”
She enumerated the ways in which moms “always have to work a little harder, to make everything right” -- the implication being that moms do more of the parenting, and certainly more of the worrying, than dads do.
Among her claims as to the burdens of motherhood was this statement: “You know what it's like to work a little harder during the day to earn the respect you deserve at work and then come home to help with that book report which just has to be done.” After listing several more responsibilities that make moms “sigh a little more than men,” she wrapped up the mother-as-martyr segment of the speech thus: “I'm not sure if men really understand this, but I don't think there's a woman in America who really expects her life to be easy. In our own ways, we all know better!”
“And that’s fine,” she added. “We don’t want easy.” Then she segued into pointing out how the terrible economy has exacerbated the mother’s plight beyond the acceptable levels of drudgery, and how Daddy is going to make it all better once he’s elected president.
A number of my dad blogger friends bristled at Ms. Romney’s assertion that there is a special, more powerful love that only mothers can feel for their children, and that mothers have to work harder than fathers because that superior capacity for love—and perhaps their male partner’s laziness—compels them to do more of the unpaid family labor.
As for myself, I was unsurprised that the party that lately seems to be going out of its way to alienate female voters would, while trying to reach out to women, strongly reinforce traditional gender roles. By way of outrage, all I could muster was an eye-roll.
Of course, men are capable of loving their children and grandchildren as much as women are: to argue otherwise is like saying that women can’t do math. Of course, many dads do as much or more of the parenting as their children’s moms. Of course, women don’t “always [my emphasis] have to work a little harder” than men, “to make things right.” Does it even bear discussing? Okay, maybe it does a little bit.
I’ll grant that in many American families, women still do the bulk of the parenting; and in many families they do so while working just as many hours outside of the home as their partners do. But that trend is changing, with men becoming demonstrably more involved in their children’s lives as well as the management of the home.
We’re moving toward a more equitable sharing of work within families, and it seems like we should do everything we can to keep up that momentum.
Dads can love their kids just as much and as deeply as moms can. We’re also perfectly capable of remembering where the emergency room is and being unaccountably taken by surprise at how quickly our kids grow up. Maybe if Ms. Romney raised her expectations for fathers, instead of encouraging them to be accessories to a degree of inequity she deems “fine,” her nights wouldn’t be filled with such deep, saintly sighs.
Ultimately then, what should be the most troubling aspect of Ms. Romney’s speech and the GOP’s attempt to reach out to women voters in general, is their embracing the narrative of women as eternal martyrs. In claiming that moms “always have to work a little harder,” and then following up with “and that’s fine,” this ultra-wealthy stay-at-home mom is valorizing the status quo—in which many women are indeed getting the shaft — even as much of society is moving beyond it.
In effect, she’s saying “We know that women (by which I mean “moms”) will always be overworked and underappreciated; but if it were just a little easier to afford groceries, we would have no reason to complain. It’s just the way things are.”
Instead of addressing gender inequity as a structural problem that calls for real solutions, or even encouraging what seems to be a natural evolution away from it (at least within families), the Romneys write it off as a by-product of the awesome, terrible love that only a mom can feel toward her children.
I’ll give Mr. Romney the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn’t being condescending and cynical in saying that his wife’s job is harder than his, but that kind of pandering is unlikely to win over women voters who actually want to see policies that make their jobs easier, whether or not they have kids. Their first misstep was conflating “women’s issues” with “moms’ issues.” Their second one was arguing that women should accept that men just have it easier and are incapable or unwilling to work with women (moms and non-moms alike) toward gender equity.
Mitt Romney has a problem with women. The margin by which they prefer Obama over him is large enough to override the advantage Romney has with male voters and deliver victory to the incumbent.
It should be no surprise, then, that the Romney team used the occasion of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, to reach out to women. They trotted out some of the most powerful women in the GOP during the week of speechifying, including Susana Martinez, Nikki Haley, Kelly Ayotte and Condoleezza Rice.
But during these speeches, in which women were rightfully celebrated for their many and varied achievements, there were virtually no mentions of any political issues specifically of concern to women voters. That is, unless those women had kids and identified primarily as mothers.
In Mitt Romney’s speech on Friday, he gave a shout-out to the ladies, mentioning all the women speakers who had showed up on his behalf as well as all the other women he had hired and mentored over the years.
Naturally, he saved his wife, Ann, for last, holding her up as an ideal of womanhood and motherhood and saying of her work as a stay-at-home mom: “I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine. And I knew without question, that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine. And as America saw Tuesday night, Ann would have succeeded at anything she wanted to.” (Side note: I wonder if Mitt thinks my job as a stay-at-home dad is more important than his.)
Ann Romney’s speech about love on Tuesday was the centerpiece of the Romney campaign’s effort to reach out to women, or more specifically, to moms. She talked about the love for her man, the love for her country and finally “that love so deep only a mother can fathom it — the love we have for our children and our children's children.”
She enumerated the ways in which moms “always have to work a little harder, to make everything right” -- the implication being that moms do more of the parenting, and certainly more of the worrying, than dads do.
Among her claims as to the burdens of motherhood was this statement: “You know what it's like to work a little harder during the day to earn the respect you deserve at work and then come home to help with that book report which just has to be done.” After listing several more responsibilities that make moms “sigh a little more than men,” she wrapped up the mother-as-martyr segment of the speech thus: “I'm not sure if men really understand this, but I don't think there's a woman in America who really expects her life to be easy. In our own ways, we all know better!”
“And that’s fine,” she added. “We don’t want easy.” Then she segued into pointing out how the terrible economy has exacerbated the mother’s plight beyond the acceptable levels of drudgery, and how Daddy is going to make it all better once he’s elected president.
A number of my dad blogger friends bristled at Ms. Romney’s assertion that there is a special, more powerful love that only mothers can feel for their children, and that mothers have to work harder than fathers because that superior capacity for love—and perhaps their male partner’s laziness—compels them to do more of the unpaid family labor.
As for myself, I was unsurprised that the party that lately seems to be going out of its way to alienate female voters would, while trying to reach out to women, strongly reinforce traditional gender roles. By way of outrage, all I could muster was an eye-roll.
Of course, men are capable of loving their children and grandchildren as much as women are: to argue otherwise is like saying that women can’t do math. Of course, many dads do as much or more of the parenting as their children’s moms. Of course, women don’t “always [my emphasis] have to work a little harder” than men, “to make things right.” Does it even bear discussing? Okay, maybe it does a little bit.
I’ll grant that in many American families, women still do the bulk of the parenting; and in many families they do so while working just as many hours outside of the home as their partners do. But that trend is changing, with men becoming demonstrably more involved in their children’s lives as well as the management of the home.
We’re moving toward a more equitable sharing of work within families, and it seems like we should do everything we can to keep up that momentum.
Dads can love their kids just as much and as deeply as moms can. We’re also perfectly capable of remembering where the emergency room is and being unaccountably taken by surprise at how quickly our kids grow up. Maybe if Ms. Romney raised her expectations for fathers, instead of encouraging them to be accessories to a degree of inequity she deems “fine,” her nights wouldn’t be filled with such deep, saintly sighs.
Ultimately then, what should be the most troubling aspect of Ms. Romney’s speech and the GOP’s attempt to reach out to women voters in general, is their embracing the narrative of women as eternal martyrs. In claiming that moms “always have to work a little harder,” and then following up with “and that’s fine,” this ultra-wealthy stay-at-home mom is valorizing the status quo—in which many women are indeed getting the shaft — even as much of society is moving beyond it.
In effect, she’s saying “We know that women (by which I mean “moms”) will always be overworked and underappreciated; but if it were just a little easier to afford groceries, we would have no reason to complain. It’s just the way things are.”
Instead of addressing gender inequity as a structural problem that calls for real solutions, or even encouraging what seems to be a natural evolution away from it (at least within families), the Romneys write it off as a by-product of the awesome, terrible love that only a mom can feel toward her children.
I’ll give Mr. Romney the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn’t being condescending and cynical in saying that his wife’s job is harder than his, but that kind of pandering is unlikely to win over women voters who actually want to see policies that make their jobs easier, whether or not they have kids. Their first misstep was conflating “women’s issues” with “moms’ issues.” Their second one was arguing that women should accept that men just have it easier and are incapable or unwilling to work with women (moms and non-moms alike) toward gender equity.