Lack of context confuses statement's true message
Context is important. Last week’s political firestorm over comments made by pundit Hilary Rosen — who, if we are to take the media and both the Romney and Obama campaigns at their word, insulted stay-at-home moms everywhere by suggesting what they do isn’t “work” — will not mean much for either campaign in the long run. However, if we look at Rosen’s statement closely, it does tell us something about the sad state of political discourse in our country today.
Rosen’s comments, made during an interview with CNN journalist Anderson Cooper, were as follows:
“What you have 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? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. 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 why do we worry about their future.”
I wouldn’t normally include such a long quote in a column, but that’s the point: The media love a sound bite; a few words that pack a big punch. What was mostly reported was the phrase “never worked a day in her life.” These words were indeed badly chosen. Of course Ann Romney “worked” to raise her five children. Rosen should have said that Ann Romney “never held a job” or “never was part of the workforce.” Certainly that’s what she seemed to have meant, based on the full quote. She does not appear to have intended to say that motherhood isn’t work.
Rather, she was questioning whether Ann Romney is actually qualified to speak for the millions of women for whom staying at home is not an option. These women need to have jobs in order to provide for their families. In taking umbrage at these statements, do the Romneys mean to say that women in the workforce aren’t raising their children effectively?
There’s an even larger context in which this whole faux-outrage needs to be examined: Mitt Romney’s own record. While campaigning, he has said he wants to “increase the work requirement” for mothers on welfare so that they can “have the dignity of work.” Does this make motherhood, in Romney’s view, only considered work when done by the rich? How is it that Romney’s wife can claim to have real work experience on account of her being a mother, but poor women who stay at home with their children are being deprived of that justification?
I’m not writing this to defend Hilary Rosen or the Obama campaign, which was as quick in repudiating Rosen as Romney was in attacking her. I prefer Obama to Romney only inasmuch as I’d prefer losing an arm to losing a leg. The real villain here is the media, which in this case has ignored the truth.
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