My Twitter feed was on fire after an appearance last night on CNN's AC360, where I said that I thought it was wrong for Mitt Romney to be using his wife as his guide to women's economic struggles when she "had never worked a day in her life." Oh my, you should read the tweets and the hate mail I got after that. The accusations were flying. I don't know what it means to be a mom (I have 2 children). I obviously don't value the work that a mother does and how hard it is (the hardest job I have ever had); and I absolutely hate anyone who doesn't have the same views as I do (hate is a strong word).
Spare me the faux anger from the right who view the issue of women's rights and advancement as a way to score political points. When it comes to supporting policies that would actually help women, their silence has been deafening. I don't need lectures from the RNC on supporting women and fighting to increase opportunities for women; I've been doing it my whole career. If they want to attack me and distract the public's attention away from their nominee's woeful record, it just demonstrates how much they just don't get it.
My favorite tweet was from someone who said that Republicans like Ann Romney so much more than Mitt that by attacking her (which I didn't), I got people to defend him in a way they never would.
That last one I can actually understand.
Now let's be clear on one thing. I have no judgements 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.
Why does this even matter? It matters purely because Mitt Romney put the issue of his wife's views squarely on the table.
As Ruth Marcus noted in her column yesterday in the Washington Post, Romney, when asked last week about the gender gap, twice said he wished his wife could take the question.
"My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me," Romney told newspaper editors, "and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy."
So it begs the question, is 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.
I have nothing against Ann Romney. She seems like a nice lady who has raised nice boys, struggled with illness, and handles its long-term effects with grace and dignity. I admire her grit in talking about her illness publicly.
What is more important to me and 57% of current women voters is her husband saying he supports women's economic issue because they are the only issues that matter to us and then he fails on even those.
Let's put aside for a moment his views on women's health issues -- such as his pledge to repeal funding for Planned Parenthood or repeal title X -- which provides important health services for poor women, and true anecdotes (such as when he was a Bishop in his church, he actually went to a congregant's hospital room and told a young single mother who had just given birth that she was shaming the church and should give her baby away). Let's put those issues of respect and health dignity away.
Let's just focus on his economic record on behalf of women. When Romney ran Bain Capital, less than 10% of the senior workforce were women. And he said in his 1994 Senate race that it was because he had trouble finding qualified women to be executives. Is there a woman alive who believes that? I personally believe that women hate the way our health issues were made a political football by the Republicans in the last several months. But I am pragmatic enough to believe that the economic issues do matter greatly to women and men alike. But the only way that Mitt Romney will succeed in closing the wide gender gap between him and President Obama is if he stops pretending that it doesn't exist.
Follow Hilary Rosen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hilaryr
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
There were Accurate and True. I don't think it was a put down of Ann.
You were BRILLIANT IN YOUR COMMENTS on Meet the Press This Morning.
But your ego was missing the accolades you get from the screaming feminist fans if yours. So now your family is blown apart, kids were shuffled around etc when you went back to work NOT FOR FIANANCIAL
REASONS.
Who are you to NOMINATE and determine who speaks for anyone else? I would listen to anyone before you and your giant ego.
Answerman ny, No one "hates" Ann Romney. Simply being a woman does not make one automatically relate to another woman. That's just silly. I doubt Ann Romney has good friends living lives unlike her own. I could not have worked part time and raised my older 6 kids without help. I was fortunate to have it. However, Ann Romney's 21 million a year family income puts her in a category of the top 1% and other than giving birth- she has little in common with 99% of women. Ann Romney has never worried about paying bills, putting the best food on the table, nice clothing on their backs, health coverage, sending her sons to the very best schools and colleges just as her husband attended them on daddy's dollars. Their five sons have 100 million dollar trust funds while most women agonize over whether they can put their kids through a junior college or pay state college tuition. Ann Romney's life is one of great privilege. What makes her relatable to some women is her battle
with MS and breast cancer. However, most women do not have the ability to access the best medical care as she has. And that, sir, is just one of the many differences Ann Romney has in being part of the 1% of America's wealthiest families. No one hates her for it- but they do not believe she has any idea what most women's lives are like.
This is such a faux controversy, it's sickening. If those attacking Ms Rosen would actually read the full context of her comments, it would be crystal clear that she meant that Mrs. Romney has never been forced to seek employment in order to make ends meet. She's never had to fight for maternity leave from work. She never had to fight for an equal wage (See: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act...which her husband opposes). She never had to face the glass ceiling that all the women who worked at Bain Capital faced.
And when this "scandal" is juxtaposed with Mr. Romney's comments regarding how stay-at-home mom's need "the dignity of work", it is exposed for the rank hypocrisy that it is; an opportunistic political attack by the biggest flip flopper in American history.
T.'.
Women and everybody else had BETTER believe there are very few MEN and women who are qualified to manage venture capital. Also, Romney has proven he can do that very skillfully- whereas Barack has been to college. I'm way to the left of both of them- but- lets face it: Romney has made half a billion managing investment capital and Obama has been to college.
That liberals think executive level capital management is something all kinds of women could do but for putative sexists like Romney is virtually the definition of "out-of-touch".
I may be a strong government leftist- but my investments are managed by the likes of Romney- not by Obama and Rosen liberals.