Romney: Poor Women Should Work for ‘Dignity’
I’m sure you’ve seen this quote from Mitt Romney flying around the blogosphere. While campaigning in New Hampshire in January, Romney said that he thinks single mothers with young children should have to get jobs in order to get the “dignity of work.”
“I wanted to increase the work requirement,” said Romney. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.”
So let’s recap. How dare you suggest that a phenomenally rich woman doesn’t have much credibility to talk about economic issues when she’s never worked outside any of the five homes her family owns! It’s a scurrilous attack on all women who don’t hold jobs outside the home, where they work incredibly hard! But you poor women, we should require that you get a job because we don’t want you to sit at home being lazy. Got that?
jamessweet:
April 18th, 2012 at 11:40 am
The switcheroo is in the forcing women to work. If the plan was to allow women the option to go back to work in exchange for free daycare, then I am all for this. Being a SAHM is hard work, and it’s not what everyone wants. I’m sure Romney is correct that many women would be happier going back to work. But personal empowerment is not what this is about, is it?
Zinc Avenger:
April 18th, 2012 at 11:45 am
Money = value
Work = value
No money + no work = no value.
Reginald Selkirk:
April 18th, 2012 at 11:48 am
He wants poor women to have the dignity of work, because they don’t have the dignity of being married to a bazillionaire.
.
I don’t know why the left has not jumped all over Ann Romney’s apparently pro-choice comments.
Pteryxx:
April 18th, 2012 at 11:50 am
…How the heck isn’t the *daycare provider* doing work? Daycare providers are never women and don’t have children of their own? Or is working at a daycare for pay somehow more dignified than, y’know, taking care of your own kids yourself? Yeesh.
Michael Heath:
April 18th, 2012 at 11:58 am
In order for Mitt Romney to successfully demagogue Hilary Rosen’s idiotic comment about stay-at-home mom’s, he needs the conservative media to not make the comparison Ed does here, and for conservatives to effectively insulate themselves from the comparison as well. It’d be interesting to observe reactions when Republican partisans are confronted with the two Romneys.
eric:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
The switcheroo is in the forcing women to work. If the plan was to allow women the option to go back to work in exchange for free daycare, then I am all for this.
The switcheroo is that his promise of additional daycare funding is a blatant lie. You know when it comes time to actually write such a bill, all the sticks will make it in but none of the carrots. At best, a GOP president would make it a tax break , which is largely irrelevant to people in poverty and overwhelmingly benefits richer people.
I’d settle for a law that said that something like voucher daycare coverage for (e.g.) $1,500/month must go into effect/be in effect for one year before the work requirement kicks in. No, I don’t agree with the work requirement. But I’m pretty sure that “compromise” would effectively poison the bill, since Mitt et al. really have no intention of covering day care costs at all.
jba55:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
And what does your stay at home wife think of this opinion, Mr Romney? Or does she not have any dignity to offend?
@2 Huh, that’s a very succinct way to put my last girlfriend’s attitude.
slc1:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Re Reginald Selkirk @ #3
Nothing unusual here. Laura Bush her mother in law, Barbara Bush, are both pro choice.
democommie:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
No, Ed, no,No, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Look, St. Anne Romney is engaged in AllMurKKKanhardWurKKKin(tm) at whichever of her far-flung domiciles she might be residing in at any moment in time. She ain’t got time for nothing except caring for the fambly, as is evidenced by this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/ann-romney-and-the-art-of-umbrage/2012/04/17/gIQA00xRPT_blog.html
‘sides, Anne’s not some singlemom-obama-slut who NEEDS to learn how the real world works!
So stop pickin’ on a paragon of (almost)KKKristianist virtue and get back to excoriating the poor, who deserve it!!
lancifer:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Leaving aside the political hay that can be made from yet another insensitive silver spoon Romney comment, one supposes that he sees stay at home moms that are able to do so because they have a working spouse as essentially different than stay at home moms that are financially dependent on the state.
I don’t think this is inconsistent with his overall political viewpoint, even if it is a viewpoint I don’t share.
OleanderTea, a really, truly gumpy bunny:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
So to recap:
1. Wealthy women “work” as stay-at-home moms;
2. Poor women don’t”work” as stay-at-home moms.
Now I have toask — the headache and burning feeling in my chest — is that cognitive dissonance, or just feeling sick at the double standard?
OleanderTea, a really, truly gumpy bunny:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
oh drat — seems cognitive dissonance causes rampant typos as well. Sorry!
holytape:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Well, asking the poor single mothers to work isn’t an attack on women, because after years of dehumanizing the working poor, the republicans really don’t see them as people. They don’t believe that those people have the same rights, or should be afforded the same respect.
You can say the most horrific insulting thing about the poor, immigrants or any one who isn’t lily white, and it doesn’t matter. In the Right’s eyes, they aren’t people.
Larry:
April 18th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
The key issue here is the definition of “choice”. In the RW world, its a woman’s choice to stay at home with the kidlets if she’s white and wealthy. If brown and/or poor, why, its their choice to find a job outside the home so they won’t be leaching dollars out of the rich people’s pockets. Just don’t dump the children off in gub’mint sponsored day care.
d cwilson:
April 18th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Class is becoming the most important fracture line in our society. Not that conservatives are abandoning the old strategies of dividing us along racial, ethnic, and religious lines. After all, nothing dilutes the working class vote more than convincing white Christians that they must vote against their own economic interests in order to be protected from “them”.
But more and more, it’s becoming obvious that the wealthy in this country have priorities that are 180 degrees opposed to the interest of the rest of the country.
D. C. Sessions:
April 18th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
You know they won’t be, though. They avoid that problem by sticking to reliable RW sources.
Chris from Europe:
April 18th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
Is Mitt Romney a neo-Marxist?
I’m just asking questions.
dan4:
April 18th, 2012 at 9:26 pm
When was the last time you heard a GOP’er talking about day care in a POSITIVE context?
Modusoperandi:
April 18th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Michael Heath “It’d be interesting to observe reactions when Republican partisans are confronted with the two Romneys.”
The little one was too hammy. I prefer the round one.
holytape “Well, asking the poor single mothers to work isn’t an attack on women, because after years of dehumanizing the working poor, the republicans really don’t see them as people.”
While it may have been an undercurrent before, dehumanizing the working poor seems more recent (like the “half pay no income taxes” meme). They used to mostly dehumanize the unemployed (itself a dogwhistle for a certain kind of people. (*wink wink*).
On the plus side it looks like they’ve expanded to dehumanizing white people now. That’s some kind of progress.
“In the Right’s eyes, they aren’t people.”
Lies! They are people*.
d cwilson “But more and more, it’s becoming obvious that the wealthy in this country have priorities that are 180 degrees opposed to the interest of the rest of the country.”
More lies! They don’t want you to be poor. They simply want to continue to have much, much more than you.
D. C. Sessions “You know they won’t be, though. They avoid that problem by sticking to reliable RW sources.”
It’s more that they hate Obama more than they dislike Romney, I think. (Plus, if Romney loses they can use that as an excuse to take another leap to the Right. And if he wins they can take that as a mandate to leap to the Right. It’s win-win for crazy)
* Note: Offer applies only to the ones that vote Republican. Muslims need not apply.
dan4:
April 19th, 2012 at 2:05 am
@10: I think you’re missing the point. The argument against Rosen’s criticism of Ann Romney is that “being a stay-at-home-mom IS work!”…then, it’s discovered that just a few months ago, the latter’s husband made comments (the ones Ed highlights here) clearly indicating that he believes being a SAHM should NOT be considered “work.”