At the RNC Wednesday night, Rudy Guiliani said that no one would ever ask questions about a male candidate’s ability to juggle work and family. He cried sexism. Lots of people are pointing out the sexism inherent in these questions about McCain’s VP choice. And they’re right. It’s unbalanced. It’s sexist. But it’s valid. When a mother of young children enters a presidential race for the first time, these questions cannot be avoided.
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Your raising the issue is sexist.
How dare you intimate that a female with children cannot run for and successfully handle an executive job?
I can and do.
Where were your questions to Speaker Pelosi? Or any of the Kennedys? Or to John Edwards? (You know, he had lots of kids, a wife, a mistress and a new infant when he ran . . . . but I didn’t hear you asking if he had time to govern effectively with so many kids, wives and mistresses?).
Get a life.
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I don’t think she is “intimating that a female with children cannot run for and successfully handle an executive job”.
Rather, dym is saying “wow, she won’t be able to spend much time with her kids; that’s gotta be tough”, and whether or not she is “up to the job” of VP is orthogonal to the mothering thing. The mothering thing is still important, but only Sarah Palin can decide what works for her. That’s the “Cliff’s notes” of what I got out of that post, anyway.
I agree that it will be difficult for her family-wise. I have no doubt about her abilities as a V.P. Many women are excellent in executive jobs. In my opinion home is an executive job. However, I agree with Dan, my opinion of the post was that Palin’s family/home life will suffer. Children need their mothers. That’s just how it is. Good post.
It’s so nice to be able post some semi-deep thoughts occasionally and not be totally eviscerated for it, huh? Oh, oops. No, never mind. Better luck next time, I guess.
(I, for one, enjoyed your musings on the subject. Kind of introspective wondering rather than finger-pointing, it seemed to me. But that’s just the way I took it. Maybe you really were trying to crush the entire woman’s movement with this one post. Diabolical!)
I commented over there, but can’t resist adding here that I don’t think you are trying to subvert the womens’ movement. The whole point of equality is that we should be free to decide what is best for us, and if what is best for us is staying home with our kids (typical or with Down syndrome or anything else) then the world can just butt out. But if what is best is to get out and change the world so that those kids can have a better future, then the rest of the world can just butt out then too. Doesn’t mean that it’s not worth pondering if you aren’t 100% sure how you are going to vote though. 🙂
As you said, sexist, but valid.
You took a big risk in publishing what you did – as always occurs when a non-partisan blog brings up politics – and I think you handled it very admirably.
I tend to support Palin myself, but I’d be a liar if I said I’d never had similar thoughts cross my mind.
Excellent work, and a great read.
You know, I gotta be honest, I had never thought about it from that perspective until you mentioned it. I just thought about her as a professional and her as a person. I never thought about how it would affect her family. Mostly because, as you said, that’s her issue to face.
I am sure she would do a fine job if elected. But she may not spend much time with her kiddos, but again, that’s an issue for the Palin family.