Is Kelly Ayotte (along with Whitman, Clinton and Palin) Really A Bad Mother?
September 8, 2010
by Henrietta
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Kelly Ayotte is running for Unites States Senator for New Hampshire.
There’s an insidious narrative out there in the world of women in politics that is difficult to shake and it goes something like this:
Women who seek powerful political positions are bad mothers! They neglect their children! They raise them to be unruly citizens! They are cold and heartless and will do anything to further their career including ruthlessly sacrificing their offspring! Oh, and they will even pimp out their kids!
Just ask Meg Whitman, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and countless other women politicians and candidates.
And now New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte can join this club of “bad mothers” who seek political power. Or so suggests a supporter of one of Ayotte’s Republican rival in his letter to the editor in the Concord Monitor. The Concord Monitor is a New Hampshire paper widely read in the state and influential in the world of New Hampshire politics.
The crux of the letter is about how Ayotte is a bad mother for daring to run for the Senate seat since it will cause Ayotte time away from her young children. The author goes on to attack Ayotte’s trustworthiness because clearly her ambitions are a blatant sign of bad mothering and thus Ayotte can only make for a deceptive politician! The author reasons, “If she’s willing to leave her baby like that to get the Senate job, what on earth will she be willing to do for the special interests in Washington to keep that Senate job?”
Meanwhile, the author tries to preempts accusations of sexism by claiming this issue is not a “woman’s issue” but a “parenting issue”. And then he goes on to applaud Republican opponent Ovide Lamontagne for never having been an “absentee dad” and for waiting till his children were grown to further his political career.
Not a woman’s issue? I have to wonder what would happen if we DID apply the author’s strict and old world parenting standard for Ayotte toward every single male candidate out there. How many politicians would there be left to vote for if we were to equally frown upon both male and female candidates with school aged and younger children? That would disqualify Obama on parenting merits alone as well as Tim Pawlenty, John McCain (for much of his career), most of the Kennedys and er, is it even possible to keep count?
Of course this is a sexism issue. And I do suspect that this critic of Kelly Ayotte’s parenting will someday soon go out and vote for a male candidate with young and school-aged children. The good news is that New Hamphshire has an exemplary record of women’s representation in politics and I suspect that most Granite Staters will not agree with the writer’s sexist position.
But accusing women candidates of bad mothering is a handy tool used by both the left and the right against candidates that they do not support. And thus, neither Republican nor Democratic women are safe from accusations of bad mothering.
I fear there is no killing the myth of the bad mother in the political sphere as there’s no collective outrage when such comments are made. So what can be done to stop this slanderous sexism? Honestly, I don’t know. Of course we should all speak out against it and the media should confront the issue head on. But what responsibility do candidates have when their opponents are the recipients of such aggressively sexist tactics by their own supporters? Should these candidates make public statements of reproach? Many felt that Obama’s opponents, both Clinton and McCain, were responsible for speaking out against racism and xenophobia during the 2008 election and they did. But the same standard is not applied toward sexism. What do you think?
I never men (in politics or elsewhere) being accused of neglecting their kids in this way. But then, most men don’t do a lot in raising their kids. The majority of it falls to the woman.
So I have mixed feelings about it. If the man is pulling his fair share of child care duty, then it could work out fine. That seems to be the case in the Palin family. If the woman is dumping the kids in daycare or with nannies for most of the time, then no. But then, many working women who are not in politics do just that. It’s not just a problem for women in politics.
Female politicians are certainly attacked and accused of bad mothering, but actually it’s a tactic used against women in general to keep them oppressed and off balance. Mothers are bad if they work outside the home, they’re bad if their kids are in daycare, they’re bad if they stay home but use the wrong cleaning products, the wrong peanut butter, they’re bad if they’re single moms. There really is no way to win, unless you’re so busy being a mom you’re out of sight and out of mind and pose no threat to anybody. Even then it’s likely you’ll be accused of being one of those suffocating moms, condemning your children to a life of neurotic behavior and causing permanent damage by feeding them the wrong breakfast cereal.
It’s very sexist. We don’t do the same thing to fathers.
So what can be done to stop this slanderous sexism?
Vote exclusively for women in all cases where they are running. If there is no woman in the race that you like, vote for the man you prefer.
It’s legal, nonviolent, and it’s all that will work. We need to prioritize this garbage as Problem #1 and attack it accordingly.
New Hampshire has one of the higher rates of women in office, perhaps that male rival bimbo should move to another state.
Janis you are starting to sound like me- to achieve equality women must have parity. To achieve parity a female first policy needs to be instituted. Once you have achieved parity then equality will be within your grasp as you will have voice in decisions,many of which are so called women’s issues but are really peoplekind issues affecting all of us.
Bruce, I think I’ve sounded like you for some time on this.
It’s legal, nonviolent, prioritizes sexism over and above ALL OTHER ISSUES (which is is), and guaranteed to work. The only reason anyone would choose not to follow this path to equality is if equality scares them.
In others words, if they don’t really want it.
I’d be tempted to make some comment about wanting to get elected to serve all of the children’s best interests which are so often never considered by your standard issue politician. But it is true, just keep working to elect women politicians and that will normalize the idea of women in politics and also gradually create a more humane rather than corporate focused government.
It’s very sexist. We don’t do the same thing to fathers.
So, isn’t that really the place to start?
Seriously, it makes one wonder if every single time this attitude reared its head about a female candidate that their male opponent started getting hammered with questions about his family life by everyone what would happen.
Bev, Good idea. All of these ideas are worth doing and gradually the prejudice against women in elected office will be eroded. The main thing is now that we know liberal media enjoys sexism all women candidates should go in expecting blatant sexism and have their responses ready and all women’s groups and political parties who are serious about getting women’s votes should be prepared to fight the sexism battle also.
I see childcare as a transition to a more centralized concept of child rearing that a healthy society, and not a male dominated one, naturally does where the community raises the children. So, yea, it is a tactic, on the one hand, and a self-fulfilling misogynist strategy. Men honestly think women should raise their children alone, or alone with 1 man, and this is why men do all the “public stuff” and not the real fact of the matter is that they are misogynist and it comes from a system of ownership of women, and not a system of community at all.
You know, I think this site either needs to start Open Thread posts or a forum for when we find something of interest. So we don’t always have to dig out a good post to add it to and/or aren’t where we can email it in. Just a thought.
Anyhoo, just ran across this and figured it was kind of appropriate to this discussion:
http://legalinsurrection.blogs.....aware.html
You know, I really, really, really hate it when ANYONE tells me who I should vote for… multiply me by untold thousands, nay, millions in this country. Male, female, red, blue, yellow… paisley. I don’t care. We’re all starting to get just a tad ticked about being told who can and cannot win elections.
Any elections.
This is utter crap. You mean to tell me because she believes so strongly about her convictions inside and runs for Congress, she is a bad mother? Its crap! What about the men and women overseas FIGHTING for our country on a volunteer status? Does this make them bad parents? I’m TIRED of reading things like this, utterly tired.
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