Rock me, mama on the Thursday OPEN thread
April 12, 2012 - 9:00 AM
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April 12, 2012 - 9:00 AM
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Thursday, June 20, 2013
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Latest polling average gives a 5.3 average to Obama. As more folks wake up to the flip flopper extraordinaire the GOP has nominated for president this number will widen:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html
Wagon wheel: WHEEEEW! They said Row-noke!
CnP, RCP is my favorite site.
Below is a link to an article about 2 Republican presidential candidates. I’ll admit it’s not an unbiased view, but pretty accurate anyway. It is funny nonetheless.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/gop-presidential-contenders-goofy-greed/
This article tells why Romney is going to have trouble even without Rick Santorum in the race.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-santorum-boxed-in-romney/2012/04/11/gIQAjh1fAT_story.html?hpid=z2
@1- It’s April. It hasn’t even started yet. It’s going to be close all the way through the election.
Some more challenging news to the Republicans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/post-abc-news-poll-shows-drop-in-republican-support-for-afghan-war/2012/04/11/gIQAfl5oBT_story.html?hpid=z1
“This article tells why Romney is going to have trouble even without Rick Santorum in the race.”
I don’t think Romney would agree with that thesis, Ron. In the past, he has never allowed himself to get boxed in on ANYTHING, be it his past support for cap and trade, abortion rights, gay marriage, a healthcare mandate, portraying himself as unemployed, or whether he loves cheese grits, for Pete’s sake.
Soon, in the South, he’ll be calling himself an evangelical because he went on a Mormon mission (during which he lived in a Paris mansion). Soon he’ll be in Kansas and Texas, eating pink slime burgers and calling them delicious and nutritious (while decrying Obama economic policies that caused Pink Slim Inc. to lay off most of its employees. Then he’ll go to West Virginia and talk about the benefits of acid rain, to Masschusetts whether he’ll talk about his support for family planning, and next Utah where he’ll slam Planned Parenthood.
Nobody will ever pin him down on anything.
Romney sort of reminds me of the old line…
“You can call me Jay, or you can call me Ray, but you don’t have to call me Johnson.”
I’m just curious how the folks here who have spent the last year trashing Reagan feel about Obama going on TV and saying what he is arguing for now is the same thing Ronald Reagan wanted? I know Obama’s motivation is to make himself appeal to more ‘Reagan Republicans’ who are now considered moderate, but it just hit me that alot of you here have spent a lot of time talking about how bad Reagan was? Why would Obama want to go back to the policies you all say have already failed?
Go Hilary Rosen! Glad to hear she thinks raising 5 children isn’t work!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/12/top-democratic-strategist-attacks-ann-romney/
Oh no!!..i put up a link to foxnews. Sorry! Here is the same article different source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/attacking-ann-romney–yeah-thats-the-ticket/2012/04/12/gIQA3VzXCT_blog.html
Pistol Pete, if you did some more checking, you would find that Democrats denounced Rosen’s comments. One person does not speak for everyone in their party.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/04/ann-romney-women-work-hilary-rosen-/1
“Rosen’s original comments, made during a CNN interview Wednesday night, immediately drew rebukes from several top Democrats working on President Obama’s re-election campaign, including campaign manager Jim Messina, strategist David Axelrod and deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter.”
“Messina tweeted: “I could not disagree with Hilary Rosen any more strongly. Her comments were wrong and family should be off limits. She should apologize.”
11. PP – it is hard work, but nearly as hard as rearing 5 children and working a full time job. Mrs. Romney has not had to do that, but many other Moms have to. In fact many Mom’s do it without having husbands around to help.
The fact the Hilary Rosen who
“has twins with Elizabeth Birch, with whom she separated in 2006. She was in 2004 the interim director for the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender lobbyist organization. Birch was the executive director of the group for eight years”,
appears on CNN as a “Democratic strategist” and an “advocate for women’s rights”, speaks volumes as to the mindset of the left. If a woman doesn’t have a “career” she’s not a complete woman and her opinion concerning women’s rights is invalid. Sounds like Rosen is the one who is mixed up as far as gender goes. Her kids are probably better off that she is not a stay at home mom.
“is typical Rosen, who has twins with ex-partner Elizabeth Birch, began her attack Wednesday evening on CNN when she said: “Guess what, (Romney’s) wife has actually never worked a day in her life.”
BTW – how many “real” jobs has queen Michelle had in her life?
For that matter, how many “real” jobs has her husband had?
#12 Go ahead and put up the article proving that Obama said it, that he had her say it, or that he approved of the sentiment. Oh, you don’t have that one? Why not?
Jennifer Ruben doth protest too much. WAAAAAY overboard trying desperately to prove this will turn the tide and show that Rethugs don’t hate women.
will,
Michelle Obama had a “real” job as a lawyer when she met her future husband. Unless you don’t count that as a “real job.” Are you saying she should have dug ditches or worked at McDonald’s or something?
Ann Romney never had a “job” she could get fired from , which is the single relevant point when talking about how the economy has impacted working women. Whether or not a rich SAHM with lots of help has been harmed by high unemployment is not relevant.
There’s no comparison between raising children and raising them while holding down a full time job at the same time, and pretending the two are comparable is just a slap in the face to the hundreds of thousands – probably millions – of women out there doing both. Ann Romney’s never had a moment of her married life that wasn’t privileged and luxurious, in spite of having had 5 kids.
Chuck, no one has ever said Saint Reagan was all bad. In fact, one of the things we give him points for was realizing the hole he had dug and raising taxes.
I have quoted him many times in fact:
““We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share,” he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, “sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that’s crazy.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109#ixzz1rqpVUtCE
Now hold on a minute hypocrites: If you can carry on about President Obama never having had what you call a “real job”, how the hell is what Rosen said of Mrs. Romney not true or fair?
“…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.”
Now either you admit you are just hypocrites, or admit that your comments on Obama were out of line too.
Chuck,
Our deficits would disappear if the federal tax rates in place between 1981 & 1987 were in place today.
From Hilary Rosen’s Twitter feed: “When I said @AC360 Ann Romney never worked I meant she never had to care for her kids AND earn a paycheck like MOST American women!”
And in response to Ann Romney: “@AnnDRomney I am raising children too. But most young American women HAVE to BOTH earn a living AND raise children. You know that don’t u?”
Is raising kids work? Hell yes. But there’s one hell of a difference between being Ann Romney raising 5 kids with a sh*tload of money and hired help and my neighbor who chose to stay home because otherwise she’d be paying $1500 a month in child care costs, roughly one-half of her gross monthly wages, who also made other sacrifices (selling a car, cutting cable TV, homemade Christmas gifts) to keep their family afloat. The Romneys cannot in good faith say they know how middle class working families feel because they have NEVER been in the position to.
I am so sick of this crap. Hitler did this same stuff in Germany to brainwash his citizens.
I want one Athiest or Non-Christian on here to please tell me that you actually believe that the government is trying to make you believe in Jesus if you see a cross on a hill at a military base!
Headin to Hell in a handbasket…literally
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/12/marines-fight-to-protect-crosses-at-camp-pendleton-as-atheist-groups-seek/
Hillary Rosen probably could have phrased her charge against Ann Romney a little differently – the issue not being that Ann Romney stayed home – the issue is the economics that allowed her to make a choice that millions of families don’t get to make. When you’re wealthy enough to employ full-time babysitters/nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners, [according to the Romney’s 2010 tax return], her “burden” was lightened significantly. I am by no means suggesting raising 5 children was easy, but not having to worry about finances at all, or the laundry, or meals, or paying for child-related doctor bills, all while parenting and raising children, has not been the experience of most America’s women.
Sadly, Republicans will just use the ill-advised comment as a convenient excuse to deflect the conversation away from the real war being waged on women by the policies pursued by Republicans. If a portion of the American electorate were slightly less ill-informed and less easily manipulated, this would not become the distraction the Republicans so desperately need this election cycle.
I’m sorry PP…Hitler took crosses off of hills?
@20 – Is Ann running for office? Wow, that is hypocritical.
Only in liberal loon-land does comparing a current presidents resume with a potential candidates wife’s resume make any kind of sense. Don’t forget to breath, you guys.
#23 Yeah, PP, I can see how if they take the crosses down and put something else up there as a memorial, that will be JUST LIKE Hitler taking over Germany.
“http://www.foxnews.”
You’ve heard of the History Channel? Now we’ve got the Hysteria Channel.
I happen to agree that Hilary Rosen’s disparagement of Ann Romney was uncalled for. I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all for as woman whose husband is worth $200 million or so to NOT have a career. And when her kids were young, and the Romneys were not rich, she certainly did a lot of work raising a fine family.
(I just hope her boys weren’t scarred for life when the Mittster tied the dog to the station wagon roof and it did doggy diarrhea all over the car).
30. Rosen’s comments have surely been blown out of proportion. I was watching CNN when she said it and the point was that Mitt states that Ann is his expert on working women and women’s jobs. Commenting that Ann had never worked (meaning being employed) and therefore had no personal experience on working women (employment)seems most appropriate. She did not mean that Ann did not labor (work) at rearing children, keeping a home or anything else. She was not demeaning to Ann, merely to Mitt who is calling her his expert on employed women.
Pistol Pete – how would you feel if on top of that hill, those of the Jewish faith put up a star of David? or Muslims erected the crescent moon – and then were told to remove them. How would your outrage meter read then? or is your outrage only for the removal of a Christian cross?
Hillary nails it. This is just the latest wingnut tempest-in-a-teabag, it’s all they’ve got.
Dan, when were the Romneys not rich? His father paid in total his entire [2] Universities’ [Brigham Young and Harvard] tuition and expenses, bought his son and wife their first home, and then set him up with funds to start his own business.
Unless I’m missing something, that’s not the way most new families begin. Usually there is college debt, the financial burden if you buy a home, and very few of us have a father who was president of an auto company, a governor and also an influential [republican] politician who would open doors for an eventual business.
Isn’t there some Hitler rule?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/alan-grayson-rick-santorum_n_1420766.html
“Personally, I think that sweater vests are a crime against Nature,” Grayson, who is running to reclaim a Florida congressional seat, wrote. “If God had wanted us to garb our torso and our arms differently, then God would not have invented the seam. It was God who invented the seam, right? You will note that nowhere in the Bible are sweater vests mentioned.”
It wouldn’t be funny if Santorum didnt beg for this.
Walker, I know you struggle, so let me explain. I was not comparing resumes of the President and the wife of the wanna be President. I was saying that you cannot bash Obama for what you perceive as a lack of experience (ergo knowledge) and defend Ann Romney when she is legitimately criticized (though it was poorly stated) for not having anything in common with the moms in this nation who have no choice but to work and support their family no matter how many children they have. It is not the resume, it is the experience that you believe Obama did not have and I believe that Ann Romney does not have.
We had such a good life
growin up and all.
Mom was mom and dad was tall.
Life would be good said dad.
We talked of pets I remember that
Mom leaned gold fish , dad hated cats
the debate went on for a while.
Life was good even in the summertime lulls
and all dad would agree to was pet seagulls
I was a long time figuring that one out.
another summer growin up
I finally asked
“hey dad..how bout a pup”….
It got quiet in the Provo thickets
No sound from the gulls..but plenty the crickets.
Thus ends the tale of the good old days
No dogs on the roof ,,no woofin no waggin.
A fish-d never have made it on the Studebaker Wagon.
Ol’ dad was a prophet I tell you that.
He made a lot of sense and money reading notes from a hat.
Mom was mom and dad was tall..
He-s got a plan for himself
and a plan for us all.
Huffpo sums up the Ann Romney thing in one headline:
“QUIZ: Hilary Rosen Kerfuffle Means: A) Nothing; B) Less Than Nothing; C) Doodlysquat To Election”
Hey, but Pistol Pete was a good minion and obeyed his wingnut masters by getting it out on this blog.
“(I just hope her boys weren’t scarred for life when the Mittster tied the dog to the station wagon roof and it did doggy diarrhea all over the car).”
That was still better than what happened when the Clark Griswold tied the dog to the station wagon in National Lampoon’s Vacation. Oh my, that was a funny movie!
Lori was right. For Ann Romney to be compared to the average American working mother is nothing short of ludicrous.
Yes, being a stay at home mom is a tough job, but she has no financial worries at all. She may be average in her circle of friends, but she is no where near your typical American mom, working outside the home or not.
On another subject, anybody see Anna Scholl stand up to the GOP Bully presently holding the speakers gavel?
Priceless.
“In an exchange caught on camera, Howell berates the group’s executive director Anna Scholl, mocking the group’s website and her. Howell criticizes the Washington Post’s article about the group’s as “full of half-truths or un-truths.”
In a failed attempt to back up his accusation, Howell notes that while the Commonwealth paid about $230,000 on ALEC-related expenses, it spent even more on travel for the same and other legislators to attend conferences by the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislators.
When by Scholl pressed as to how omission of that irrelevant detail constituted an inaccuracy, Howell berated her:
I guess I’m not speaking in little enough words for you to understand.
When Scholl responded to the slight, telling him “I’m a smart girl, actually I went to the University of Virginia,” more than capable of understanding polysyllabic words. Howell curtly replied, “We’ll good for you.”
Watch the video. Still think the GOP is not waging war on women?
Think again
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/12/463774/va-speaker-and-ex-alec-chair-berates-woman-im-not-speaking-in-little-enough-words-for-you-to-understand/
Just fyi, Bill Howell took a $2,000 campaign contribution from con man Bobby Thompson in Thompson’s successful endeavor to get the Virginia General Assembly to pass a law that would allow Bobby Thompson and the U.S. Navy Vets to continue scamming millions from Virginians.
Not so smart, that dude.
Bill Howell is typical of Republicans, both national and state, who have a condescending attitude toward women in general. They are of that good ole’ boy breed that thinks women should stay home, bear children, defer to their husbands, and keeptheir noses out of politics. They are convinced that as white, middle aged men, they know what is best for women and no one should question their eminence. Frankly, he is a pig!
@4 Ron. Mr Hightower should run again…
In case Republicans wonder why there is a gender gap and why women favor Obama and Democrats by a margin of 20 points in the polls, just listen to Bill Howell and people like Bob Marshall. Listen to Mitch McConnell today as he asserts that the Republican women in the Senate do not believe that recent events have been attacks on women. And then go back and read what Lisa Murkowski and Olytmia Snowe have said. There is a total disconnect there. Listen to Mitt Romney as he parses words and backs away from women’s issues in order to satisfy ther right wingnut base of the Republican Party. Listen while he says that “he would not seek to repeal the Sarah Ledbetter Act”. He won’t say that he agrees with it, or that equal pay is a matter of basic fairness. All he will say, after he finally finds out what the act was really about is that he “won’t seek to repeal it” Listen while he says he wants to defund Planned Parenthood after previously being a contributor to its agenda. Listen when he says he supports a woman’s right to choose in order to get elected Governor of Mass. and now says he supports repeal of Roe v. Wade.Listen while he says that women don’t really care about the health issues, contraception, faqmily planning, etc, that they only care about economic issues. Listen while he blames the # of unemployed women over the past three yeqrs on Obama while the cuts in federal and state spending to fund positions for teachers, social workers, nurses, etc are the main driver in that increase. It may not be a war, but it sureas hell is a full scale assault!
Bill Howell’s Koch brothers connection.
#46 Amen Dave
sorry dave but I know many many women who will NOT vote for obama, it has nothing to do with ‘womens issues’..it is his crap policies of socialism and marxism that we do not like…so he’s for murdering unborn children, that is NOT a plus !!
Kristen…The German Christian nation became Nazi Germany after “their leader” removed ALL RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS in that country (Just one of many things he did to crush Christianity and brainwash its citizens of morals)
You won’t read that in your kid’s Prentice Hall
#42 Great comment from a “Matt Jones” on the website you linked to:
“Mr. Howell appears to need an trans-rectal ultrasound to find his head…
”
#47 Those of you who claim that voter ID laws have nothing to do with restricting voting should read this. From the link that Art provided:
“Voter ID laws represent only the beginning of the assault on voter rights. In states across the country in 2011, conservative governors and legislators who had swept to power in the 2010 election moved to restrict access to the polls in other ways. They ended election-day registration programs in states such as Maine, ending a practice that had allowed new voters to come to the polls, fill out a simple form and cast a ballot. They restricted early voting in states such as Ohio, making it dramatically harder for citizens to cast ballots in the run-up to an election. They scrapped weekend voting in Ohio, where working men and women had been able to cast ballots on their days off. They placed new restrictions on voting by students at colleges and technical schools, even going so far in Wisconsin as to move the primary election date to when most students were on summer break. They reduced the number of polling places in some states, making it harder for voters who lack transportation to get to the polls. And after they established the Voter ID requirements in Wisconsin, and said that citizens had to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get the proper paperwork, they tried to reduce the number of DMV offices.”
Dave, I dont think they wonder. I just don’t think they care.
PP, spend some time in Germany/Austria. Had Hitler been in power for 1000 years he couldn’t have taken down all the crosses. And I don’t actually HAVE to read my kid’s “Prentice Hall” any more than they do…I’m German and have spent a heck of a lot of time living in and traveling around that area, as well spent a year of college there. I speak it fluently. So I don’t have to rely on what World Nut Daily or Fox tells me about Hitler and Christianity and what happened under Hitler…I’ve heard it from family.
And what WND might not tell you is that the “Kirche” in “Kinder, Kueche, Kirche” means “church”.
Your point is nonsense and has zero to do with what can and cannot go up on publically held land in the United States of America. And what you COMPLETELY DON’T MENTION is that the suit is being brought by a VETERANS’ GROUP. Not Obama. Not the ACLU. It’s nonsense.
“”I was saying that you cannot bash Obama for what you perceive as a lack of experience (ergo knowledge) and defend Ann Romney when she is legitimately criticized (though it was poorly stated) for not having anything in common with the moms in this nation “who have no choice but to work and support their family no matter how many children they have”".
That’s right Sandi — look what the wonder of women’s lib has brought us.
Kids being raised by day care
Both parents tired from work when they do get home.
2 people have to work to sustain the same lifestyle that was obtainable with 1 income before we flooded the workforce with twice as many workers.
Broken homes because a woman is certainly not going to go to work all day and be subject to her boss (master) and then come home and want to be subject to her husband,(her Biblical master), therfore God’s order for the family unit is turned upside down.
40 to 50% divorce rate.
The real hypocrisy is the liberal women on this post complaining that Ann Romney has nothing in common with “the moms in this nation who have no choice but to work and support their family no matter how many children they have” when it is YOUR worldview and liberal policies that YOU support that has taken away a woman’s choice to BE a stay at home mom and WIFE.
#50 Yeah, PP, it’s shame we NEVER see any religious symbols in the U.S. any more. And look at how few churches there are these days. I mean, there are none left at all. And of course then there’s the concentrated government campaign to close all the ones that ARE left. And all the religious programs have been removed from cable and the radio. Do you know that I tried to watch the Ten Commandments, Barrabus, King of Kings, and some other Easter-type religious movies on TV, and I could only find them on once or twice each!!!! Probably had to sneak them on when Obama wasn’t watching. I was stunned.
It’s terrible.
“Listen while he blames the # of unemployed women over the past three yeqrs on Obama while the cuts in federal and state spending to fund positions for teachers, social workers, nurses, etc are the main driver in that increase”.
The federal government has no constitutional right to be involved in funding for “positions for teachers, social workers, nurses, etc”.
That’s the problem. The federal government has no business collecting taxes for these things in the first place.
pammala
There will always b women like you who cannot think for themselves qand who are taken in by the propaganda being served up by the corporatists
who reqlly cdontrol this country. They play on your racist leanings or your fundamentalist religious beliefs, whichever they can make the greatest use of, in order yo get you to vote against your own and the county’s best interests. And as long as you continue to fall for it, they will continue to pour the money into it.You live in a sound bite world and you have the perfect intellect for it.
will@10:21 and 10:35
You just firmly established your credentisls to join with Speaker Howell
in the P.I.G.S. Society. ( Politically Inadequate Grossly Sexist).
Sandi
I am so sorry that you do not seem to understand that your husband is your Biblical Master and that by holding down a job and contributing to the well being of your family you are just taking away rightful employment for some deserving man who needs it to feed his subservient wife and 14 kids since contraception is a dirty word to him. I am sure that the Christian God ( as defined by will) has already taken note and consigned you to hell for eternity. will, please pray for Sandi and all those evil women out there who are working to help pay the bills, put a roof over their heads, and put food on the table for their families.
Forgive them for they know not what they do. Oh and by the way will, the lonney bus will stop by your house at 8 A.M. sharp. Please be on time to catch it.
Will, you are offensive on so many levels it is really hard to know where to start. Suffice it to say, the Lord is not working in you today. I pray that he will though, and soon.
That you blame the NEED for women to work outside the home for families to survive on “women’s lib” is just plain out ignorance and bigotry. The fact that the last 30+ years of wealth protection structures in this nation has made it virtually impossible for anyone not wealthy to have a choice in staying at home with their children seems lost on you and rather than face the truth you blame those who worked for equal pay and no “glass ceilings”. Do you have a daughter? Does she “know her place” in YOUR WORLDVIEW? Granddaughters? Dear Lord, I hope not, but they too will benefit from the efforts of “women’s lib”. Especially Barack Obama’s “Lily Ledbetter Act” of “equal pay” for women.
Women did not take the jobs of men either, they saved this nation in the War Years when the men were not available and they stayed because business WANTED them.
Not that you deserve to know anything about me, but I was fortunate enough to not have either of my children ever spend time in a day care or at a “baby sitter”. We sacrificed and nearly lost it all once, but I stayed at home with my children from 1983 until they were in middle school and did not return to the full time work force until 1996. THAT is my “worldview and liberal policies”. So kiss my big fat liberal butt you jerk!
Whine all you like, Ann Romney does not have the remotest idea what the average American woman goes through, not from bigots like you, not from bosses, husbands and scared to be husbands. How about their damned failure while you are whining? How about the men who walk off, run from their children and child support. What, about losers like that has helped the family structure?
The real hypocrisy is that you hide in anonymity and attack people you know nothing about with OT judgement you are not fit to offer and think that we are the problem!
And I am only getting started!
I seriously doubt if his attitude of condesencion has truly changed, But at least Bill Howell manned up and was gentleman enough to apologize today to Ann Scholl. And it was not one of those “qualified” apologies that said I’m sorr you took offense at what I said like the typical ones we have seen lately. So I take back part of what I said about him. He is still sexist but he’s not a pig!
That’s “condescension”.
“Comment by will “
Derp..derp..derp.
“That’s right Sandi — look what the wonder of women’s lib has brought us.
Kids being raised by day care
Both parents tired from work when they do get home.
2 people have to work to sustain the same lifestyle that was obtainable with 1 income before we flooded the workforce with twice as many workers.
Broken homes because a woman is certainly not going to go to work all day and be subject to her boss (master) and then come home and want to be subject to her husband,(her Biblical master), therfore God’s order for the family unit is turned upside down.
40 to 50% divorce rate.
The real hypocrisy is the liberal women on this post complaining that Ann Romney has nothing in common with “the moms in this nation who have no choice but to work and support their family no matter how many children they have” when it is YOUR worldview and liberal policies that YOU support that has taken away a woman’s choice to BE a stay at home mom and WIFE..”
I’m going to stick my neck our here and sympathize with some of the points will has raised, though he and I are coming to some of the same conclusions from entirely different perspectives.
Because while I strongly defend the right of women to have careers, and to earn the same pay as men for equal work, and to rise through the ranks and (will’s horror of horrors) actually be BOSSES of male employees, there is no doubt in my mind that the large scale entry of women into the workforce in the past 30 years has had a profound dampening effect on middle-class wages not just for men but for everyone.
It has to have dampened those wages, because those women vastly enlarged the labor pool and the labor market is keenly tuned to supply and demand. will is correct about this. Men’s wages, adjusted for inflation, are about equal to what they were in 1978. Women’s wages have gained over the years — but they still don’t equal men’s for the same work.
Is the women’s liberation movement to “blame” for this? “Blame” is a rotten word to use in this context. It’s kind of like “blaming” emancipation for the fact that southern plantation owners’ profits declined after the end of slavery because (gasp!) they had to actually pay laborers who they previously owned. Tough luck, 1870s southern aristocrats. Yes, you may have earned less money from the cotton farm but that was because of a fundamental shift was very, very much the right thing to do. (So sorry, you can’t own slaves, cry me a river).
And I also believe the transitioning has affected families in certain negative ways. Inflation in the 70s necessitated the movement of women into the workforce, just so families could maintain a certain lifestyle — to survive, not necessarily to live in opulence. When both parents in a two-parent household are working, there is definitely less time to devote to the kids. In many families, that sucks, both for the kids and the parents.
The divorce rate that will imputes from this is complete BS, however (there is no accurate measure whatsoever of the percentage of marriages that end in divorce). The notion of a husband as any kind of “master” is disgusting (although it definitely IS bibilical — after all, the Bible was written by men).
The bottom line is, yes the entry of women into the work force has dampened wages, and it has damaged SOME families. Those effects are temporary — they’re going to last for a couple of generations — but they HAD to happen because it was the right thing, whether or not you’re a fan of the economic effects.
And frankly, we can dampen the effects by enacting more sane tax policies that don’t penalize the middle class — but we haven’t done that yet.
I guess we know where will got his marching orders today:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/04/13/limbaugh-explains-how-feminism-has-changed-the-normal-human-nature-relationships-between-men-and-women/
Having been a stay at home mom and a working mom AND a working single mom. The easiest – stay at home. Yep, it isn’t a walk in the park, but wow, I could get all my chores done by the weekend and have the weekend to do fun things with the family. Working compresses everything you have to do in the couple of hours before bed during the week and ALL weekend. Being a working single mom means you NEVER get a break! I love my kids, but whew!~
Did will honestly use the term “biblical master”?
derp indeed.
#66 will’s good little minion. If only you pesky women would remember your place, everything would be hunky dory. But I’m betting will has everything the way it should be in his home. No females working for money in his household. And by golly they jump when he snaps the whip!
I DO know my place. It is anywhere my capabilities can take me. The truth, in the main, about working women and mothers is that it has IMPROVED the relationships between fathers and children, redefined the roles in marriage and child-rearing in a good way and made the families that are intact, stronger, the kids more independent and capable and overall been good for this nation. The “problems” are societal: economics, equality and ego and those are the things that still need to be worked on, as Will so “graciously” proves.
“Women, Men, Work, and Family”
http://bama.ua.edu/~sprentic/672%20Barnett%20&%20Hyde%202001.pdf
I think will got off the computer to go be master of something or other.
BTW Dan I LOVE that song, thanks!
It’s a great song. I had no idea until yesterday that it was based on an unreleased song sketched out by Bob Dylan many years ago. He did the chorus; one of the guys from Old Crow wrote the verses, or something like that.