Working Moms, Revolt!
Did anyone else get a look at Kara Jesella's smart article yesterday in the New York Times about Moms Rising's organizing for working families? The group has a linked group of goals, including: undo workplace discrimination against women with children; and expand family-friendly policies of all kinds, enabling dual-earner couples both to earn a living AND care for their families.
Here's my question: why did the Times bury this smart article about family economics in the "Women's" -- er, "Style" -- section? The Times is happy enough to give prominent placement to "trend" articles that say moms just want to go home. But when the Times looks at the economic realities, it's buried in the frivolity section.
Let's be real: as Joan Williams and Elizabeth Warren have been insisting here for months, the vast majority of today's parents must BOTH work to keep the family in the middle class.
Working mothers are at the feminist front lines these days. Discrimination against women with kids is where the last wave stopped, exhausted. (I promise to post lots more about this in March.) Why can't the Times cover quality childhood education, discrimination against women with children, and so on as front-page public policy issues?
Thanks for the info! As I don't get the daily Times (just Sunday and daily email), I hadn't even known about the article.
Unfortunately, we've let the right corrupt the phrase 'family values' until it's virtually meaningless. And in a surprising turn-around, foreign policy has suddenly become the Dems strong suit. Even here at TPMCafe, most of our attention has been focusing either on the war or politics itself. The end result of all of this is that substantive domestic policy has been getting the short end of the stick. But that needs to change, and probably will as the election heats up- at least to the extent that the rhetoric will start again about the middle class. If we're going to have a real debate about the issues, it's going to be up to us to force the issue.
February 23, 2007 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
With the exception of "Mother Jones" which now has a pair of women editors and "The Nation" I can't think of a single other news magazine or major daily that is headed by a woman.
Perhaps this has something to do with the slant that they tend to take on issue of family and career. It seems that news biz is still a man's world, although the number of women reporters has increased greatly over the past two decades.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
February 23, 2007 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
We definitely need more information in reference to Working Mothers and Gender Discrimination (that is, the illegal use of motherhood stereotypes of female employees in hiring, wage, and promotion decisions).
I look forward to your March postings.
February 23, 2007 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Even here at TPMCafe, most of our attention has been focusing either on the war or politics itself. end result of all of this is that substantive domestic policy has been getting the short end of the stick.
I have been wanting to say something liek thsi myself. Almost all the blog sites, whether rightor left, are way too obsessed with Iraq. But the bitter truth is, until George Bush leaves office there is not a damn thing we can do about that mess. And domestic policy is far more likely to have an effect on our own lives then things on the other side of the planet. Moreover I think the Democrats can prosper by exploiting the GOP's numerous weaknesses on the homefront, where they really do not have much support from the American people and where, even with Bush still in the White House, some reforms may actually be possible.
February 24, 2007 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink