No privilege for most stay-at-home moms -poll
The recent flap over women voters — especially stay-at-home mothers — has sent both Republican and Democratic pundits scrambling and with good reason: many stay-at-home moms aren’t affiliated with either party and are a ripe target for swing votes, a new poll shows.
The survey from Gallup Inc also finds that moms who don’t work aren’t exactly a pampered lot, despite Ann Romney – the wife of a multi-millionaire businessman – being portrayed as their standard bearer. It found most moms who stay home are more economically disadvantaged than their working peers.
Women with more education and those with higher family incomes are far more likely to work after having children than lower-income women and those who have less schooling, the polling firm found.
“It does appear that stay-at-home mothers are more economically disadvantaged than working mothers, rather than more advantaged. And this may be directly related to education,” Gallup said in its poll released this week.
The dust-up over whether women who don’t work and instead stay home with their children are privileged arose last week when Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen made comments that seemed to criticize Ann Romney, whose husband Mitt is one of the wealthiest people to ever seek the U.S. presidency and who has never been employed outside her home.
According to Gallup, which interviewed more than 45,000 U.S. adult women over three months earlier this year, most mothers with children under age 18 work outside the home — 63 percent. Thirty-seven percent stay home.
The survey found 84 percent of moms with young kids who have postgraduate-level education also have a job along with 75 percent of college graduates and 66 percent of those with just some college coursework. That compares with 48 percent of those who have at most a high school education.
Rick Santorum makes appeal to women, new campaign strategy?
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum hailed the influence of strong, independent women on Tuesday night, a turnaround from his past statements that critics have called sexist or anti-women.
In a concession speech given just as rival Mitt Romney won the Republican presidential primaries of Arizona and Michigan, Santorum took the chance to tell voters “a little more about who Rick Santorum is” and sang the praises of his 93-year-old grandmother, his wife Karen, a former lawyer who gave up work to raise their family, and their daughter Elizabeth who campaigns for her dad on her own.
“I grew up with a very strong mom, someone who was a professional person who taught me a lot of things about… balancing work and family, and doing it well, and doing it with a big heart and commitment,” he said.
In his excitement, Santorum also mistakenly referred to the “men and women” who signed the Declaration of Independence.
“I’ve been very, very blessed, very blessed with great role models for me, as someone who goes out and tries to do the job I’m doing right now, to balance the rigors of running a campaign and trying to maintain a good and strong family,” he said.
Santorum has seen a surge in support from women since winning nominating contests in Iowa, Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. But in Michigan, he failed to rally that support from married and unmarried women.
Santorum’s attempt to involve women in his vision for America could be motivated by the fact that he needs to appeal to a broader swathe of women that includes moderates and independents as well as those further to the right.
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Woman joins Obama golf entourage for first time
President Barack Obama’s weekend outings to play golf have become regular events, especially when the weather cooperates.
But Sunday afternoon, an almost picture-perfect fall day, marked the first time in Obama’s presidency that a woman joined the golf game.
White House domestic policy aide Melody Barnes was among those who headed out to the Fort Belvoir army installation in Virginia to play golf with the president. White House aides of varying levels of seniority typically play golf with the president but until Sunday, the games were all male.
“He golfed with women on the campaign trail but not until Melody this year,” White House spokesman Bill Burton was quoted as saying by Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times/Politics Daily. Sweet was part of the pool of reporters who covered Sunday’s golf outing.
The golf game came on the same day that The New York Times featured on its cover a story looking at whether Obama’s White House was too much of a “man’s world.”
The Times article cited complaints that arose after Obama hosted a high-level basketball game that included no female players. It also quoted some women Democrats raising concerns that women advisers to Obama do not seem to be as visible as their male counterparts or wield as much influence.
Women voters are a crucial part of the Democratic base because they tend to support the party in greater numbers than men.
from MacroScope:
How to silence Larry Summers
White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers is rarely at a loss for words, which makes Tuesday's question-and-answer session at the National Press Club in Washington downright astonishing.
Summers, whose term as president of Harvard University ended rather abruptly after he made some unfortunate remarks about women and math and science aptitude, knew he was on very thin ice when he was asked a question about gender differences in retirement savings.
As soon as the question was asked, laughter spread around the room. Summers himself paused for a good 20 seconds before cracking a joke about how the question must have frightened his staff.
"Now you have just put their health at risk," he said. "I think I will move to the next question."
UPDATE:
See the full clip below:
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Defending women’s rights in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Barely had President Barack Obama outlined a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan meant to narrow the focus to eliminating the threat from al Qaeda and its Islamist allies, before the U.S.-led campaign ran into what was always going to be one of its biggest problems in limiting its goals. What does it do about the rights of women in the region?
The treatment of women has dominated the headlines this week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a new law for the minority Shi'ite population which both the United States and the United Nations said could undermine women's rights. Karzai has promised a review of the law, while also complaining it was misinterpreted by Western journalists.
In Pakistan, video footage has been circulated of Taliban militants flogging a teenage girl in the Swat valley, where the government concluded a peace deal with the Taliban in February. The graphic and disturbing video, which has been posted on YouTube, has outraged many Pakistanis and the flogging was condemned by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani as shameful. There have been contradictory reports of exactly when and why the girl was punished, although Dawn newspaper quoted a witness as saying she was flogged two weeks ago for refusing a marriage proposal.
But where do women's rights fit into the new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan?
The New York Times quoted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as saying in response to a question on the Afghan law that "women’s rights are a central part of the foreign policy of the Obama administration".
Wa’ As salamu alikum,
My dear brother in faith, AzadDP, First of All,in 1971, Razaker was created to defend East Pakistan. After fall of Pakistan, Bengali call every Mullah as Razaker and kill them and torture them. They treat them like out caste human being. in your information, there were two groups one was to defend Pakistan and one was Muktibahini. The slavery(Proza) that East Bengali were facing the great leader Nehru abolished it.I won’t tell you were did I live, but I can tell you that I am a certified Mullah. I graduated from Kumillah Ranir Bazar Madrassa. I have received my Ammah in 1989 and now I am 35.
Girl Power hits the White House
President Barack Obama, who is surrounded by women at home – wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia – on Wednesday declared Girl Power a priority for the federal government.
In creating the White House Council on Women and Girls, which will include members of his Cabinet, Obama said he wanted to make sure that women and girls were treated fairly in all matters of public policy.
“We have many of those Cabinet members here. Some of the men showed up — we put them in the second row,” Obama said to laughter at an event to sign the executive order creating the council.
“I sign this order not just as a president, but as a son, a grandson, a husband, and a father, because growing up, I saw my mother put herself through school and follow her passion for helping others,” he said.
“But I also saw how she struggled to raise me and my sister on her own, worrying about how she’d pay the bills and educate herself and provide for us.”
The president said the first lady was “the rock of the Obama family” in juggling work and parenting.
First lady Michelle Obama in spotlight at reception
First lady Michelle Obama took a turn in the spotlight Thursday, hosting a reception for a woman whose treatment at Goodyear prompted Congress to change the law on pay discrimination. It was one of the highest-profile public events for the first lady since the inauguration last week. And it was on behalf of a woman — Lilly Ledbetter — who got to know the first couple well during the presidential campaign. President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act into law in the East Room of the White House flanked by a small crowd of lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “This is what change looks like,” Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland joked to the audience as the lawmakers crowded around the document Obama was to sign. The first lady later spoke about Ledbetter at a reception in the State Dining Room as guests sipped orange juice and cranberry juice and munched cherry orange scones, apple muffins and other pastries. “She is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world,” Michelle Obama said. “She knew unfairness when she saw it and was willing to do something about it because it was the right thing to do, plain and simple.” Ledbetter discovered after 19 years on the job at Goodyear Tire & Rubber that she was the lowest-paid supervisor at her plant despite having more experience than some male co-workers. A jury found she was the victim of discrimination. But the Supreme Court reversed the decision two years ago, saying discrimination claims must be filed within 180 days of the first offense. “I will never see a cent from my case,” Ledbetter said. “But with the passage (of the bill) and president’s signature today, I have an even richer reward. I know that my daughters and granddaughters and your daughters and your granddaughters will have a better deal.” For more Reuters political news, click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Michelle Obama greets guest); Reuters/Jim Bourg (Obama hands pen to Ledbetter after signing bill)
No, actually in the spirit of fairness all political parties were respectful to Laura Bush. At least I don’t remember anyone criticizing her. In my opinion, I believe Laura Bush was the classiest and best first lady this nation has had in my lifetime. Perhaps Jackie Kennedy is her equal (not paying attention to political parties in this commentary).
I don’t remember Laura Bush every saying anything negative about the critics of her husband. She was and still is a model for all first ladies. How can anyone not like her. She is the best of the best.
I won’t say anything negative about Michelle Obama, even though I didn’t like some of the things she said during the campaign. But so far, as a first lady, she seems okay to me. I really haven’t followed what she has done up to this point. I am sure she has typical first lady projects she is interested in. I do hope she doesn’t act like Hillary Clinton did as first lady. Hillary wasn’t a good first lady as far as I am concerned. She was too political. But so far, so good regarding Michelle Obama.
Clinton and Obama as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire?
NEW YORK – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire — that’s how Sen. Clinton put it on Thursday at a women’s breakfast where she joined the Democratic White House hopeful to campaign for him in New York.
She said Obama had noted that she looked rested since she ended her campaign against him for the Democratic nomination, and she told him she’d been exercising for a change.
“During the campaign … Barack would get up faithfully every morning and go to the gym. I would get up and have my hair done,” she said as she introduced him.
“It’s one of those Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire things.”
Obama’s comment on Clinton when he took the stage: “She rocks.”
Clinton said the hard fought Democratic primary had been good for politics, boosting turnout and motivating more people than ever to vote.
“Anyone who voted for me has so much in common with those who voted for Barack, and it’s critical that we join forces,” Clinton said.
Sorry, but I just can’t see Hillary (and Bill) moping around in the background of the White House. I think Hillary as VP would be a stone around the neck of Obama.
If you want to continue to dance with the devil then vote for McCain.
Mr. obama knows what he is doing