War on women? Most miss the point. It is about the ability to choose

Hilary Rosen created a tsunami of a political brouhaha when she criticized Ann Romney for being the advocate that women cared about jobs more than other issues (referring to her husband’s hard line position supporting the Blunt amendment that would give employers the option of  not covering contraceptives with health insurance, and embracing the right wing stance on many of the social conservative issues).  Most pundits have missed the point: It is about the ability to choose.

Romney himself was on record for saying women do not care about the social issues and care about jobs. Perhaps he had better look at his poll numbers as many  women switched sides to the Democratic column.  

What Hilary Rosen, a former aide to Hillary Clinton  and not a member of the Obama administration or a paid consultant to the Democratic National Committee, did was to infer condemnation of  Ann Romney for never having to work a day in her life, had the choice to stay home, and raise her large family, and therefore did not understand the problems other less privileged women had.   

One  point they all missed is  that there is a connection between women’s choice to  control their reproductive lives and an ability to be able to work . Family planning is critical to the ability of women to go to work in these days of expensive child care .   There was a time when your job position was not held open if a person took leave to care for a newborn.  In most European countries, women get compensation for staying home that first year, but not in ours.  Nursing a baby  was not an option on the job. Those possibilities have been mitigated, but are still dependent upon employer policies and  a patchwork of laws allowing family leave and the ability to come back to work after a brief time at home recovering from child birth.

Wage discrimination meant that those who did go to work earn 70% on every dollar as compared to men and Romney’s campaign was totally ignorant of the fact that Pres. Obama had signed into law rather recently the Lilly Ledbetter act, which made discrimination against women…equal pay for equal work…a law.  This obviously was not in Romney’s  staff’s radar or interest area.

Another point not expressed is that there are many women who would like to stay home, raise their kids, and be a homemaker but they are either single or their husbands cannot bring home enough bacon to cover the costs of raising their family. 

There was a time in my career where I was fired for being pregnant.  It was in the early 1960’s.  I had set out to be a “career woman”,  working in public relations  in media and Wall Street, but I found that at that point, it was no option. I had no choice.  When I graduated from college in 1960, I was the oddball, a woman who wanted to work for the joy of feeling that I was a whole human being, educated and able. In those days of  lower living costs,  and married to a physician, I became a professional volunteer. Even then,  we could afford “help”.   I did not work full time until all three children were in school.

I had watched my mother married to my telephone company executive father who was a stay at home mom, who also had “help”.  My brother was handicapped and even if she had wanted to work, she could not, in any case.  It was not until his medical bills (pre Medicaid) overwhelmed salary and savings that she went to work, and she was in her ‘50’s .   She had no choice.

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On the other hand, I do have cousins in the military who raised their family on military officer’s pay and she homeschooled her brood of six children,  a choice for which I have nothing but respect.  I would not have had the patience, and I fault myself for that.

Where all are missing the point is that women should have the choice and be respected for it if they want to work or must work or if they want to stay home. Reality is that it also means women must be able to control their reproductive lives and when they enter the workforce, get paid fairly.  From that standpoint, Obama gets it. Romney does not.

Freedom v Fairness in 2012

My column in the Sky Hi News today
In his Illinois and Wisconsin primary victory speeches , Mitt Romney reset his campaign to his original theme: Experience in business gives him special insight into how to restore the economy. His formula: “freedom” for business interests.

President Obama has emphasized: “fairness.” Those words chosen by both men reflect their backgrounds, with whom they connect, and in whose interest they would govern. Now each is branding the other as the most out of touch.

“Fairness” seems to be touching more of the voters. Romney's favorability ratings plunged to 34 percent in a March 23 ABC poll. Obama's ascended to 53 percent. Why?

The rough GOP primary, getting bin Laden, and the slowly improving economy weakened Romney's case that Obama was a failure. Rick Santorum raised the public's consciousness that there was a difference between a person raised in privilege and a coal miner's descendent. Romney helped make that point by committing one gaffe after another, from Cadillacs owned to hefty bets on trivia.

Romney is now ridiculing the president for being ignorant about economic matters, dismissing Obama as an out of touch professor and a government-loving community organizer. What he slyly didn't acknowledge is Obama's life story, coming from the struggling middle class, which Obama is of, by, and for.

Romney's understanding of the economy is of, by, for, and limited to his own world of finance and the self-serving theory that tax cuts restored to the rich create wealth that trickles down to the rest. Trickle-down taxation policies between 2001 and 2008 failed. The rich got 275 percent richer; the rest, 6 percent poorer, and the private sector lost 650,000 jobs. Somehow he missed those facts.

Romney equated his experience in private equity to his ability to create jobs, but what is good for Wall Street does not necessarily translate to what others think is in their interest. In analyzing the auto industry through the eyes of a banker, he concluded it was good public policy that auto manufacturing should go bankrupt in spite of resulting job losses. This sank his poll numbers in some Rust Belt swing states.

His plan to restore the economy is to govern on behalf of business, to free business from more regulation, and to “make the regulators the allies of business.” In repealing Wall Street reform and installing foxes to guard the hen house doors, he would restore the same practices that caused the 2008 crash, epic losses of jobs, and the fleecing of the home-owning middle class.

We know in whose interest Romney would not govern. Last month Romney criticized women for wanting to receive pills and mammograms free of copays through Obamacare and he pledged to end support of Planned Parenthood. He claims those issues are not as important to women as the economy. Both are important, and his support from women has dropped dramatically.

We know in whose interest President Obama is governing and why. He has said his priority for health care reform was inspired by his dying mother's struggle to pay medical bills. His issuing rules to alleviate the staggering burden of student loans was born of his own difficulties in paying them off. His income tax proposal would have the rich pay proportionately no less than the middle class (the Buffett rule).

Unlike Mitt Romney's life experiences , Obama learned much about the poor as a community organizer. He saw firsthand the pain of factory closings and the need for a hand-up to escape poverty when the free market cannot or did not provide it. Freedom to stay poor is a poor kind of freedom.