Working Woman

By now you are probably aware of the "gaffe" recently by Hilary Rosen. Every so often someone says something that gets blown out of proportion. She told Anderson Cooper that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life.

Two things going on here. It's really a fine distinction between "work" and "job." Nearly everyone works. Even if you win the lottery, you are still going to have to work, namely taking care of all that money, deciding how to spend it, figuring out how to keep everyone else from trying to get their hands on your money. It's a lot of work.

Being a mother, taking care of kids, is "work." Of course it is, you can hire someone to do that job instead of the actual mother and then you would pay that person. Very few people think that mothers don't work. At least once a year there is some sit-com where Dad and Mom switch jobs so that Dad can see how hard the work is. And of course nowadays, we also get to see the reverse. Dad has been staying home taking care of the kids while Mom is working and those two switch so the new modern family shows Mom how difficult taking care of the kids can be.

So, no one is saying that being a Mom means doing no work.

"Job" on the other hand means a more formal designated task. You probably apply for that job. You fill out an application, you provide references, you go to an interview, you decide on an hourly wage or yearly salary. You pay taxes and other fees on the money you make. You can be fired and then worry about food, rent, clothing and health costs.

The whole point of the discussion that Hilary Rosen had with Anderson Cooper was that since Ann Romney had not done the whole job experience thing and since she never had to worry about losing said job, she was not a credible person to be telling Mitt Romney what women are thinking about for economic issues.

I Googled. I admit it. I do that a lot. I found this over at Washington Post. And I found this video clip of Chris Hayes. (There is a short video of Romney and then we go to Chris Hayes for a longer segment. If your back arrow doesn't take you back here, just click a few times.)

The only mistake that Hilary Rosen made was to say "never worked a day in her life" rather than "never had a formal job outside of the home." Whereas people used to ask women if they worked, the politically correct term now is to ask if they work outside of the home.

I have to go now. The kids just poured their soup on the dog and I have to stop them before they get the spray attachment from kitchen sink turned on to "clean up their mess."