Ann Romney’s speech at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night got Laura Wood, the so-called Thinking Housewife, pining for a world in which the dirty world of politics was limited to dudes.
When women were denied the vote, they could reside on a higher plane, far from the oily ministrations of politicians. Now, at every convention, we must hear about the first date of the presidential candidate and his wife. We must see them kiss and be told by both how wonderful women are. The governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, and Luce Vela, the wife of the governor of Puerto Rico, also appeared last night and I couldn’t help but feel, given their outfits and grooming, that I was watching a political version of the Miss America contest.
My only question is why Ms. Housewife was watching the convention at all. If politics is so “oily” and gross and inherently unladylike, shouldn’t a good old-fashioned gal like her be studiously avoiding its corrupting influence? Weren’t there any doilies in the house that needed dusting?
and then of course, the crowd tried to shout down a female peurto rican committee chair by chanting ‘u-s-a’
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2012/08/hbc-90008805
Speaking of doilies, I have a bit of obsession with fiber arts, and recently learned to needle tat. I am now in possession of one(1) needle-tatted Christmas ornament in the shape of a wreath with red beads as berries.*
However, the general thought about tatted things–like doilies–is that you pin them (if necessary) and then steam them to shrink the cotton. You can also stiffen them (with something like cornstarch) if you want, but that sometimes dulls the colors. It certainly doesn’t have to be done every day, and is quite easy to get done after doing a full day’s worth of work.
* I know what my mom is getting for Christmas.
Ackk!!! Invaded by Meller? Engage seat of the pants technology! And damn the torpedoes!!
So umm, women aren’t allowed to engage in politics, but the Wifey is perfectly okay with engaging in what amounts to malicious gossip about other women. Erm, good for her?
I guess those guys were actually RuPaul supporters who were pissed that they weren’t reading his name in the roll call and the representative from Puerto Rico just happened to be walking up at the same time.
But the guy throwing peanuts at a black camerawoman from CNN, saying “This is how we feed animals” — that absolutely happened.
I’m not entirely buying the explanation for the first incident, the shout-down. It’s clearly the Paulites shouting, but it’s unclear to me that part of the shoutdown wasn’t about a brown woman being given a chance to speak.
Also, I have some delicious schadenfreude over the Paulites. You thought you could rig and lie and go behind the backs of the Republicans? Guys! They invented that game! You wanna beat them at their own game? BRING YOUR LUNCH.
You got out-dirty-tricked. DEAL.
That is, that she was given the chance to speak while they were being unseated and losing their chance to speak for Paulites.
Check out how the R establishment undermined them and killed any hint of a brokered convention. If you can find an inside story, it’s VICIOUS stuff, kept camera-friendly and sweet for the most part.
As someone who is both a housewife (in college, so living off the boyfriend’s job until I graduate) and someone who thinks, I feel insulted every time her blog is mentioned.
they didn’t start chanting until after they heard her accent. and some of them were chanting ‘go back home’
paulites are self-congratulatory dimwits with a penchant for attention getting stunts and specious grandstanding. shutting them out was just common sense.
And they made it EASY. They telegraphed in advance what kind of tricks they were going to use to get their way.
Guys, if you’re telling people about it, don’t you think maybe some of the brains of the operation will listen thoughtfully? And maybe come up with ideas to shut you down and not tell you?
This is the party of Rove now, U guize!!!
Self-congratulatory hopelessly naive dimwits.
what really cracks me up is that they think they’re cynical realists who have struck upon some hidden truth only they can see, when in fact theyre the dupes of a snake-oil salesman and his even less honest son.
Not sure why, but her post made me think of this:
Disgusting.
Yeah, these are the same doodz who discover Ayn Rand at 17 and think they’ve found the ABSOLUTE TRUTH OF LIFE. Every time some guy at college tried shoving Atlas Shrugged at me I went running in the opposite direction.
How every Paulite joined the movement:
Bah failure to embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR2GpGtyqDg
I think I speak even for Republicans in saying the less we have to hear about Mittens’ sex life, the happier we will all be, regardless of the intention of the information.
Just sayin.
Shorter Thinking Housewife: “Women shouldn’t demean themselves by having a say in what happens to the country.”
OK, I am a huge women’s history nerd, but I hope this is interesting to other people…
I was shocked to find out that on my mother’s side of the family, we had a lot of dedicated first-wave feminists in our family tree, some of whom pop up in books about women’s history (Mary Livermore is a great-great-great aunt, I believe), but most of whom were support staff. After my great-aunt died, her ancient book collection came to me, and mixed in with the Victorian girl’s novels (which OMG that is my favorite genre of books, right there, and holding a first edition Wide Wide World in my hands, passed down through the family, just about made me pass out), I found some old books about feminism and temperance, one penned by another aunt (Anne Livermore), some with just hand-written notes. And it all made more sense, especially as I studied more on the subject.
The Livermores have been very religious (first Methodist, but then switching to the more fundamentalist Free Methodists and Nazarenes at the turn of the century) for pretty much all of their recorded history, with lots of pastors, theologians, pastor’s wives–and feminists! Many early feminists were religious, but they were usually Quakers and Congregationalists, the kind of churches other churches think are barely Christian, if at all, partially because of their liberal views regarding women (and gays, now). But conservative religious women started getting involved in feminism, too, not fighting against the gender stereotypes like some of the earlier feminists, but *because* they believed women were more moral and existed on a higher plane. They weren’t fighting to get out of the house, but in many cases, to make the house a better place. And you better believe the established feminist groups courted and used them, whatever their motivation.
(You can disagree with the temperance movement, but it was originally a *feminist* movement and not as much a religious thing–though religious groups helped fuel the fire and took advantage, certainly. But when you think about women getting brutalized by their drunk husbands without any legal recourse–and even now, most cases of domestic violence occur under the influence of alcohol, so it’s not like they were making up that connection–and watching husbands blow their paycheck at the bar, leaving their wives and ten kids to starve in their one-room shack, yeah, I can see how feminists came to the conclusion that getting rid of alcohol was a good solution. It was certainly a hell of a lot easier than changing the laws against domestic violence and marital rape–hell, that wasn’t accomplished until *1993*! No, it didn’t work, but I’m not going to demonize them for it.)
I just find it funny that this woman is using an argument that got turned on its head over 100 years ago. I mean, the argument that women are morally superior to men, the household angels and heart of the home and all that–along with the argument that the female vote could finally get prohibition passed, for the same reason–was probably the reason women were ever able to secure the vote in the first place. Lady, you lost this one a *long* time ago, and not to “radical feminists” or whatever your bogeyman is, but to people who believe exactly the same way you do!
I think I speak even for Republicans in saying the less we have to hear about Mittens’ sex life, the happier we will all be, regardless of the intention of the information.
Can you clarify what this comment means and what the context is, because I’m pretty sure Ann Romney didn’t get up on stage at the Republican convention and start talking about their sex life.
Possibly not exactly. 😉
also from Laura’s comment thread: “In all of this, I have to ask the question, how do the men (such as Mitt Romney) who are close to these public women look at themselves in the mirror knowing they are encouraging such destructive self-indulgence?”
Yeah Romney! The self-indulgence you should be worrying about is your uppity wife’s inflated ego, when she’s thinking she’s a real human being like you! *That’s* where you guys are too self-indulgent!
The thing is, Ann Romney I feel in a lot of stretches, seems to really exemplify a lot of the things Thinking Housewife says a woman should be. Ann Romney is a stay at home mother, she isn’t actually involved in politics (just, her husband is, and therefore she is expected to be a good accessory to his career) she’s had five kids, and she’s conservative and religious. She “stands by her man”, every time Ann Romney HAS gotten involved, it’s been to try to drive her husband’s point home (don’t think it’s really doing that, but that’s debatable).
I can’t help but figure that Wood is really just annoyed whenever any woman who isn’t her speaks at all.
did yall notice wood refers to romney as the ‘first-lady-to-be’ as if she assumes that romney is going to win the election?
@ostara: you’re dead-on right.
It’s the “can’t-win” in the equation. Even if women live up to every ideal the patriarchy comes up for them, they’ll still find a way to look down their nose at you.
The point isn’t living up their high ideals. It’s having an excuse to sneer down at women as lesser.