Okay, peeperellas. It’s time to make a list.
Recently, we received a link from a reader letting us know about a post on Her Bad Mother. Catherine, HBM’s boss-lady, received an email from a reader saying that they were ashamed FOR HER that she’s wasted her education by becoming a mother with no job. Because being a mom is embarrassing, right? Women who choose to stay at home are just moochers, right? Catherine responds:
There is, it seems, this deeply ingrained but internally contradictory cultural idea that mothers are public property whose choices should be publicly scrutinized and judged but who themselves should not be part of the discourse of the public sphere, that is to say, share their stories and experiences of motherhood and family life out in the open and seek out dialogue and community there.
They’re repeating a story that asserts that the lives of women are not only not interesting, but not even suitable for the public sphere, unless those lives look more like men’s lives, or the lives historically celebrated as the kind that are lived by men. (It is worth noting that this story is often told by women. The disdain toward ‘mommy bloggers that one sees in the cultural commentary produced by some young feminists and the antipathy toward women who leave professional career tracks to ‘just’ be mothers expressed by the Linda Hirschman’s of the world are both expressions of the biases of this story.) It’s an old story, a disempowering story, and a stupid story.
This is one of the reasons we at Hathor get so jazzed over mommy blogs…. and why we’re so bewildered that, out of all the people someone could be ashamed of right now, someone could pick STAY AT HOME MOMS as the shamiest shamers who ever shamed the world.
Here’s the beginning of our list, collaboratively written by several Hathor bloggers:
People Who Are More Shameful than Mothers Who Choose To Opt Out of the Workforce (An Abridged List):
1. Charlie Sheen
2. Karl Rove
3. The parents in The Nanny Diaries
4. NBC writers
5. WI governor Scott Walker
6. Rush Limbaugh
7. Gadhafi
8. Mubarek
9. Roman Polanski.
10. Rupert Murdoch
11. Michael Bay (for sexist behavior)
13. Kenneth Lay
14. Bernie Madoff
15. Bush, Paulson, Bernanke and the rest of the TARP “Let’s punish banks for wrecking the US by giving them billions!” gang
16. Pretty much the entire financial sector
17. The Catholic church
18. South Dakota
19. Ann Coulter
20. Child molesters
21. Dick Cheney
22. Naomi Wolf
23. Martin Harty (for this)
24. Michelle Bachmann, who has never been rated higher than “pants on fire” for a public statement by politifact
25. The House Republicans for their attacks on women, the country, common sense and…idk kittens. Everything.
26. Bobby Franklin, particularly
27. Everyone actively involved in pushing non-sense mortgages
28. Real estate flippers.
29. The real estate market, which behaved in a predatory fashion last decade
30. For profit colleges and universities, that exploit low income students and vets in order to take advantage of federal funding
31. Anti-union parents who don’t get that teachers deserve a living wage
32. Westboro Baptist Church
33. George RR Martin fans who harassed him so much while he was writing his book
34. Rabid P&A fans
35. LDS church
36. Companies that outsource jobs to foreign countries
C’mon, readers. Who’s more embarrassing than stay at home moms, whose hard work at a risky job makes it possible for some families to make ends meet? If you can’t think of anyone more embarrassing (no judgment here — maybe you’re at work and can’t really work up ye olde blood pressure just now), then let’s take this thread as an opportunity to celebrate parents who try to be the best parents they can — regardless of whether they stay at home or not.
{ 83 comments… read them below or add one }
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I wish I could say I chose to be a stay at home mom. I would have done so in a heartbeat if I could. But I never did. When I was able to work, I did. Then we moved to Australia, and for a while there were legal issues and professional issues; finding a job in my industry was hard enough as an immigrant, let alone after I transitioned.
But then my body went downhill, and I can’t hold a job if I wanted to. Which rather nicely dovetailed with my son starting school and utterly failing to cope, and so having a parent on call was necessary. Now, we home school both our kids, but I do surprisingly little of it because I spend much of my time either in pain, on painkillers, or just plain exhausted. I keep them alive and entertained during the day, sure, but I never chose to do so. I just… Fell into it.
Stay at home moms are amazing. Those who can and do choose it are amazing. Those who can’t do aught else are amazing. Not everyone has the choice, we should cherish those that do. Equally, we should cherish those who never have the choice because of economics or situation or whatever else.
Hell, let’s just all cherish each other. Imagine a world where everyone defaulted to loving each other instead of, well, what we have now?
Jamie(Quote) (Reply)
Oooh, whoever it was that banned our sister site, What Privilege, from my university’s computers.
Gabriella(Quote) (Reply)
The guy who thought it was okay to publicly berate a woman for “bad parenting” for allowing her children to play the Wii at a party.
ninjapenguin(Quote) (Reply)
The Australian Defence Force Academy, for diciplining a girl who had sex with another cadet while being secretly films… while seeming to not hold anyone else (the other person, those who filmed it) responsible for ‘embarrasing’ the ADFA.
Hey, I’m good at this!
Gabriella(Quote) (Reply)
Brannon Braga for insisting that Deanna Troi, Seven-of-Nine and T’Pol wear catsuits on Star Trek, so that he could sexploit them.
M.C.(Quote) (Reply)
-The man who sexually abused and impregnated his then 11 yo daughter.
-The men who called my dad a moocher for being a stay at home dad of four
Maartje(Quote) (Reply)
- Mel Gibson
- Lindsay Lohan
- Most of reality-tv-shows
- Berlusconi
- Hugo Chávez
Nuria(Quote) (Reply)
I misunderstood the question, and I put forth: The people more worried about the impact this will have on the lives of the 18 males who repeatedly gang-raped an 11 year old girl, and those that implied (Or directly said) that she deserved it.
Jamie(Quote) (Reply)
Just to clarify, IIRC, we included the Catholic church for shielding child molesters and for making various legal attacks on women’s rights in nations where they enjoy the privilege of paying no taxes on their enormous earnings.
Just didn’t want anyone thinking we were equating Catholicism in general with something shameful.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
*applause* I concur! what a sexist tool. =p
Chai Latte(Quote) (Reply)
Well, you weren’t, maybe…
Just kidding, mostly, though what I can remember from my Catholic upbringing is that we should basically be ashamed of everything we do, so the whole organization seems to thrive on shaming. And that’s shameful.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
Can we also include it for just-barely-indirectly promoting the suicides of gay teenagers and the STD infection rate of all sorts of people? And for having generally fucked up attitudes about sex?
I mean, my mom’s side is Catholic and everything, and the laypeople seem fine, but the official church is just thirty-seven flavors of Not Okay.
Isabel C.(Quote) (Reply)
Absolutely. Specific reasons are great. I was just clarifying that we’re not “shaming” the entire church and everything about it.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Ooh, can we include the leaders of the Mormon Church? They harass, assault, and torment queer people, and tell their flock that it’s better to be dead then tho be gay. And they funded the prop 8 campaign.
And they harassed my apostate father for years before we gave them the slip and have a pattern of doing the same to anyone who tries to leave the fold.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
I think they’re #35.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
Oh there they are! *headdesk*
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
Nah, now we have specifics listed, which is good. It’s always a good reminder that they funded Prop 8 (entirely? or almost entirely), which was pretty gross. I’ve also heard firsthand stories about the harassment.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
- commenters on any site (think, Yahoo! or YouTube) who spew such vile hatred for many, many varied groups of people it’s impossible to point out all the infractions
– eHarmony
- people who moan and groan if someone requires the lift on a public transit bus (how inconvenient of that person in wheelchair to use the bus, don’t they know I HAVE PLACES TO GO RIGHT NOW?)
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
Oh, totally–good disclaimer. I just felt like throwing a few more things in there.
Isabel C.(Quote) (Reply)
Every elected and non-elected Power That Is who has dared to block single-payer health care reform. It is 2011 and people are still dying from treatable conditions for lack of money. Jesus wept!
Every pundit, amateur or paid, who dares to shame somebody who uses government aid to avoid starvation. And every twit who insists that people on food aid have to live on lentils and gruel. And every fool who says that people who can’t make a decent living where they are can just move, and those who don’t must be lazy.
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
They gave the majority of funding, through a set of PACs they set up to disguise their direct involvement and make it appear to be a religious coalition. There are also reports of them coming to Mormon families with details of their earnings and saying “We expect you to donate this much to anti-gay activism. We’ll sit here while you write the check.”
They also have skeevy ideas about women, and a truly fascinating racial history, and religious tolerance, and…
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
Also, Jamie Oliver, for pretending to help reform school lunch programs when he just heaped more expense and work on people who did not need his crap.
And everybody who is profiting from the so-called obesity epidemic. And everybody who has decided that heaping even more shame and self-loathing on fat kids will make them thin. And the people who crop the heads out of photos of fat people and use their depersonalized bodies to illustrate What’s Wrong With America. And any medical authority who thinks that the BMI means a damn thing.
And let’s not forget hospitals that say that they take care of mothers and babies, but have enormously high rates of unnecessary surgical intervention and the consequent medical dangers.
Jenny Islander(Quote) (Reply)
US Senator Ron Johnson, who exploited his daughter with a heart condition by asserting that her life-saving treatment would not be available under “Obamacare” (blatantly false) and by doing so, seeks to deny life-saving treatment to other children in his daughter’s position.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
Fox News
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
MY GOD, SECONDED
Raeka(Quote) (Reply)
Bill Maher,
Keith Olberdouche,
Dan Savage (for hating fat people, women, victims of sexual assault, and those in poly-amorous or open relationships).
There’s a LOOOT more, I’m sure.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Oh yeah, Dr. Drew is pretty shameful too: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/04/still-worst.html
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Huh, when I left the fold they left me alone pretty quick.
Also, even when I was in the fold I never heard of anyone being pressured to donate to Prop 8. In fact, it was the fact that most of them didn’t need to be pressured but were so quick to jump to with signs and everything that led to me leaving said fold.
But then a lot of behaviors of local congregations in the LDS church are given to high levels of variance. The LDS church in Utah is not the same on the day to day living in it level that it was in Texas, which is not the same as in California, which is really not the same as in Chennai, Tamil Nadu….
Note, this allowance for local peculiarity sometimes is beneficial, but often it leads to even more jacked up behaviors. For whatever combination of reasons when local LDS cultures sprout the tend to go more radically conservative than the opposite.
Brand Robins(Quote) (Reply)
Can I get a 36(b) that’s about the racists who attack outsourced call center employees on the phone for the crime of wanting a job and not being in their nation?
Brand Robins(Quote) (Reply)
YES! Or the First World policies that undermine the economies of “cheap labor” nations so that the labor remains cheap?
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
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