The Ann Romney-Hilary Rosen clash presented more than another mommy-wars episode. Calling the decision to parent at home or pursue outside paid labor a ‘choice’ obscures the role that businesses, the economy, and government play in shaping the possibilities that families have.
Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen’s declaration a few weeks ago that Republican first lady hopeful Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life” has played out in the media as another politically charged spat in the perpetual mommy wars about women’s choice between paid labor or at-home family care.
It turns out though that the idea of “choice,” whether invoked by left or right, doesn’t even begin to describe the real dilemmas of work and family. Seeing the decision as a choice women make between two options may feel like a happy compromise in the culture wars, but the language of choice has helped obscure the role that business practices, economic pressures, and government policies play in shaping the possibilities that any individual family might choose among.
To see our way forward, we would all do better to remember that the birth of choice came at a particular political and historical moment.
The idea of choosing to stay at home or to work for wages emerged in the 1970s out of a debate that raged across the country over the fate of the housewife. Women’s movement activists claimed victory in widening choices for women’s lives. But, the then-brand-new “pro-family” movement accused feminists of denigrating the role of housewife and mother.
To begin to talk of choice was a break from that debate, a position taken to signal respect for women’s unpaid labor in the home as a choice among the many that women might make.
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