Shall we?
Ed Rendell put his foot in it when he said Janet Napolitano was perfect for her new job in government because she has no life.
But Rendell said what a lot of people think about singles in general and single women in particular – we have no life so we have tons of time and few personal obligations.
If a bitch had a dollar for every time someone has said shit like that to me I’d be able to fund a fucking bailout.
Well, I call bullshit!
And the people saying it should know that it is bullshit…unless they actually spent their single years sighing and fretting over when they’d partner up and thus get a life.
Shit.
Breaking news – I have a life!
A bitch may be single but I sure as shit have a family.
Gasp!
Pause…roll eyes…continue.
Now this bitch knows that conservatives has been busting ass for years trying to define “family” as one man and one woman joined in sanctified marriage with at least two kids, a mortgage and a pair of chocolate labs, but if this bitch waited for those assholes to get a fucking clue I’d be a damn fool just like Ed Rendell is a damn fool for thinking Napolitano’s single status equals a lack of a life which will then make her the perfect workaholic for her new job.
Lawd, have mercy.
The worst thing about the comment is that it ignores the accomplishments of Napolitano and folks like her working in government who get the fucking job done and balance having a life with service…
…but a bitch doesn’t need to hear a chorus of crickets to know that shit won’t be acknowledged anytime soon.
That'd be too much like right...
13 comments:
Bangor represent!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist. My parents lived not far from there for eight years, and I love the place. It's colder than Sweden, though....)
Momentito, por favor. This is what Mr. Foot-in-Mouth said:
"Janet's perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19-20 hours a day to it."
Not to be purposely obtuse, but where exactly does the sexism enter? I have a team of folks that know all about high-stress work, and we joke about "not having a life" all the time ( including those of us WITH families.) I get totally what Rendell was saying.
my sister fits into that nicely. the people she works with thinks that because she's single with no kids she can work always. she also has a sick mom (who i help with) and an elderly cat who is terminal. he's 20 years old and has a tumor. that's her family. i am married with no kids by choice but i have a family to care for. folks need to get a freaking clue. it doesn't necessarily have to be a sexist issue but it does seem to be disproportionately women who get left holding the floor.
My company used to ask people who weren't married with children to work crazy insane hours, while those with children were able to leave to watch soccer practice, etc. It was crazy stupid bad.
By the way, I happen to think that those of folks without kids or who aren't married have as much of a right to a life as anyone else, whether they have other family obligations or not.
I think Rendell said that though, for one reason only. He's an idiot.
Amen to that! Even those of us who don't happen to have a family around also want to be able to do things like, oh, I don't know, take a walk, go to the gym, watch a movie, etc etc etc...
It really annoys me that society in general thinks that single-ness is this horrible state for anyone to be in. For me, it really isn't, and I'm not pining away for someone to come and sweep me off my feet either.
Yup Shark-Fu, I hear you loud and clear. Although seems some of the other commenters don't. You never mentioned "sexism". You specifically qualified "singles in general and single women in particular". I'm a single female professional in the tech industry. Yes, there is an general assumption that the unmarried worker is more "available" than a married-with-children worker. Rendell's comments have that certain edge to it. A tone reserved for successful women who have never married and never bore children.
Please, I was never this busy back when I was married!
And what about all the married men I've known who work 16-hr days because they DON'T want to go home to their "life"?
(Also, if one more person says to me, "Oh, I should just make you a Match.com profile! No, seriously, you'll be glad!" No. Seriously, I won't.)
As a single who gets tired of the assumption that my life is sad and bereft I hear you. Plus, this comment seems designed to damn with faint praise -- attributing Napolitano's qualifications to hold office to some underlying personal deficit.
However, I gotta say I'm a bit sympathetic to this part of it: I don't see how anybody could run for public office or win a Nobel Prize or compete in the Olympics or do any of a host of other Very Hard Things without sacrificing something. I am often forced to notice, begrudgingly, that people who excel in various ways tend to be people who are incredibly single-minded about it.
Given the choice between a driven, workaholic leader and one who knocks off work every day at five and takes two months of vacation a year, I'd take the former. The last eight years is a pretty good illustration of why.
A life and a good sense of humor.
All sexism aside, we have such a workaholic culture in general. Why should anyone be expected to work nineteen or twenty hours a day? I'd think we could hire back ups, especially for a high-level government position. If you want people to function properly, they need to balance work and down time.
Doesn't it better serve society for people without children to bear more of the workday load than people with children. I feel for the person with the sick cat, but which is going to benefit the world more, a happily loved and nurtured child whose parents have the time to raise it or a well cared for cat?
This is the same as those with financial means underwriting health care for those without the same advantages. By working late to allow parents to raise their children, the childless are working toward a better future. It's not all about you all of the time.
Nestra...
You're right!
Its not about me all the time.
Blink.
Its about my family and friends and the fact that they have value as much as, if not more than, anyone elses family.
And its about a society that needs to invest in community supports that empower families and ease the burden of workers who are also caretakers.
But it is not about single people sacrificing our lives because we don't have children...that's ain't the solution, m'dear.
One of these days people will wake up to the reality that there are a lot of demands on a person's life that are not about kids.
Think of the squeeze generation...think of the partner caretaker...think of the circles of friends who support each other...and think of the legal guardians, like me, of mentally challenged siblings who would like to get home so that we can spend some fucking quality time with the people we love and who depend on us too.
Lawd, give me strength...
Rendell's comment sounded like some jackass, I hate to say it - GUY, who is trying to actually say 'She's not a 'real' woman (ugh-possibly a lesbian!), so she is not important.'
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