This is the first post in a series of posts I am writing about the book I am currently reading…
My high school English teacher used to call taking notes in the margin of a book being an “active reader.” Well, as you can see from this photo, I am a very active reader…
Before I delve into this book, its message and how I am receiving it (Not well. Not well at all.) I wanted to share with you the winner of my new award, created because of this book….
“Dumbest Thing I Have Read In A Book In A Really Long Time Award”
First a teeny bit of background.
Who said the quote: Rob Dugger
Who is Rob Dugger: (From p. 111 of The New Feminist Agenda) He is business man and “a passionate proponent of investing in early childhood. He is cofounder of the Partnership for America’s Economic Success and chairman of the Partnership’s Invest in Kids Working Group and founder and managing partner of Hanover Investment Group, among other things.”
Why is he included in this book: Dear god I do not know why.
Now, I am pulling the quote out of context here but I will get to him, the book, the platform, beginning in the next post, but today, well, I just had to pick on this quote. I just couldn’t resist. I know it is low-hanging fruit but I just had to pick on it.
I am so tired of arrogant, ignorant, condescending schmucks. I really, really am.
The award-winning quote: (From pages 112-113)
“Dugger believes solving our problems (supporting children) begins with prenatal care, at the state level. “A lot of disadvantaged women and middle-class moms just got out of high school and college and they don’t know how to deal with pregnancy and their mothers are living halfway across the United States in a retirement home in Arizona. Who is going to show these gals how to take care of themselves?”
OH. MY. GOD.
Like a slow-motion replay, let’s break down this gem of a quote.
#1 Overall, just totally condescending and stupid. Totally.
#2 “A lot of disadvantaged women and middle-class moms just got out of high school and college and they don’t know how to deal with pregnancy…”
And what, they don’t know how to learn about pregnancy???
Thanks for all the credit there, dude.
p.s. This, cut and pasted from Wikipedia…
What to Expect When You’re Expecting is a pregnancy guide, now in its fourth edition, written by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel and published by Workman Publishing. Originally published in 1984, the book consistently tops The New York TimesBest Seller list in the paperback advice category,[1] is one of USA Today’s ”25 Most Influential Books” of the past 25 years[2]and has been described as “the bible of American pregnancy”.[3] As of 2008, over 14.5 million copies were in print.[4]According to USA Today, 93 percent of all expectant mothers who read a pregnancy guide read What to Expect When You’re Expecting.[5] In 2012, What to Expect When You’re Expecting was adapted into a film released by Lionsgate.[6]
How’s that for women learning how to “deal with” pregnancy?
#3″ … and their mothers are living halfway across the United States in a retirement home…”
Let’s, for a moment, assume a woman just out of high school is 18, and a woman just out of college is 22… Uhm, dude, my readers are better at math than you are so I am going no farther with this point.
#4 “…in Arizona.” Saying anything about this would be like stealing rhetorical candy from a baby.
#5a “Who is going to show these gals how to take care of themselves?”
Gals. GALS! Try WOMEN, asshole!
#5b These women have THEMSELVES, obstetricians, books, friends, and telephones that can reach their mothers in those retirement homes all the way in Arizona.
Good grief. What on earth compelled Ms. Kunin, who I hope, at least for the citizens of Vermont, whose governor she once was, has at least part of a brain, to use this man to support her argument for early childhood education? Moreover, why did her editor keep this statement in the book? So I could create my Dumbest Thing I Have Read Award? As I read this, and I’m an advocate for early childhood education, I was all like, well, laughing at their asshattery.
And they make money producing and promoting this and I made nothing while I was at home seeing to my children’s early childhood education.
I am shaking my head.
And I have to speak out.
There is more to follow.
Believe me, there will be more.
Charlotte isn’t being quiet anymore.
No ma’am.
Good grief. I think “asshattery” is a perfect term. Sigh.
I marvel at your resilance to read andrespond to such inflamatory and irritating material. I avoid such books at all costs.They sink me. I am grateful to those who speak out and make a difference.
I wonder if we are in a new Victorian Era, where the prudishness is a displaced notion of the indiviual’s ability to care for themselves and manage their lives.
Just today, I recalled the HOURS of therapy specialist gave my lovely boy so he could throw a ball ‘like other children.’ They taught him the mechanics of catch and throw, but the joy did not connect for him because it was such hard work. Now he can catch and throw with ease and he is having fun, it is just at a different age. The quote you posted smacks of arrogance and the sort of micro-managing of our lives I do not care for.
Heh. sorry. Got off on a tangent!
Lori
Hi Lori,
I rather liked your tangent. No apologies necessary.
Your point about books like the one I am reading is well received and there was a day I too would have avoided them, but I have come to the conclusion, as I stand and look at 47 just days away, that I am now a cranky old lady who is tired, after 21 years in the mothering business, of women bashing other women for the choices they make and I want to say something about it. And just like with Tyoma and catching the ball, there is this belief that you should do what I think you should do, when I deem it the appropriate time to do it. In other words, look and act like me and if you don’t, well, you are obviously wrong, unable and thus need fixin’.
How can we ever achieve the equality, which is what these women say they want, when in their next breath they put an entire group of women down. They are so much a part of the problem because 1. they themselves degrade women, and 2. they can’t see they are doing it. I want to say ENOUGH. So I am!
I should change my blog’s name to Cranky Old Lady!
Now it is I who am going off!:-)