Not that long ago, there was an expression, “behind every great man, there is a woman.” That expression has been all but modernized out of existence and replaced with a more equitable version. Even Eve, the proverbial first woman, stood beside her man, not behind him. For John Kasich, the Republican Governor of Ohio, his wife doesn’t even stand quietly behind him. She’s stuck in the laundry room.
From Huffington Post:
“You know, Jane Portman, Karen Kasich, and Janna Ryan, they operate an awful lot of the time in the shadows,” he said, speaking of his wife and those of Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and GOP vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
“It’s not easy to be a spouse of an elected official,” he said. “You know, they’re at home, doing the laundry and doing so many things while we’re up here on the stage getting a little bit of applause, right? They don’t often share in it. And it is hard for the spouse to hear the criticism and to put up with the travel schedule and to have to be at home taking care of the kids. And where is the politician? Out on the road!”
The Twitter reactions were swift and almost universally critical of Kasich’s botched attempt at sympathizing with the plight of women in this country. While his words might have resonated in the time of Lucy desperately trying to grab a portion of Ricky Ricardo’s spotlight; in 2012, when most women struggle with balancing multiple roles, including that of working outside the home, his words come across as sexist and anything but sympathetic. Instead of relegating her to towel duty, Governor Kasich, hire a maid and let your wife carve her own life. If housewife is the role she wants, then there’s really no sympathy to be had, is there? She is living her chosen profession.
Kasich’s words did little but highlight the difference between his family and the majority of families across the country. His wife is free not to work without worrying whether the heat bill will get paid. She is not forced to work two jobs and then come home to her third full-time job as wife and mother. She, unlike most American women, can afford the luxury of staying home to fold laundry.
Of course, should Kasich continue to put his foot in his mouth, he always has his back-up plan of stealing the election.
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If there were enough women with stay-at-home husbands taking care of the laundry and kids, outrageous opinions like this person’s would simply go unnoticed or disapproved. What you’re missing is the condescending tone of the statement, the implied message that this is what all women should be doing. Genders are traditionally seen as not equal; women’s “place” is “the house”, the man’s “place” is “outside”, and this is what this politician’s referring to, and the cheers that followed were a nod to that, a nod to the status quo. If this was a senator who believed in the equality of all people regarding their gender, he or she would be referring to greater freedom in crossing these two spaces.
While this guy may well be sexist, consider what we’d be saying if the roles were reversed. If this were a woman governor with a stay-at-home husband taking care of the laundry and kids, it wouldn’t be called sexist for her to make this comment.
It’s one thing to fault a guy for comments that would be sexist no matter what their context. It’s another thing entirely to fault someone for comments that nobody would interpret as sexist if the roles were reversed.