If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a good one. Judging by the looks of our home, we had a doozy of a day. With dirty dishes piled up, wrappings, and cardboard boxes spread out all over the house; everyone’s been well fed, newly clothed, and Santa Claused to their delight. As I bend down to pick up still one more bow to toss into the trash, I have a moment of instant connection with most of the mothers across this country.
It’s time to clean up the mess.
And as a woman, I get stuck with the job.
There seems to be no way around this. No matter how much I yell, scream, beg, or threaten, I’m still the one scouring the pans, cleaning the carpets, and gathering up everybody else’s discards. If you’re a mom, or you have a mom, you know what I’m talking about. We’re the ones that are cleaning up right now, whether we want to do it or not. While everyone else is off ice skating, hanging out at malls, shooting baskets or shooting the bull, we’re picking everyone’s mess.
It’s a gender thing: Women clean up the messes.
Fight with me on this issue at your own risk---especially if I’m putting away the silver steak knives. But this is something women do, and this is why gender DOES matter in the 2008 race for President.
This country is in a big mess right now. No offense to any of the men running----they’re all great guys. Line up all our Democratic candidates and you’ll find them all to be bright, articulate, great leaders. Any one of them would make a good President. So how do I choose? What’s the final tipping point for me? As a woman, I’m going to go with the one person who has been hot-wired to do clean up work.
A woman understands what it means to handle the dirty work. To change diapers on only two hours of sleep, to clean up a child’s vomit while you’re dressed in evening clothes. To handle the house, to take care of the kids, to bake classroom cookies at midnight in between loads of laundry, to do the grocery shopping after an eight hour shift. To be the first one up in the morning, and the last one to bed at night.
Obama doesn’t know from this. Biden hasn’t got a clue about this. Nor does Dodd. Richardson. Edwards. Or any other man candidate.
Hillary knows what I’m talking about.
The guy candidates have modeled themselves after their dads. Hillary comes from a long line of hardworking women who have been her role models. She’s had to juggle raising a child with the demands of having a job. Unless you’re a woman, you have no idea how hard that is. Do you think Bill lost sleep if Chelsea was sick in the middle of the night? Do you think it ever crossed his mind to miss work if Chelsea needed to stay home with a fever, or go to the doctor’s? And how many dirty diapers do you really think Bill Clinton changed? The second shift---the messy one always belongs to women.
Gender like race or ethnicity is something you can’t deny. And when it comes to cleaning up after others, it IS a gender thing. Men work hard, but women work even harder. Taking care of others, and cleaning up. Working the "second shift." And the second shift always deals with cleaning up messes.
We need a President who understands that, and who will work overtime to clean up the mess W is leaving behind him. Someone who understands about cleaning up after others.
A woman.
Now more than ever.