White House Summit on Working Families ignores fathers

Submitted by Mastodon on Mon, 2014-06-23 18:42

Article here. Excerpt:

'President Barack Obama delivered a rousing speech in favor of progressive family policies Monday, declaring that paid family leave and affordable childcare “are not frills, these are basic needs.”

Speaking to a rapturous crowd at the first-ever White House Summit on Working Families Monday afternoon, Obama noted that “too often these issues are thought of as women’s issues, which I guess means you can kind of scoot them aside a little bit. “ But, he said, “Anything that makes life harder for women, makes life harder for families, and makes life harder for children.”

Obama added, “This is about you too, men.” He conceded that there is a double standard for men’s participation in parenting, where men get cheered for attending parent-teacher conferences while women’s professional commitment gets questioned for doing the same.

He also pointed out that the United States is the only developed country without mandated paid maternity leave.

Obama will sign a presidential memorandum directing federal agencies to expand flexibility policies, call on Congress to pass the languishing Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to expand workplace accommodations, and direct Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to allocate $25 million towards childcare for people who want to attend job training programs.
...
Women – and in particular women of color and unmarried women – are an important constituency for Democrats, in this fall’s midterms and beyond. Obama nodded to this, even as he said that the motivation for the summit was his personal commitment to the issues.

“Somebody asked, well, it’s well known that women are more likely to vote for Democrats,” Obama said. “To which I said, ‘Women are smarter.’”'

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Comments

... when this second and mercifully final term for this insulting, incompetent, patronizing, and blithering imbecile comes to an end and the post-mortem analysis by historians and political scientists on what is likely to be called the worst presidency in American history begins in earnest.

I do hope we get someone with a substantially better head on their shoulders in the WH in 2016. If not, I am concerned my general prediction that the US will vote itself into separate countries by 2100 will only be hastened by continued incompetent "leadership"; I'd say start looking more at 2050-2060 if this trend of federal idiocracy continues.

Where's Ike when you need him?

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2014-06-26 03:39

I find it hilarious that Obama claims men get so much praise for parenting, yet he never ever on father's day gives fathers anywhere near the amount of praise he gives mothers on mother's day. He even had the nerve to put dads down back in 2008 on father's day.

As for women being likelier to vote democrat--I'd say that's a fine counterexample to Obama's theory of women being smarter.

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Submitted by xtrnl on Thu, 2014-06-26 04:18