Republican Lawmaker Expresses Contempt for Tennessee Women & Children

In 2005, U.S. public policy still does not consider women's traditional work of caring for children to be of importance. If anything the feminist dream of quality child care centers as free and plentiful as public parks, appears far more unattainable today than in the 1970s.

Sen. David Fowler, famed for being one of this state’s most self-centered and arrogant aristocrats on the Hill, recently contributed his two cents to the field of child development.

''How much is there you can teach a 4-year-old? My guess is that it doesn't take five and a half hours.''

The senator was trying to amend the pre kindergarten bill so that low income children would receive 3 hours of instruction rather than 5 ½ hours. In the Republican's view, the minds of 4 year olds are of limited capacity.

What do all those caregiving women do with children all day long? Why they sit on the veranda and eat bon bons, of course.

Now we know why child care workers in this state and nation receive far less pay than parking lot attendants. I mean everyone knows it takes a man with a brain to care for car, but only a lowly woman to care for a kid.

The good news about the fact that women are still the socially designated caretakers of children, is that the likes of David Fowler will continue to have little or nothing to do with the children. That's just one of the many silver linings of sexism as we know it. Of course, the really bad news is that men like Fowler continue to supervise the women and children, or make public policy which continues to harm far more of us than it helps.

We are the only industrialized nation without a social welfare policy based on the belief that a nation is responsible for its children.

As Dorothy Smith points out, it should come as no surprise that men fail to see "women's work" as valuable and essential and important cultural work, for it has been delegated so thoroughly and cloaked in such invisibility, that the men simply do not perceive it.

Somehow the pre kindergarten bill passed, and so despite the efforts of arrogant Republicans such as Fowler, roughly 6,000 low-income mothers will get some help with the problem of caring for small children while simultaneously flipping burgers and answering telephones for the likes of Fowler.

A few other choice thoughts from the limited mind of Sen. David Fowler:

"People who do filing and answer the phones - they can be replaced for a dime a dozen. Their incentive is to show up for work, do your job every day, don't complain, don't moan. If you don't like it, leave!"

"Sick days to me never made much sense, and are abused by slacker employees - especially those I'm stuck with in the government."

"In the private sector, if my secretary needs to go to the doctor, I ask her to try to do it in the morning or the afternoon, and she can go, and if I feel like she's abusing it, I fire her."

I think we all know that the "people who do filing and answer phones" are women.

If you should feel the urge to give this 'public servant' a piece of your mind, you can reach him here.