cycomatto

On February 9th, two Republican commissioners from Frederick County, Maryland defended their vote to end funding for the Head Start program in their county as of March 1st by suggesting that women should be at home raising their children instead of working.   Head Start is a “program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families.” [Wikipedia], ie: preschool.

They attempted to couch these blatantly sexist remarks in terms of “strengthening marriage”, which, as we all know, is one of the most common Conservative methods of attempting to mask horrifically backward and offensive views in terms of Christian ideology.

The two commissioners offered up their own parenting experiences, wherein both of their wives stayed at home with the children, as examples of the ‘sacrifices’ that families should take.  It completely escaped them that their financial situation is dramatically different from those of the families who rely on Head Start (recall: low-income communities); one of the commissioners is a lawyer, the other owns a construction company.

Add this to the list of Republican attacks on women’s rights in 2011.

In fact, MoveOn.org provides an excellent summary of this assault.  I was exposed to this issue via their summary.