Campbell Brown writes an excellent article in the NY Times Sunday edition – “Obama: Stop Condescending to Women”
In the article, she notes that Pres Obama is trying to court women voters (especially college age) by suggesting that abortion and free contraceptive rights are highly important to all women. What does Brown think of the Life of Julia ads?
“Mr. Obama’s Web ad, “The Life of Julia,” a silly and embarrassing caricature based on the assumption that women look to government at every meaningful phase of their lives for help.”
Brown states that her female friends who are unemployed are looking first to family and friends for assistance and they “wouldn’t have it any other way.”
What concerns women, especially young college grad women? Jobs. Economy. Being able to have a fair shake and opportunity. They don’t want to have Pres Obama condescend to them with a bunch of gibberish that means little to them. He risks insulting their intelligence when he claims that all women are smarter than men.
She notes: “It’s all so tired, the kind of fake praise showered upon those one views as easy to impress.”
Sadly, I see this coming from many politicians, more often from the left. They will gladly spend billions of dollars on a program that shows little or no real change for the better, but because they’ve spent the money, they feel better about themselves. We see this in education (how they fight opening schools up to market forces), balancing the budget without touching Medicare and other holy and sacred untouchable programs, and offering bribes to the American people and each other so they can get reelected.
Pres Obama (and Congress), quit talking down to women. And while you are at it, quit talking down to the rest of us as well!
I enjoyed the Life of Julia myself. As a piece of straightforward propaganda, it seems persuasive to me. But I’m a man, so I can’t really see how women would find it condescending. Most of the points in the Life of Julia apply to men and women: Head Start, Race to the Top, Opportunity Tax Credit for families of college kids, coverage till age 26 on parent’s health plan, capping income-based federal student loans, Small Business Admin Loan, Medicare, Social Security. The only specifically female things are the Fair Pay Act and mandated coverage for birth control and prenatal care. So maybe it seems a bit pandering to spin all this as “for women” when it’s not really specific that to women.
The “Life of Julia” propaganda is offensive in hundreds of ways, but the top two are:
1)It portrays people as simply being wards of the state. Julia’s happiness is directly tied to a long list of government programs that *other people are paying for with their own sweat and labor.* The implication is that Julia’s many, many government programs are somehow “free” and come into being without affecting other people. In reality, other people’s taxes pay for Julia and her cradle to grave welfare.
2)Julia just decides to have a baby without a husband or even a boyfriend. This is more reminiscent of Marxist propaganda than anything else. The state, which supports Julia so she can have a baby without a man anywhere in sight, replaces the family unit. Such a vision is literally Satanic.
I agree that this propaganda is offensive and condescending to women because it assumes they are incapable of doing anything in their lives without an ever-present government, but I find these two aspects even more offensive.
Where can I find this “Life of Julia”? I am hesitant to comment on something which I have not read.
Look at “worth reading” and go to the link “Julia decides to have a child,” which provides good commentary and also references the original propaganda.
Oh, come on, guys! My comment was funny! Geez Louise …
“It portrays people as simply being wards of the state. Julia’s happiness is directly tied to a long list of government programs that *other people are paying for with their own sweat and labor.* The implication is that Julia’s many, many government programs are somehow “free” and come into being without affecting other people. In reality, other people’s taxes pay for Julia and her cradle to grave welfare.”
Actually, working as a web designer, Julia herself is probably paying back all these programs–and then some–with her taxes. It is not only “other people’s” taxes. Julia is not some passive ward of the state. She’s a self-starter, a hard worker. She should be a conservative’s model citizen. She studies her tail off for her SATs, goes to college, studies something useful so she can be gainfully employed, dutifully pays back her student loans, has a family, etc. She is the subject of many of those sentences. The government programs simply provide a really nice assist at key junctures. Would you rather have her dead at 24 because she wasn’t still on her parent’s health insurance until 26, couldn’t afford that surgery, and now all that government investment in her K-12 education was wasted? (I assume you still support taxpayer-funded K-12 education, Geoff?) Or was it a good investment on the part of society and the taxpayer to help her out at that key juncture, and have her subsequent hard work pay dividends to the society for many years following?
“Julia just decides to have a baby without a husband or even a boyfriend.”
Where does it say this? Just because it doesn’t have a slide showing her in her wedding dress, she necessarily isn’t married? Weird assumption. It’s only showing the VERY FEW (yet still important) moments of her life that intersect with certain government programs they want to highlight. It’s not showing every little personal detail. It doesn’t show her getting a driver’s license–does that give me license (ha!) to write, “Julia doesn’t have a driver’s license and can’t drive. This is more reminiscent of Saudi Arabia than anything else. The state brutally oppresses women. Such a vision is literally Satanic.” Of course not. In fact, the fact that not every little thing in her life is included in the slideshow directly contradicts your earlier complaint that she is depicted as a “ward of the state” whose “happiness is directly tied to a long list of government programs.” Nope. Certain key junctures were given a nice boost by a slim but vital social safety net. But there’s plenty of moments in her life that end up in her keepsake photo album, not this infographic slideshow.
“Slim but vital safety net.” Pschaw. Nice try, Cynthia L. There is not enough common ground here to have a meaningful discussion. Suffice to say I disagree with about every word of the above, and let’s just agree to remain friends.
That every household owes over $545,000 to the US debt means that all the government expenditures will eventually mean Julia (and all other people) will end up in huge amounts of poverty when the country goes bankrupt and the dollar bill is worthless. Or, if we save the Union, it will mean that all those great programs will be greatly reduced or non-existent.
And most young people graduating college right now would be happy to have a job.
Yes, safety nets are nice. But this one has become so expensive, it will eventually implode. And it is partially Bush’s fault!
When the safety net ITSELF needs a safety net to stay solvent, that’s when you know the welfare state has jumped the shark.
MT, unlike the Fonz, I don’t think we’ve successfully jumped this shark. Rather, it may be more of a JAWS IV in 3D that we’re going to see….
I agree. If think we the civil unrest we saw in 2011 and this year was bad, we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet when the Treasury checks stop flowing.
I’m not a doomsayer, but I expect things to get ugly if/when Greece happens here.