I already didn’t like Doug Holder — current State Representative District 70 — too much for his stance, voting, and wishy-washy statements on oil drilling off the coast of Florida, but now I like the guy even less. Holder is a holdover from the Mad Men era — apparently, the guy doesn’t have a clue the 60s are over.
During yesterday’s Sarasota Tiger Bay meeting, Holder had this to say about his challenger in the race for District 70 — Nancy Feehan:
“My opponent hasn’t been in the work force for 25 years.”
Oh, no, he dit’nt!
He did. And, I guess, technically, in a very outdated, kind of Mad Men-esque, sexist kind of way, Holder is right. Feehan hasn’t been technically employed and paid for performing a job outside of the home while raising her kids — at least to the best of my knowledge.
But for the past couple of decades she was very much employed in the very important business of raising her two children.
And, during those twenty-something years of being a dedicated mother, Feehan never lost an opportunity to serve her community either — whether in her children’s school system, or as a court-appointed advocate representing abused and neglected children through the Guardian ad Litem program, which she’s been involved with for the past seven years.
I’m not a mother myself (unless my felines count), but it rankles me something fierce when I see a State Representative who’s supposed to represent ALL the folks in his district dismiss those folks who don’t meet his criteria for being in the “workforce.” Ask any mother — stay-at-home or working — and ask any father with an appreciation for what it takes to raise a child — and I think all of them will tell you that raising children is a full time job and a critically important one in the overall concerns of our community — “workforce”– paid and unpaid — included.
Holder’s public statement about Nancy was kind of shockingly dumb given that there were plenty of Moms — and Dads who value the role their wives play — in the audience at Tiger Bay.
In my mind, Holder’s a throwback to an era that devalued women in general and stay-at-home Moms in particular. And for that, on November 2, I’m throwing him back with my vote.
Maybe once he leaves office, he can stay home with his kids and see just how much a part of the common and very essential “workforce” motherhood actually is.