Two Day Magazine

Sorry Ann, I'm just not buying it and neither are the majority of women.

It's been almost a week since you gave your "love" speech about your husband Mitt and women still do not relate to you. How can we? You said your marriage has been successful because of "love". You talked about love and "our hardships". You talked about your miscarriages, breast cancer, and MS and how they made your marriage "not so much of a fairy-tale". You wanted us to think we're all on the same plane. Ah, Ann, Ann, Ann. We are not.

While we can relate to those health issues in theory, here are the reasons why we cannot relate to you personally. Your position in life is far different from many of our own. You and Mitt have the kind of privileged life that not even most members of the aptly named one percent of Americans can imagine.

Here are the harsh realities that you never have, and never will, face. Many Americans suffer from chronic conditions  and countless American women have fought breast cancer but their situations were as different from yours as night is from day. I am quite sure that:

• You never once had to worry about how you would be able to keep your job or feed your family while fighting a debilitating condition.

• You never had to worry about finding  health insurance while you had a pre-existing condition. Insurance companies are funny that way, Ann.

• You are unaware that the many privileges you take for granted in your affluent world do not exist for many of us and most especially for anyone with health issues.

Then there is your statement about your early poverty.

"I can tell you Mitt Romney was not handed success. At BYU, we moved into a $62-a-month basement apartment with a cement floor and lived there two years as students with no income. They were not easy years. Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time. The stock came from Mitt’s father ."

Lucky you two! As students, you were privileged to have a stock portfolio that you did not build, (but Mitt inherited) to support you. Don't all college kids wish this would happen to them? You think this statement makes us relate to you?! Come on now.

You tried to persuade women that we should trust, even like, and vote for Mitt. Seriously? You want us to do this despite his ambivalence about equal pay laws, his promise to shut down the nation's biggest provider of women's health care, and his unbelievable flip-flopping on women's  personal choices about our own bodies. He can't make a solid decision concerning whether we should be forced against our will to carry to term pregnancies resulting from rape or incest (or even ones that severely endanger the life of the woman) or not. Oh yes, this is certainly a man we can trust!

I'm sorry, but if he feels that women need to be told what to do with their own bodies, he's not the man we want in office. Ann, you did nothing to assure us that Mitt will not pursue his party's blatantly anti-woman agenda.

Your unwittingly condescending speech to women sounded antiquated. You talked only about women being the "mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives, daughters", never once mentioning that we are also the "the doctors, lawyers, senators, and CEOs”. Your meaningless platitudes about moms "who really hold this country together" and care for elderly parents and help with book reports sounded like something out of a 1950's TV show.

"Gosh Mrs. Cleaver, you're one of the women who really hold this country together. Wally and the Beav are so lucky to have you as a mom! Who else would help them with their book reports? Who else would change Grandmom's diapers?"

Please Mrs. Romney, Ann, we get that you love your husband but don't think that he's so loveable to other women. His policies dictate that he cannot be trusted and you know what is said about love and trust going hand-in-hand.

Your speech last week pretty much gave us the picture of why it would be dangerous for us to have Mitt in office and why we can't relate to you. Mom and apple-pie no longer define the American woman. And truthfully, we're too savvy to think that, outside of the female anatomy, we have anything in common with you. You are as out of touch with women as is your husband and his party. Way, way out of touch.

As an afterthought I have to add that, if I were on a national stage extolling my husband's virtues and why our marriage is successful I would say this:

"Our marriage is successful because of love...and incredible, mind-blowing sex!"

Believe me, Ann, I'd be more popular with women and so would my husband.

© 2012 copyright Kristen Houghton all rights reserved.

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Like this article? Check out other great pieces from Kristen Houghton:

     Political Correctness for Sexual Predators? Not Needed.

     Does Money + Love = Happy Relationship?

     Red, White and Blue