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Is “marrying up” really the conservative female ideal?

Is “marrying up” really the conservative female ideal?

With friends like this, those who want to defeat Obama don’t need enemies.

Having savaged Newt Gingrich for months, S.E. Cupp now is coming to the aid of Ann Romney by praising Ann for “marrying up“:

As a thirtysomething, city-dwelling, hypereducated, independent-thinking  woman, I suppose I should recoil at the idea of one day getting married,  quitting my ultracompetitive job and staying home to raise my brood of  germ-carrying moochers.

But as I sit in a cramped New York apartment, surrounded by bills, drowning  in a sea of deadlines, the conventional life of a stay-at-home mother actually  sounds pretty nice….

But while liberal women may praise Ann for (at least) getting herself an  education, where is the praise for Ann’s best decision of all — to marry  well?

Progressives like Hilary Rosen, who lambasted Ann Romney on economic issues for being a stay-at-home  mom, would presumably prefer women to be dependent on the state for health care  and housing .

But by marrying wealthy, Ann made a truly empowering decision that allowed  her the freedom to do whatever she wanted. And she did it, by all accounts,  without sacrificing the really important stuff, marrying someone she loved….

In fact, her excellent choice of a mate makes her uniquely qualified to talk  about the most important economic issue that real women confront: How am I going  to support myself and my future family?

Is marrying up the conservative female ideal?

Doesn’t that play right into the hands of the class warfare-iers who claim (falsely) that a woman’s choice to stay at home and raise children rather than work outside the home fundamentally is a choice only for the wealthy?

Were “the hockey and the soccer moms, the homeschooling moms and the book club moms, the joyful moms who brought their children to see history in the making and spun them on the lawn, dancing, when music played,” and who so startled Judith Warner at her Palin rally adventure in 2008, motivated by money?

Can we stop digging?

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Comments

Joan Of Argghh | April 19, 2012 at 10:57 am

It evens out. Mitt “married up” intellectually.

Nada wrong with the “marrying up” concept, Prof.

I taught all sons and daughters to marry up…and never limited that to money (the least of factors, IMNHO).

But money certainly IS a factor in raising children, and providing them with opportunities.

Yee flippin’ Gawd, when …WHEN … will the media and the electorate stop dwelling on distractions.

One long string of them … Trayvon, Rosen, dogs, SS in Columbia, GSA in Las Vegas, et all ad infintum. NOT one single front page item anywhere about what is really happening to the country under this perverse administration. Not one comment about how the Obamabots despise the rich 1% all the while Obama himself caters to their every whim, and raises funds hand over fist with them helping him out.

I’m a long time dog owner and trainer, also a horse owner and trainer, and let me tell you that although I despise those who’d eat dog or horse, it is absolutely NOT my main concern vis a vis Obama and his administration of rule makers who by-pass Congress, and maybe the Supreme Court whenever they can do so.

We’re watching our nation as constituted disappear right in front of our eyes … and here we are talking about “marrying up” or whatever the next spurious distraction of the day becomes.

    ThomasD in reply to Aridog. | April 19, 2012 at 11:55 am

    Exactly. This is an example of why Cupp is not a conservative, but in reality a RINO squish; barely centrist, she’s more of someone one the right end of the leftist spectrum. Her entire worldview is dictated by what they think, what they believe, and how they choose to define issues and understanding.

    She will never be more than a weak response to whatever narrative the left wants to pursue. EBL’s counter (below) about two people coming together is spot on, but Cupp is simply incapable of recognizing this. It is just not in her.

      quiznilo in reply to ThomasD. | April 19, 2012 at 1:35 pm

      Exactly, her world-view is predicated on flawed leftist assumptions about the world, and all her arguments begin with those assumptions.

      For example, instead of arguing about the best way to go about eliminating the Department of Education, she would rather argue about how to fix it.

      Also, ‘logical consistency’ does not appear to be a hallmark of the left.

    NC Mountain Girl in reply to Aridog. | April 19, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    There is no issue more important come November than the image of the two candidates that gets carried into the booth by the ten to 20 percent of the electorate who qualify as low interest voters. Many of these voters cannot identify the candidates with particular issues. Their decision making process is largely based upon media images. That is why yesterday’s dog story was important. Focus groups show the Seamus story causes Romney’s unfavorables to soar. Ann Romney’s image is equally important.

    In 2008 Obama not only handily won the low interest vote, he actually increased their total numbers with the appeal to turnout and cast an historic vote. He can’t run on the same themes again but he can try to paint himself as less scary than the Republican alternative- a filth rich out of touch looter and bigot who hates working women, practices a bizarre religion and has sociopath tendencies (See how he treated his dog!)

    Obama’s cannot readily paint this picture of Romney upon the public imagination if Republicans in the new media react swiftly to anything and everything that suggests the Romneys do not fall within the confines of a normal American family. The jejune and self promoting Cupp not only failed this test, she’s served up ammunition to the other side.

      Yes, like it or not, these “distractions” do resonate with voters. To a disinterested voter, eating dog meat is an alien concept that has the potential of destroying the ‘casual’ vote for obama.

      We’re still Americans after all. What rocket-scientist at the DNC thought it would be a Good Idea™ to attack mom? If not our mothers in reality, than our ideal conceptionalized mom.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSn5Z7EC4ME

      Sadly this is why the Romney nomination will prove so ruinous to any hope of turning away from the creeping progressive nannystate. The same crowd that crowned him is now the same crowd attempting to run interference for him (and expecting the rest of us to join in the heavy lifting.)

      I am, by conviction and disposition, incapable of participating in this farce.

      BannedbytheGuardian in reply to NC Mountain Girl. | April 19, 2012 at 6:48 pm

      To NC Mountain girl.

      When the figures came in they disproved the ‘historic ‘ voter turnout. The numbers were higher overall but when adding the number of post 04 qualified Americans -it was lower.

      2004 -63.8% of eligible Americans.

      2008 -63.7 % .

        NC Mountain Girl has an unfortunate habit of erring when citing statistics. I’ve seen it on other blogs she frequents (AoS). The last time I witnessed her handiwork, she alleged that the vote totals in the Wisconsin primary were down from 2008 when, in fact, they doubled.

          BannedbytheGuardian in reply to Moonbeam. | April 20, 2012 at 2:14 am

          I think it is a common assumption & nothing against NC Mountaingirl.

          Got to put this “historic turnout ‘lie down at very opportunity. 🙂

Back in the mid 60’s when I was going to high school, it was actually a plus when a gal “married up.” But, sometimes those marriages didn’t last. Both people grew and matured but not on an equal playing field.

Now, I think the conservative woman is more independent and will chose a partner that is more her equal both emotionally, intellectually, and financially. This is the way it should always be when you commit to a marriage. The divorce rate wouldn’t be as high is people spent more time getting to know someone. Money isn’t the answer, however the Romneys seem to have a very good marriage despite Mitt’s wealth.

As for S.E.Cupp, I haven’t a good thing to say about her, as well as Glenn Beck. The complete trashing they have both done to Newt is unconscionable. Beck and his many lies will catch up with him someday and it will be ugly.
Breitbart should have taken him to the woodshed long ago.

    AmandaFitz in reply to Scorpio51. | April 19, 2012 at 2:50 pm

    I hate to tell S.E., but “back in the day” the “marrying up” idea was not as prevalent as it is today. Most of us didn’t pay much attention to what someone’s dad did for a living and hardly KNEW what they did, unless the parent was a doctor- then you called him, Dr. Whosists. The first time I even thought about a family’s wealth was when a beau from Short Hills, NJ came to some parties with me and he CONSTANTLY asked, “What does HER father do?”

    It used to be downright RUDE to mention someone’s financial status- and in the Romney’s high school and college days, even Governor Romney would have only been considered upper middle class, not rich, by his social circle, and only an “outsider,” a “gold digger,” would have looked at Mitt Romney as “marrying up.” We just didn’t look at things that way- at least, polite people didn’t.

    By S.E. Cupp’s definition, all of the Bush wives of this generation, “married up,” Theresa Heinz Kerry “married up,” then “married down,” Jackie Kennedy “married up” financially, but socially, not so much. Joan Bennett Kennedy “married up” financially, but down socially, and on and on….

    S.E., I know a guy in NY you could date- my daughter dumped him because he’s weird, but he’s really, really rich- call me if you need help.

As a thirtysomething, city-dwelling, hypereducated, independent-thinking woman, I suppose I should recoil at the idea of one day getting married, quitting my ultracompetitive job and staying home to raise my brood of germ-carrying moochers.
******************************************

that paragraph right there says all you need to know about her.

    herm2416 in reply to dmacleo. | April 19, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    Yes! Ann Romney, according to Ms. Cupp, must have been prescient…..knowing the millions would flow 25 years hence. Must have been a warming thought in that cold basement apartment holding a new baby, while her husband was in school.

    Good grief! The professor is correct…with friends like these….

    I work hard to go “up” and teach our children the same. I always try to surround myself with smarter people, I learn more that way; with older people, they have life experiences to share with me; with younger people, they know a lot about technology. Shame on me for moving “up”.

S.E. Cupp is wrong on this.

It is not marrying up. It is two people coming together and creating something that is greater than what they would do on their own. While it is no longer the norm, millions of people still do it and benefit from it. That was the whole theme of Murray’s Coming Apart book.

Midwest Rhino | April 19, 2012 at 11:51 am

The first line of Cupp’s article shows the real topic … S.E. tooting her own horn … she’s “hypereducated, independent-thinking”. She then brags about her busy life, and indirectly mocks Ann Romney for “retreating” to the “simple” life of a Mom for a rich husband.

Cupp can’t comprehend that it is remotely possible that Ann’s life could be more complicated and important than her own. S.E. seems quite full of herself … she had her big “personality” thrust in our face on FOX, and apparently she decided she is a prodigy that the world can’t do without (or whatever).

So the article praises S.E. Cupp for her hard road, and belittles Ann for taking the easy way out. Yeah right … raising five kids AND all the social responsibilities that go with being Mitt’s wife. Somehow I think S.E. would flounder in Ann’s role … actually Cupp is also floundering in her current role.

From wikipedia “In 2000, she graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Art History. While attending Cornell, she worked for her college paper, The Cornell Daily Sun. In 2010, she earned a master’s degree with a concentration in religious studies from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.[2]”

While I’m no rocket surgeon, I would not call this pedigree “hypereducated”. Not bad, but it doesn’t appear as though she’s even set foot on Hahvahd yahd. hehe.

    jasond in reply to texan59. | April 19, 2012 at 4:02 pm

    She concentrated on religious studies? She either didn’t concentrate as claimed or she didn’t like what she discovered, I heard her comment on RedEye that she was athiest.

      texan59 in reply to jasond. | April 19, 2012 at 5:27 pm

      Here’s some more on the Gallatin School. Also from Wikipedia.

      “Students design their own interdisciplinary program that meets their specific interests and career goals. Coursework can be undertaken at any of the schools that comprise NYU in addition to the school’s own offerings.”

      Who couldn’t pass a program you get to make up yourself. Baseball box scoring 101, wieghtlifting 202, and NASCAR watching 303. 4.0

      BannedbytheGuardian in reply to jasond. | April 19, 2012 at 6:55 pm

      She could marry Al Gore. He is single rich & also started Divinity School .

      SE Cupp-Galore.

Who needs trolls and mobys when we have S.E. Cupp?

I don’t think Ann Davies married up. She entered into a cult movement, a corrupt, ruthless, ambitious, political and business family. Being married to a man who can lie onstage in front of millions of people, who, in her words, can argue anything and make you believe he’s sincere: “He never takes anything at face value; he can argue any side of a question. And sometimes you think he’s like really believing his argument, but he’s not.” -Ann Romney

With Mitt, you can’t tell what he believes or if what he is saying is true…

The cognitive dissonance, and rumbles of conscience in Ann’s deepest heart must be very hard to keep under control…even with all that money and a 100 million dollar trust fund for each of their sons…it’s not really marrying up.

    The vehemence of some opposition to Romney strikes me as out of proportion to the reasons cited.

    Afaic such “reasons” are pretexts for anti-Mormon bigotry.

    Ragspierre in reply to Uncle Samuel. | April 19, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    “He never takes anything at face value; he can argue any side of a question. And sometimes you think he’s like really believing his argument, but he’s not.” -Ann Romney

    Sounds just like the people I’ve known who were taught forensic argument in their homes. Many of whom were devout Catholics or Jews.

    If you understand the arguments of your foes, you are armed and prepared to meet them.

    See ObamaCare, Oral Arguments.

      Uncle Samuel in reply to Ragspierre. | April 19, 2012 at 12:45 pm

      Ah, but what is the fruit of Romney’s flexible reasonings and arguments?
      Lies, flip/flopping, liberalism, unethical political and business practices.

      Alinsky rule (4?) = Say or do anything to get into power.

        janitor in reply to Uncle Samuel. | April 19, 2012 at 4:22 pm

        I agree with you, Uncle Sam, about Mitt Romney.

        I also agree with everyone who has said, directly or indirectly, that Ann Romney and her choices and opinions are irrelevant.

    texan59 in reply to Uncle Samuel. | April 19, 2012 at 5:28 pm

    She was already a Mormon when she met Mittens. Try again.

      BannedbytheGuardian in reply to texan59. | April 19, 2012 at 7:01 pm

      I have read that her parents were not permitted to attend the Mormon ceremony.

      As stated -I have just read it & know nothing. I don’t even know what a Mormon is except they wear very nice whte shirts & ride bicycles.

      I read here on LI that she was 17 when they met. So do you have date of her conversion or did her parents leave the ‘fold?

        I was sorta kinda almost right. This is from Yahoo News.

        “She converted to Mormonism
        Mitt graduated high school and left for Stanford. A year later, he embarked on a two-and-a-half-year Mormon mission to France, prompting Ann to decide to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1966. Mitt’s father, then–Gov. George Romney, baptized her into the church. She had been an Episcopalian, and her family wasn’t particularly religious. Two of her brothers converted to Mormonism soon after Ann did.”

          BannedbytheGuardian in reply to texan59. | April 20, 2012 at 2:22 am

          I am happy with that explanation.

          The George Romney baptizing thing makes my earlier (much much disliked ) post more fab.

          Son of a Preacher Man. Good guessing from an atheist.

      Moonbeam in reply to texan59. | April 19, 2012 at 8:58 pm

      Wrong. She converted after they started dating in high school and while he was away at Stanford and on his two-year mission. Governor Romney sponsored her. That’s pretty common biographical knowledge.

Sometimes I worry that Conservatives have gotten so consumed by their righteous indignation over Obama that they lost any sense of proportion amd the ability to see the lighter side of anything. Are we fast on the road to the grouchy bitter old men people accuse us of being?

Every time anyone steps away from the 4 Horsemen of inpending despair someone on the right start shouting about “Distrations, petty distrations, pay attention to the one crisis I’ve identified as most critical – everything else is a waste.” The fiscal conservatives have become so myopic they run the risk of driving the social conservative away. Soc Cons may figure the fiscal cons are just as uninterested in the social concerns as the libs so why bother voting – social issues are going to get screwed by both sides.

I’m willing to give SE the possibility of this being an effort at tongue-in-cheek. If it’s not, Prof – is it really worthy of gloom and despair as to the state of the Conservative woman? Marrying well tends to be a joke among single women and not just liberal women – sort of like men and their arm-candy.

    Uncle Samuel in reply to katiejane. | April 19, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    Four Horsemen of Impending Despair:

    – CORRUPTION – Lawlessness, corruption, deception
    – CURRENCY – Rampant spending and debt, inflation, Joblessness
    – CONTROL – Oppressive regulations, control of energy, commodities
    – CONFLICT – chaos, division, distrust

    1. Afaic the point of Bill’s post is that Cupp is playing into distracting comments like Hilary Rosen’s.

    IMO the overriding priority is to replace Obama. History suggests that the voters will decide on the basis of the economy. The Left either lies about the economy or tries to distract from it.

    2. The contenders with natural appeal to fiscal conservatives and social conservatives and to swing voters have stumbled. Sometimes they’ve done themselves in, sometimes they’ve been done in by the media, sometimes they’ve been done in by their family name. It may not be fair, but it is what it is.

    3. Which brings me back to #1.

Having been married nearly 44 years, to the same man, I know that choosing a spouse with very similar values as yours is the most important issue to consider.

There is no shame in “marrying up.” The shame should follow if that describes the extent of the relationship. Supposedly, our enlightened half pursues something other than instant gratification. Our morality tempers the basest aspects of the natural order, so that concepts of redistributive and retributive change, and class envy do not rule our minds.

If S.E. Cupp’s perspective of reality is representative, then I wonder how anyone can believe that evolutionary fitness motivates our behavior. If anything, evolutionary dysfunction seems to be more normal. Or, perhaps, an ant analogy is an apt description of humanity. It would seem that both in the short and long-term, we really are our own worst enemy.

It’s silly to suggest Ann Romney “married up” – she was a student at the same private school as Mitt and her father was successful – in the same social niveau as the Romneys, which makes it a marriage of equals.

They were high school sweethearts – how many high school girls really think about ‘marrying up’?

Midwest Rhino | April 19, 2012 at 1:17 pm

Ann Romney’s father was the mayor of a small town in MI, one of the five richest towns in the country. Maybe Mitt married up.

Her father, originally from Caerau near Bridgend, Wales, was a self-made businessman who became president of Jered Industries, a maker of heavy machinery for marine use;[4][6] he also was mayor of Bloomfield Hills.[3] Raised in the Welsh Congregationalists, he had become strongly opposed to all organized religion,[6] although on her request the family very occasionally attended church, and she nominally identified as an Episcopalian.[7][8]

Ann Davies knew of Mitt Romney since elementary school.[8] She went to the private Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills,[9] which was the sister school to the all-boys Cranbrook School that he attended.[9] The two were re-introduced and began dating in March 1965;[10] they informally agreed to marriage after his senior prom in June 1965

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Romney#Early_life

You have to wonder if S.E. Cupp leaves her glasses on. Hawt, is what I mean, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

so one really good thing that has come out of this annointing of roMEHney is that we now have the list of the true conservative sites and bloggers. The list is shorter now but at least we know who is truly on our side.

buh bye hughie, annie, ms cupp, matt and ….

Lets not EVER forget who betrayed us and remember those that stood with us, like of course, the good Professor 🙂

S.E., does your elevator go to the top floor?

S.E. Cupp sounds like a JAP to me. If she ever does marry, she can write the Bridezilla book, and we can all be entertained.

“But by marrying wealthy, Ann made a truly empowering decision that allowed her the freedom to do whatever she wanted. And she did it, by all accounts, without sacrificing the really important stuff, marrying someone she loved”

is this woman ignorant or stupid? I’m no Romney fan, but the story has been around since 08. Ann met Mittens when they were teens or preteens. They were married, went to the same college, lived in the basement unit with no carpet, did not take money from parents, had two children, graduated from college, and then became a millionaire. Where does the idea that she marry wealthy come from? Besides, her dad became rich soon after she went to college, or so the story goes.

“As a thirtysomething, city-dwelling, hypereducated, independent-thinking woman, I suppose I should recoil at the idea of one day getting married, quitting my ultracompetitive job and staying home to raise my brood of germ-carrying moochers.”
Umm… what? She’s perfectly positioned to be a freelance writer, a perfect occupation for a mother. She’s sitting on a goldmine. As a 30-something… I dono… the clock is ticking.
As for marrying up… who wants to marry down?