Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumWaPo: Anatomy of a fake GOP scandal about Elizabeth Warren
Heres how this particular experiment in scandal-mongering has gone. One of the stories Warren tells about herself, often when describing her desire to improve child care, is about how in her early 20s she was working as a schoolteacher in New Jersey. But at the end of that first year, I was visibly pregnant, she said during a Democratic debate. Back in the day, that meant that the principal said to me wished me luck and hired someone else for the job.
It was the 1970-71 school year, and in those days, it was not just common but often the express policy of many school districts not to mention plenty of other employers that women who became pregnant would have to be fired.
It wasnt until 1974 that the Supreme Court ruled that policies forcing pregnant teachers out of the classroom were unconstitutional. In 1978, Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, but even today, discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace is distressingly widespread.
Yet this seemingly uncontroversial piece of Warrens biography obviously made some opposition researcher somewhere begin poring over records of the school where Warren worked nearly half a century ago. The result was this article published Monday in the conservative Washington Free Beacon, in which they reveal hold on to your hats that the minutes of a school board meeting in April 1971 (when Warren would have been four months pregnant) say that her contract was renewed, while the minutes of a meeting two months later say that her resignation was accepted with regret.
To any sane person, this wouldnt contradict her story at all, since its unlikely that the school board minutes would record Fired Mrs. Warren for getting knocked up. Nevertheless, the claim that Warren is pulling a fast one shot around the conservative world. Eventually the story reached into the mainstream media, with pieces like this CBS News article which corroborates her story but nonetheless frames it as Elizabeth Warren stands by account, as though there is some actual doubt about what happened.
On the most basic level, youd have to ask who could possibly care about this. Its hard to believe there are large numbers of voters who will say, I know Trump is the most corrupt president in history and has told thousands of lies, but Im not sure I can trust Elizabeth Warren if I cant be convinced beyond any doubt that her story about leaving a job in 1971 is 100 percent true.
But thats not how it works. When the right creates a fake scandal about a Democratic politician, it isnt meant to be persuasive in and of itself. Its meant to do a couple of things at once. First, it gives Republican media figures, and the audiences of Fox News and talk radio, something to talk about to channel already existing antipathy.
Next, it prods mainstream media to take up the story on their own, so that even if the story is debunked, the ensuing coverage still reinforces the narrative Republicans have created. Here are a thousand stories about whether Hillary Clinton is corrupt! Even if what they add up to is a public official who was not, in fact, corrupt, the question How corrupt is Hillary Clinton? came to define the campaign.
They tried to do the same thing with Joe Biden and the Ukraine story, pushing a conspiracy theory that, though wrong in most ways, was bought by the conspiracy theorist in chief, the result being that hes now likely to be impeached.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/08/fake-scandal-about-elizabeth-warren-shows-where-republicans-are-headed/
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Voltaire2
(13,039 posts)And notice that the game is being played right here too.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
flor-de-jasmim
(2,125 posts)And one employer asked me to work overtime for the nth time. When I said I couldn't because my husband and I had plans, he said with a sneer, "You didn't tell me you were MARRied!" I responded, "I didn't think it as relevant". Boston, 1976.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
whistler162
(11,155 posts)related how before she was hired by the company we worked for she was "let go" by her other employers when she became pregnant. The company we wherewith didn't do that when she became pregnant again, not sure if it was her 2nd or 3rd child.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
BlueMTexpat
(15,369 posts)Too many of us who lived through those days remember exactly what women had to go through.
Almost no one ever confessed to being pregnant until the point when it was totally obvious because of the infamous "five-month rule."
Because we all knew that it would mean that we would almost invariably lose our jobs. And there would be NO guarantee that we would - EVER - get them back, no matter how qualified we were.
***********
Just to add: I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in a so-called developing country where I taught secondary school. My women teacher colleagues - and this was the 1960s(!) - were NEVER worried about losing their positions because of pregnancy. In fact, they had at least two months of PAID pregnancy leave and, if they chose to breastfeed, were allowed time off to do so, even after they returned to work.
Of course, we didn't have breast pumps in those days either.
But I remember how appalled I was upon my return to the US to realize how far behind women's rights were in the USA.
*****
So yes, you RW zealots, BRING IT ON!!!!!!
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
marybourg
(12,631 posts)to this crap, let alone repeat it, when the scumbag in the white house, lies, cheats and steals, breaks the laws, the norms of decency and subverts our democracy every day.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Celerity
(43,383 posts)and my reply after some research
here is the first RW source I could find, and ITS source is Bernie-bro-ette Meagan Day at Jacobin
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287303161#post18
This RW article came out October 2nd (and is cited on the same day by RW sites) and the Meagan Day tweet came out October 1, before the RW sites picked up on it.
I am not saying that there were not even earlier hit jobs, but all (or most) of the heavy lifters on the RW all source back to this, as far as I can tell. I welcome any further info that shows this to be wrong.
https://jerylbier.blogspot.com/2019/10/elizabeth-warren-fired-from-teaching.html
Elizabeth Warren: Fired From Teaching Job For Being Pregnant, Or For Lacking Qualifications? Story Appears To Change
Editor's Note:
>Ed Morrissey of Hot Air found video of Warren's 2007 interview here. [added 10/7/19]
>Collin Anderson of the Washington Free Beacon found records of county records from the Riverdale Board of Education that directly contradict Warren's claims here. [added 10/7/19]
>Warren finally responded via CBS News on Monday, October 8, 5 days after this article was published. [added 10/8/19]
>Final note: Here's my editorial take on this issue.
---
Original article:
- October 02, 2019
During her presidential campaign, Elizabeth Warren often emphasizes education as well as equal opportunities for women in the workplace. Warren tells of her own experience as a young public school teacher, let go from a special needs teaching job by a male principal for being "visibly pregnant." This past May, Warren put it this way when discussing her early teaching career:
I loved it, and I would probably still be doing it today but back in the day, before unions, the principal, by the time we got to the end of the first year, I was visibly pregnant, she said. And the principal did what principals did in those days: they wished you luck, showed you the door, and hired someone else for the job. And there went my dream.
In an interview twelve years ago, however, Warren told a markedly different version of the circumstances around her termination from her teaching job. (A writer for Jacobin Magazine, Meagan Day, first noted the interview on Tuesday on Twitter. Day is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and is a Bernie Sanders supporter.)
snip
Link to tweet
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
DrFunkenstein
(8,745 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
cwydro
(51,308 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden