To the surprise of no one, media outlets are treating the motherhood of a prominent Democrat much differently than that of a prominent conservative.
On Tuesday, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman gushed over a Glamour article about Joe Biden’s campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon balancing motherhood and work.
“Putting aside everything else, it is rare to hear a woman speaking unapologetically and unselfconsciously about life having kids and an intense job. The kind of thing men aren’t often asked to think twice about but women are always expected to,” Haberman tweeted.
In the article, Glamour touted O’Malley Dillon as “the first woman to manage a successful Democratic presidential campaign, the first woman to run a campaign that ousted an incumbent president, and of course the first person to spearhead a winning ticket in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic.”
Unsurprisingly, Glamour did not write any gushing articles about Kellyanne Conway – ever – but especially after she became the first woman to ever run a successful presidential campaign (Republican or Democrat), hence the caveat in O’Malley Dillon’s list of firsts.
O’Malley Dillon was interviewed for Glamour by activist Glennon Doyle, who said at one point during the interview: “It’s so awesome—the thinking of it in terms of “I did it, not in spite of being a mother, but because I’m a mother,” right? It was part of parenting, deciding to help make our world better for the children that you’re bringing into it.”
O’Malley Dillon responded by saying:
I feel like it’s so important to talk about the fact that I’m a mom. I think a lot of people just feel like that’s still so incongruent with being a professional woman. I had my girls—twin daughters—a week after the election in 2012. When I was deciding to do that campaign, I had women who I admired telling me, “You can’t do it. If you want to be on a campaign, you cannot have a kid.” Or, “If you’re thinking about having a kid, don’t tell anyone.”
Again, Conway was not celebrated this same way even though she’s a mom.
In a more recent example, media outlets – including Glamour – treated Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s motherhood quite differently while she was being confirmed by the senate. On October 14, Glamour ran an op-ed titled, “The Power – And Threat – Of Mothers Like Amy Coney Barrett.” The article suggested Barrett and Republicans had weaponized motherhood, as opposed to celebrating Barrett being a successful working mom.
“But in touting the motherhood of Coney Barrett, Republicans haven’t just insulated Coney Barrett from Democrats’ questioning. They also remind the public that a woman’s worth is primarily a measure of her reproductive capabilities,” the op-ed said. “It’s a neat rhetorical trick—securing the oppression of all mothers through the elevation of a white, married, well-educated mother. It doesn’t matter whether mothers speak out against Coney Barrett. It doesn’t matter whether other women who are not mothers do. To anticipate how her actions will damage the lives of other people is to attack her—a mother. It’s exhausting. But it’s nothing new in America.”
It’s yet another reminder of how Democrats and Republicans are treated differently by the media. All the sexist things we’re not supposed to say about high-profile women are okay when that woman is a Republican, as evidenced by allegedly pro-woman outlets like Glamour.