What's Wrong with a Mom?

Nothing, Madam Gillibrand, Nothing Whatsoever

File: Jaël Helden en heldinnen uit het Oude Testament (serietitel), RP-P-BI-4265.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Well, here we are again then, listening to a lot of politicians interrogating those aspiring to be members of government. It is the usual exasperating clash of incompatible cultural assumptions about the nature of the world. On the one hand, yesterday there was Pete Hegseth, fairly correct in blue suit and red tie, hair slicked nearly into oblivion. And on the other hand, there was a crowd of Lady Senators like Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren and that strange woman from Hawaii who didn’t seem to be able to get a grip on herself. I absolutely did not watch the whole thing, for I had many things to do, like stare into the middle distance, but concerning one particular clip that I did watch, I have some thoughts, as you must expect.

Kirsten Gillibrand waves her hands and appears to be profoundly and horribly shocked. You can watch it, or read it:

Everything you’ve said in these public statements is politics. I don’t want women. I don’t want moms. What’s wrong with a mom, by the way? Once you have babies you therefore are no longer able to be lethal? I mean you’re basically saying women after they have children can’t ever serve in the military in a combat role. It’s a silly thing to say. It’s a silly thing to say. Beneath the position that you are aspiring to.

They basically did the meme:

Gillibrand, in another clip, waves a paper in the air detailing the very rigorous combat readiness standards that apparently lots of women are willing and able to meet. Hegseth, for his part, denies that he will try to get women out of the military or out of combat, which I take to mean that he will not push them out. Rather, he will raise the standards so that it would be unlikely many would be judged fit for combat. And, based on the river of tweets going by, most people seem agreeable to the idea that only the very strong and powerful would be the ones going into terribly dangerous situations on behalf of those who lack the strength and inclination to do such a task. In other words, a fighting force of men empowered to protect women.

But then Madam Gillibrand starts railing about Hegseth’s apparent rejection of moms.