Does motherhood make a woman a better leader? | Left-leaning Diane Glass doesn't think so

Female politicians play the mommy card like a Playboy bunny works the cottontail. It's all about getting ahead by pandering to sexist stereotypes. Parenting isn't a seamlessly transferable skill to the running of a country, and it can never replace years of political experience. Most everyone can have children. Far fewer actually parent well -- and only a few can lead a nation.

Nancy Pelosi touts her brood of five as her political curriculum vitae. Hillary Clinton's subzero demeanor is softened with photo opportunities with hubby Bill and daughter Chelsea. Clinton and Pelosi are political forces to be reckoned with, so why do they play the mommy card to curry political favor?

It's not because motherhood is a realistic comparison to the running of a country. It's because the "mommy card" in politics isn't about being a mother at all; it's about catering to our public neurosis about women in power. Being a mother affords female candidates the approachability factor. Child-free apostates are viewed with suspicion. This notion of what a "real woman" is seems rather limiting. The evolving nature of what it means to be a happy and productive citizen includes family structures reflecting a broad range of personal choices today.

If everyone really felt that the mommy-turned-politician career path was a viable means to political office, we'd see more high-profile examples of single-mother candidates being elected. If it's hard for Pelosi and Clinton to raise a family with millions of dollars and full-time nannies, imagine what it's like to raise a child all alone on a regular salary. Single mothers are the real multitaskers, not mothers who've lived privileged lives.

Regrettably, even child-free female politicians are viewed with disdain. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer implied that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could never empathize with the families who had children stationed in Iraq because she had none. It's disappointing that even the most liberal political figures pander to the mommy bias.

Motherhood doesn't make women any more compassionate or capable of running countries than other women. And this is exactly what Rice implied in her rejoinder to Boxer. I thought women had come further than the mediocrity of such bias, she said. Indeed. So had I.

2007, Diane Glass

Harvard-educated Diane Glass (w2wcolumn@gmail.com) is a writer and freethinker with a B.A. and M.A. in comparative religion.