Momwashing

As expected, the Moms For Liberty soiree in Philadelphia drew press attention, and some of the journalists covering it perpetuated a recurring phenomenon in M4L coverage.

From soccer moms to parent activists: Moms for Liberty harness a powerful political movement\

                                   ---Washington Examiner headline

Moms for Liberty started with three Florida moms fighting COVID-19 restrictions in 2021. It has quickly ascended as a national player in Republican politics, helped along the way by the board’s political training and close relationships with high-profile GOP groups and lawmakers.

                                    ---Ali Swenson, AP

“I think moms are the key political force for this 2024 cycle,” DeSantis told the crowd, whom he and other speakers hailed as “mama bears.”

                                    ---quoted in Washington Post

They call themselves joyful warriors -- but this group of conservative moms are mad.

                                    ---Brittany Shepherd, ABC

They're getting better at it, but too much of the M4L coverage still leans into that word "moms," and I suppose that they are, in fact, mothers of children. Still, if you can't see anything wring with calling them a bunch of moms, let's try a few other formulations.

The Ku Klux Klan, founded by six Tennessee dads who were initially looking for a social outlet...

The Associated Press, started by a dad who wanted to connect with some other dads about progress in the Mexican American war...

Communism, a set of ideas worked out by a German dad...

The Committee to Re-elect the President, founded by some dads with an interest in the candidacy of Richard Nixon...

Anthony Fauci, a Georgetown dad with a big interest in communicable disease...

The John Birch Society, a group started out by a dad with some concerns about government policies...

We don't have to skew conservative. We could call the Center for American Progress "a discussion group formed by some moms and dads with concerns about government" instead of "a group of seasoned political operatives looking for ways to keep Clintonian policies alive."

But you get the point. Using "moms" makes it seem as if these are just homespun amateurs who never asked to be thrust into this role, but darn it, they couldn't bear to just sit at home with their knitting any more. They never asked to be activists fighting public education.

Except that, of course, they totally did. Two co-founders of the group had already been working privatization politics since 2015 (I've detailed their origin story here and here), and some of them were already communications professionals. They quickly gained access, exposure and money, probably courtesy of one's husband, who specializes in doing exactly that. This is yet another story about a band becomes an "overnight success" after working their instruments and trying to find just the right sound for years and years. 

But the word "moms" just washes that away. It reassures us that they aren't really coms pros and experienced political activists. They aren't even the kind of uppity women who would upset a Southern Baptist. "Moms" are women who know their place. It's a term that erases any notion that these women might get pushy, like a Kamala Harris or a Jill Biden or a Michelle Obama. They're here to support the menfolk. It is an artful balancing of "we are strong fighters" and "we are not any sort of danger to male leaders." They want to support the governor and President, not run for the office themselves.

There are some complicated nuances to female terms in right wing world, which Steve Nuzum summarizes nicely as part of his post about the M4L gathering:

This selective binary between “moms” and “women” is a large part of the “parent’s rights” narrative, which seems to count as parents only those who are a particular brand of cultural conservative. For example, “the teachers unions” were presented as the bogeymen throughout the day, because they're opposed to “women” and/ or “moms,” despite the obvious fact that teachers unions are composed mainly of women/ moms, because most teachers in the US (about 77%) are women.

Parents of LGBTQ kids aren't "moms." Women who are married to other women certainly aren't "moms," no matter how many children they have. Just the Right Sort of People are moms.

Hats off to whoever designed the title for this outfit. Momwashing instantly erases so much, cleansing the group of any whiff of professionalism, scrubbing away any stain of partisan political professionalism, and replacing it with a fresh scent of nostalgia for the days when women stayed him, made cookies, stood up for their kids--but certainly never strayed into areas that were best left to the men. 

There's no denying that in some markets, Momwash is a popular product. I just wish more people would see past it.