Skip to main content
News release

Moms Group Pushes Back After Fox News, Mississippi Governor Blame Decline of America on Working Moms

June 5, 2013
Workplace Justice

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

Group Nominates Gov. Bryant, Fox News Pundits Erik Erickson and Lou Dobbs for Moms Hall of Shame
MomsRising.org, an organization of more than one million moms who are working to help ensure economic security for all families in the United States, responded sharply to public comments that mothers who work outside the home are to blame for societal ills.
 
The attacks were made on-air by Fox News contributors, hosts and, most recently, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant. At a Washington Post event this week, Governor Bryant said that America is so “mediocre” in educational outcomes because “mom is in the workplace.”
 
“The problem in our nation isn't that moms are working, it's that our nation isn't working for moms. Governor Bryant owes Mississippi moms and working moms across the country an apology,” said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director of MomsRising.org. “Statements like this one from Governor Bryant are about passing the buck. The fact of the matter is that we have a modern society, with three-quarters of moms in the labor force, but we're far behind the rest of the world when it comes to systems that allow both contemporary families and businesses to thrive.”
 
“It now costs an average of $200,000 to raise a child from birth to age 18, not including college. Working moms are making responsible choices to be able to put food on the table, a roof over their children's heads, and give their children access to educational opportunities so they can grow up to thriving and be the economic engine of our nation's future,” she continued. “It’s long past time for our nation to update our outdated public policies relating to childcare, family leave, fair pay, sick days, and more -- as many other countries have already done -- and it’s also past time for our leaders to put resources where their mouth is on family values."
 
The organization has started a campaign to urge the Governor to apologize for his comments: http://action.momsrising.org/sign/GovBryant1/
 
“There's a disturbing pattern here that needs to be broken,” said Rowe-Finkbeiner. “The Governor made this statement on the heels of Fox News pundits saying that working moms are a sign of ‘society dissolving around us,’ and that mom breadwinners are against ‘biology,’ in a moment that made us all check our calendars to make sure we hadn't time-traveled.”
 
Last week, Fox News hosts and contributors lamented on air about a new Pew Study showing that mothers are now the breadwinners in 40 percent of American households with children. On his Fox business program, Lou Dobbs described the Pew study as “showing that women have become the breadwinners in this country, and a lot of other concerning and troubling statistics.” He went on to call the report suggestive of “society dissolv[ing] around us.” Fox News contributor Erick Erickson went further, claiming that people who defended female breadwinners were “anti-science.”
 
The comments generated outrage and confusion from some of the women who work at Fox News.  Fox News political analyst Kirsten Powers expressed confusion over Erickson’s analogy on Twitter, and Fox contributor Katie Pavlich said that attacking female breadwinners was “a bad idea.” 
 
 
On Friday, Megyn Kelly, anchor for the Fox News program America Live (pregnant with her third child), responded publicly to her colleagues’ comments and directly confronted both Erik Erickson and Lou Dobbs on her show.  
 
 
“Working moms across the country are encouraged by Megyn Kelly and the other women of Fox News who stood up to the misogyny of their colleagues Erick Erickson, Juan Williams and Lou Dobbs,” said Rowe-Finkbeiner.  “It's time for these troglodytes to catch up to modern realities of our country and to think hard about the retrograde and embarrassing opinions they hold about the women who every day are contributing to our economy, supporting their families, and working to raise their children in a nation with too few policies to help them achieve their goals.”
 
  

# # # #

MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.