IT IS 20FUCKING16, latest in a series of occasional RAGESMASHes: 

[…] Weiner isn’t just facing questions about his political career. He’s facing questions about his parenting skills. And for the third time, his questionable decisions are ensnaring his wife, one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides, by raising questions about her decision to leave their son alone with her husband while she’s on the campaign trail.

It’s written in the standard contrarian perspective of a lot of politics blogging; the “what if” tone that carries an internal defense that it’s “just speculating.” Phillips isn’t, after all, actually saying that Abedin is a bad mom because she dared to leave her son with his father, she’s just raising the question. It’s a tired approach to writing about women in politics, though one we’ve seen quite a bit in this particular election. It simply posits that this will be a line of attack by the opposition and thus is a fair line of inquiry.

Of course, the speculation is underpinned by ridiculous stereotypes about working mothers, as well as the moral responsibility of wives to persistently monitor the inevitably bad behavior of men.

Several things, in order, about this regressive bullshit:

1. Sexting around one’s toddler is not, by itself, a dangerous thing for the toddler. It’s not like Dumbfuck McChucklehead was lighting off fireworks and chugging Bud Lite and texting pictures of THAT to his sidepiece. Should you be subjecting your preschooler to the sight of your peen? I don’t know, I doubt it, but the kid in the pic was sound asleep. People read porn when their kids are asleep, probably. Is that endangering those kids? Before we make wild accusations of basically negligent sexual abuse, shouldn’t we think about this a little more?
2. Something does not “raise questions” all by itself. People raise questions. Those people should put their names to their bullshit questions so that we can laugh at them, or take into account whether they have a history of being assholes, or on second thought just laugh at them. Fuck this tendency to write as if stupid conclusions are like the weather and just descend upon us.
3. If it “raises questions” about anybody, it raises questions about Anthony Weiner, who is the husband of a person who is an aide to a person who is running for president so just out of curiosity did Trump not talk today or something? Are we this bored?
4. Anthony Weiner can’t get hisself a job because of how he is embarrassing, so someone has to feed that baby we are so worried about. I don’t think Huma Abedin would be a better mom OR JUDGED ANY LESS if she didn’t work and they were homeless.
5. It is not any woman’s responsibility to keep a man from sticking his dick in any other woman. First of all, it’s ineffective. If the only way you can keep your husband faithful is by constant surveillance, your husband does not want to be faithful, and will figure out how not to be no matter how many nannycams you buy. Second, ladies, our own lives are complicated enough that we shouldn’t be spending valuable time running other people’s, even if those other people are our spouses. Huma has to manage HILLARY CLINTON’S LIFE. I’m surprised she has time to cut her own food, much less corral Daddy’s dingdong.
6. Just shut up and stop it. Women are bad if they stay home because they are stupid fat cows whose brains have melted and women are bad if they work because they are selfish shrews and women are bad if they work and send their kids to daycare because they are letting strangers raise their kids and women are bad if they work and their husbands stay home because CUUUUUUCKS and women are bad if they don’t even HAVE any kids because that is tragic and women are bad if they have too many kids because a vagina is not a clown car and there is literally no way for a woman to Kobayashi Maru this shit so let’s stop giving the dumb fucking test already.

A.