Happy Belated Mother's Day

Mothers win the Oppression Olympics, I've decided.

They less likely to be hired or taken seriously in the workplace.

The basic idea is this: Correll wanted to see if there was a motherhood penalty in the job market. So she and her Cornell University colleagues created a résumé for an ideal job applicant. This imaginary woman had a successful track record, an uninterrupted work history and a great curriculum vitae.

But for other résumés, Correll and her colleagues added a little something extra: They described the woman as an officer in a Parent-Teacher Association.

I mean, that's a good thing, right? Wouldn't PTA involvement be the mark of someone who was committed, responsible and involved -- qualities that would probably translate well from personal to professional life?

Apparently not. According to Goodman, the "mothers" in the study were seen as less competent and committed, were half as likely to be hired as childless women or men with or without children, and were offered $11,000 less in starting pay than their childless peers. (Goodman points out that they were also judged more harshly for tardiness.)

And on a note that I find more personally affecting, they're apparently less able to write politics for a parenting blog.

However, I must assume that despite the fact that the site asserts that life doesn’t end when one becomes a parent, political life does indeed end when you have kids.

Why must I assume that?

Well, see, if Amanda Marcotte, who doesn’t want children, er, wait, I’m sorry, she calls them ‘Virility Objects,’ has to do the political writing at Offsprung, then I must assume that there aren’t any parents out there that care about politics. There must not be any feminist moms out there. Any democratic dads. That’s really the only explanation I can come up with.

Honestly, Amanda's a good writer and all, but really? There weren't any parents blogging about politics they could think of? 'Cause I can think of a few right off the top of my head.