BOSTON - There are two schools of thought in the state of Massachusetts about Lieutenant-Governor Jane Swift.
The first says she is a heroine for challenging gender stereotypes, for not abandoning her political career and retreating to the kitchen after having her first child, Elizabeth, late in 1998.
This is definitely a minority opinion. In fact, if you exclude her husband, Swift is the only person who has been prepared to make that case in her defence.
The second perspective is rather less flattering: that she is just another two-faced politician who thinks nothing of using state funds, public employees, even a police helicopter, to live out the supermum fantasy of having it all: career, children and an inflated sense of maternal self-esteem that critics charge has been bought with taxpayers' dollars.
The truth probably lies somewhere in between. But in Boston, where the issue of a mother's right to work is the talk of the town, even those one might assume to be Swift's natural allies have been scathing in their attacks on her.
"She is a disgrace," snapped an official from the local chapter of the National Organisation of Women (Now).
"As a Republican, she belongs to a party that has dragged its feet on maternity issues, on providing workplace daycare and other accommodations for working women with young children.
"When she has a child of her own, does she push for change to benefit all women? No, she gets her office staff to change diapers and play babysitter. Lieutenant-Governors can do that; average women cannot."
The alleged abuse of voters' trust and public funds is but one small part of the controversy swirling about Swift, who became pregnant almost two years ago after revealing her intention to run for the state's second-highest office.
As her poll numbers and her belly both swelled, Swift turned the blessed event into a vote-winner.
When conservatives predicted she would never be able to fulfil her elected duties with a infant on one hip, nor her maternal responsibilities with a portfolio of pressing Government business on her knee, Swift was furious.
It was nothing but rank sexism to suggest such a thing, she said.
Millions of women around the world juggled family and career. Only a bunch of crusty, bitter old men would suggest that a young, fit, 34-year-old lawyer such as herself might not be up to the same challenge.
Women's groups cheered loudly back then, as did many of the state's less famous working mothers, who supported Swift at the polls by an overwhelming margin.
That all changed in December when members of her staff began whining to the newspapers that they were unable to do their jobs because they were too busy attending to little Elizabeth.
"I keep tripping over toys," one anonymous female staffer griped. "I'm a lawyer, not a nanny."
Another employee raised the spectre of sexism, pointing out that Swift almost always entrusted the child to female workers while allowing men to get on with their jobs.
Further digging by reporters established that Swift had at least made an effort to see that Elizabeth was an equal-opportunity imposition. A state police officer, for example, admitted that he had often been ordered to take the crying baby on long, soothing walks around the capitol's corridors.
He did not mind, he explained, because Elizabeth was a good kid who liked playing with his handcuffs. All the same, he wondered just how he would go about subduing a violent intruder with a baby strapped to his chest and his pistol tangled in the straps of a papoose.
Next, a police helicopter pilot confirmed that he had once flown Swift to her home because Elizabeth was running a high fever and the distraught mother refused to waste time on motorways clogged with traffic.
Swift's reaction to the disclosures was to go on the offensive, which turned out to be a particularly dumb move.
"I am not going to let the media or anyone else prevent me from spending time with my daughter," she said when the story broke.
The response bespoke a fundamental misreading of the women who had elected her to the $US100,000-a-year ($200,000) post in the first place.
As Now pointed out, well-heeled professional women outside the state Government could never get away with turning their offices into creches.
Swift's husband had quit his job to stay home and care for Elizabeth, which should have left the Lieutenant-Governor with a free hand to attend to business. Instead, she chose to avoid separation anxiety by taking the child to work.
"Jane has given reactionary employers a weapon to use against all women," said the Now official.
"Now the boss can say, 'If Jane Swift can't handle work and children, you can't either - so don't expect any promotions'."
Federal law guarantees six weeks' paid maternity leave followed by another six weeks without pay. After that, unless a woman can strike a deal with her boss, there is no guarantee her job will be waiting if she seeks to return.
As for fathers, though a few companies provide men with the same parental leave as women, they are few and far between. If a working-class American gets pregnant, she copes as best she can or quits.
After steadfastly refusing to do so, the outcry finally forced Swift to apologise and offer to make restitution for the inappropriate use of state employees and helicopters.
"Maybe I should have come to this conclusion earlier, but I'm willing to accept responsibility for my action and to say when I've been wrong," she said, adding that she hoped the flap would die down.
But all through last week, the leader of a state employees union was demanding the same perks for his members. Swift had chosen not to leave her infant in the state Government creche across the road from her office, apparently because she regarded it as inferior.
Union president John Templeton wanted to know why, if it was not good enough for Elizabeth, it should be forced upon the children of less prominent civil servants?
"We'd like a helicopter to take us home at night, too," he quipped. "But we'll settle for vast improvements in daycare until then."
And on the other side of the political spectrum, a right-wing Christian group was using Swift's scandal to raise money and rally troops for the next election.
"You can have a career and children," said Evelyn Reilly, the director of the Christian Coalition. "But common sense says you can't have them both at the same time.
"The anti-family feminist agenda has brainwashed women, so we can all thank Swift for exposing the fallacy."
It certainly was not the point Swift was trying to make. But with erstwhile allies sullenly silent and her own reputation sullied, nobody is left on the public stage to say a good word for her.
Or, for that matter, for the working mothers she once sought to champion in her own flawed and misguided fashion.
Heroine Swift now political pariah
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.