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For Women, Working Sick Isn’t Political

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Photo Credit: ABC News

 

Hillary Clinton says that when she learned she had pneumonia she didn’t consider leaving the campaign trail because she didn’t consider it a big deal.  “It’s just the kind of thing, if it happens to you, and you’re a busy, active person, you keep moving forward,’” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Setting aside politics (if that’s possible in this day and age) the way Clinton handled her illness by soldiering on, and her justification or it, probably rings true for many working women in this country. They know – working moms, especially – that in order to survive at work their physical and mental needs must take a back seat.

Wendy Sherman, one of Clinton’s for State Department aides, writes in Time: “Ask any working mom who works full time at home and full time in the office, and you will find an indomitable human being…that woman goes to work every day-even when she is sick-because that’s what women do.”

Is there a double standard between men and women when it comes to taking time off from work?

Comments

  1. Deb

    I don’t think there is a double standard because I have known many men who go to work when they are not well. I think the disadvantage women have when they are ill is that they are often the ones who still have to go home and take care of the children and the home when they are ill.

  2. Julienne C. Jack

    As a woman in business it is true that Females have to do twice the work of a Man, faster than a Man and accept less than a Man in pay for the same work.
    As a Female born into Politics, which is still controlled by Men, I know that you can’t show anything that can be considered a frailty in the eyes of the press, your competition or the voters. My own Father got the Flu during a campaign. Hulan E. Jack overdosed on antibiotic injections so that he could continue the campaign and lost the hearing in his right ear. He was re-elected Manhattan Borough President but he was a deaths door and in those days the press never knew.
    There is a double standard against Women in the United States that remains strong even after the Civil Rights Movement that started the dialog about equal pay for equal work so many years ago. I want a President strong enough to correct the injustice and get equality for both genders.

  3. Lori G.

    Working sick isn’t political for either women or men..lying about it is though.

    • Gail Sas

      I don’t believe in working sick. People die from pneumonia! Hillary was shown leaving her daughter’s home. Did she expose her daughter and her daughter’s children? Furthermore, you don’t get over pneumonia in a few days! And furthermore we do have 2 vaccines available for pneumonia protection! I don’t believe working sick under these conditions was a good choice. Gail

  4. JOYCE SHIFFRIN

    I THINK THERE IS A DOUBLE STANDARD BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN IN NEARLY EVERY WAY, PERIOD, SIMPLY BECAUSE MEN HAVE A BIGGER MUSCULATURE, DEEPER VOICE, AND MOST OF ALL, BIGGER PRIVATE PARTS THAN WOMEN!!!

  5. Jack Olthoff

    Based on people I’ve known who have had pneumonia in the past, her behavior in purportedly caring for it and the symptoms she’s showing do not indicate pneumonia of any kind to me. You would hear breathing problems of some kind, and her voice would have a different character to it, and in general she’d need to be out of circulation to recuperate–it’s not the common cold we’re dealing with here, it’s something that sneaks up on patients in the hospital for other afflictions and wreaks havoc on their health. Anyone who seriously believes that we’ve been given an accurate story about her problem needs to look carefully at her past health history as it’s been reported, and couple it with the problems she has recently exhibited (weakness, falls, head injury, involuntary head movements, etc.)–there is something much more serious going on with her that could potentially call her ability to lead the nation into question, and I doubt that pneumonia is any part of the real story, certainly not the larger part of it. Her campaign is misdirecting the public, as is its usual wont, and the truth NEEDS to be permitted to come out. Even her party is now postulating whether or not to replace her as their candidate for these reasons (among others, which are all quite familiar).

    • Gail Sas

      I totally agree with Jack’s message. No one just bounces back in a few days from pneumonia! If they try and if the illness really is pneumonia relapse happens. We have to take care of ourselves no matter what illness we have. And working with such an illness just isn’t wise! There just is too much that isn’t known with Hillary’s condition.
      Gail Sas

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