Megyn Kelly Bravely Stands Up For Megyn Kelly's Rights

Fox News anchor and professional mom Megyn Kelly has made a name for herself not only for demonstrating how alternate spellings of common first names are terrible, but also for breaking step with her conservative pundit colleagues to defend paid maternity leave and upper mobility for people born into the middle class. You know, stuff Megyn Kelly did. What a brave, brave lady.

Prior generations of female TV journalists were pressured to keep their family life and work life separate, to take as little time off as possible to tend to the little ones in the name of defending their hard-earned prominence in the competitive and male dominated field of journalism. No longer. The New York Times profiled Kelly as the poster woman for a new breed of female news anchor, a breed that balances family and career to the point that the two are integrated. Think of it as Kathy Lee Giffording, minus the sweatshops.

Kelly has had two children while working for Fox, and in August returned from her second three month absence after the birth of her daughter. While she was away, a colleague criticized her absence from work, calling maternity leave “a racket.” In turn, Kelly criticized him on air, characterizing the work of mothers as anything but vacation time. “We’re repopulating the human race,” she said. “It’s hard, important work.”

While Kelly’s pro-maternity leave stance might seem encouraging, and a prominent woman conservative woman advocating any sort of social program refreshing, it’s not brave or envelope pushing to advocate policies that would be immensely beneficial to yourself. As Jon Stewart pointed out, Kelly isn’t so progressive when it comes to other social programs that would immensely help other populations, as that would be “government intrusion.” Megyn Kelly is about as Girl Power as Sarah Palin or Elisabeth Hasselbeck.