and stands behind her man
GEORGE W Bush went up to Capitol Hill on Thursday to be sworn in for a second time as President of the United States. At his side, as ever, was a smiling, elegant and inscrutable woman: his wife, Laura. So far, you might think, so traditional. The difference with this inauguration was that the most powerful man in the world was not even the most popular person on the dais, far less in his own country.
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On the face of it, this is more than odd. To admire a person you first have to know something about them. In that respect, Mrs Bush makes the average enigma seem easily decipherable. Americans are besotted, it appears, with a woman who keeps her opinions to herself, who does not dream of interfering in US policy, who has subordinated herself entirely to her husband’s career and trots, dutifully, in his wake, as and when required.
Is this what America wants? Is this the country’s idea of a modern woman’s role? Those poll ratings seem to say as much. An increasingly conservative country would, on the face it, appear to be redefining the place of a political spouse: supportive, submissive, unthreatening and lacking any hint of a brain in her head.
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Nevertheless, Laura Bush appears to have identified what it is that Americans want from the “office” – it has no real constitutional status – of First Lady. By extension, that says something about how they view the presidency, an actual office held in the sort of reverence by US citizens that is incomprehensible to Europeans. In this sentimentalised view of the world, the President’s wife is handmaiden to the commander-in-chief, mother to the nation, inspirational and admirable, but in no real sense a political actor. All power flows from the head of the perfect, presidential family.
This is, of course, sexism of the sort that will only be broken down if and when America ever acquires a woman president. Male attributes are taken to be leadership, power and machismo; female traits are meekness and that business about loving, honouring and obeying, above all where the image of the White House is concerned. Somehow, though, that doesn’t seem like the whole story.
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