Politicians' Wives Need to Stop the "Stand By Your Man" Routine

Posted by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon at 12:18 PM on March 12, 2008.

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle about why political wives allow themselves to be put through the humiliating “stand by your man” routine, wherein you literally stand by your man while he admits (or issues a semi-admission/semi-denial) to fucking a mistress, another man, or a prostitute to the press, is pretty interesting. Of course, to hear Dr. Laura speak it, the women being put through this humiliation at the behest of their beloveds (or at least sources of prestige and income) are being let off easy. They probably should be the ones apologizing, since they the reason men cheat, and if they were more submissive, this wouldn’t happen. But I suppose standing silently with pain written all over your face while your husband tells the press about his extra-marital dalliances is the first step on the long road to proper wifely submission.

All joking aside, it’s more painful when it’s a Democrat, isn’t it? Republican wives are a little easier to understand, aren’t they? Being a political wife is their career, and so standing by your man is basically just shoving through a major issue at your job, with the hopes that things will continue as normal soon. But the Democratic men are another story altogether—the high power, professional wife with a life of her own has become the standard. As the Chronicle states, Silda Wall Spitzer fits into this mold, with her history of being a handsomely paid Wall Street attorney. Same story with Hillary Clinton clutching Bill’s hand in 1992 to wave away his infidelities. These are women you can imagine just packing their things and walking straight into a brand new life without him.

I will say that one thing does go unmentioned in this story, a glaring omission that points to some of the issues here.

Silda Spitzer was following roughly the same script used by the spouse of Louisiana Sen. David Vitter after his name was found on a madam’s list last year; by the wife of Idaho Sen. Larry Craig after he was arrested for disorderly conduct for allegedly trying to pick up an undercover police officer in an airport bathroom last year; and by the wife of New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey who stood by when he announced he had a gay lover who also was a state employee.

And, perhaps most famously, Silda Spitzer followed the model used in 1992 by Hillary Clinton in a joint “60 Minutes” interview with her husband, Bill, then a presidential candidate. Responding to allegations that Bill Clinton had had an extramarital affair, Hillary Clinton created a media template for spousal behavior in times of scandal.

Spot the omission? Yeah, in 1998, when Clinton got on TV and addressed an apology to the nation for screwing around with Monica Lewinsky, he did not get his wife to stand there looking sorrowful. There’s a few key differences in that case. For one, the wife in this case was informed long before the press conference, and so she had time to think things over. I think, in a lot of these cases, the wife is in a bit of shock and could be more malleable to other people’s wills.

But more importantly, there’s no doubt in my mind that the Clintons were sculpting the strategy to get Hillary Clinton into a Senate seat and possibly into the White House at that point. So it was useful to quit playing her up as the submissive wife, and start putting her out there as a strong person, not the sort who stands around looking sad. But that initial standing by her man worked out really well for her, didn’t it? I’m not trying to be cynical—I think they have a love match, truly—but the realization that you’re going to have some professional benefit if he does well in his political ambitions has got to get many a political wife through the hard times. And this is true whether your job is to be the Mrs., of course, but it’s also true if you’ve got a career of your own that benefits if your reputation as being one half of a power couple precedes you.

The other part of this is that no matter whether you’re the high-powered political wife of the housewife political wife, you’re someone who accepted that your marriage is one long set of compromises a long time ago. You’ve accepted that you have to work for him for free on campaigns, you have to play nice to the cameras regardless of your mood, and you have to accept that he’s gone a lot doing all sorts of crazy things. You may even accept that this involves sex with other people. Habits are hard to break, and high stress times are not the time to start breaking them, as we all know. And when a sex scandal hits, all that training at doing what you’re told by advising staff and rolling with the punches probably kicks in.

Is it a smart move to drag the wife up on stage for a press conference after a sex scandal? I think for Republicans, it probably is. They probably have a solid majority of voters who are patriarchal enough to find that comforting. I think, for Democrats, though, it has the potential of a huge backlash. From the article:

“They have put these women through so much already - it just seems to be a second level of humiliation,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “It is supposed to make him look like not such a bad guy. Like, ‘Geez, look, his wife was standing next to him.’ But in this case, she looked so pained that, to me, he looked less sympathetic.”

The appearance of Spitzer’s wife standing next to him in this “outmoded tradition” should raise the ire of wives everywhere - both political and nonpolitical, said Penn State communications professor Nichola D. Gutgold.

“I saw that, and I wanted to yell to her, ‘You don’t have to do this! Go shopping! Go for a walk. Do anything else,’ ” said Gutgold, author of “Paving the Way for Madam President.”

“I keep waiting for one of these women to tell their husband, ‘You go make that speech yourself.’ Why should they - it was their husband’s wrongdoing? Why should they be internationally humiliated?”

Exactly. Liberals, at minimum, are likely to see it as an unnecessary humiliation. I’m not suggesting that the cheated-upon wives should leave their husbands—that’s their business—but the political calculation of having the wife standing there for the press conference has huge backfire potential and needs to be abandoned.

Tagged as: spitzer, sex, adultery, women, sexism, prostitution

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the popular blog Pandagon.