I would never have expected that, in 2004, we would still be debating the role of "First Lady". What is it that gives the American public the "right" to feel as if they own the wife if their President? She collects no salary, holds no official position, and yet she is fair game almost as much as her powerful husband (Remember Hilary Clinton's hair?). In an era that espouses gender equity, we somehow still expect her to be the prim and proper 1950s-style housewife, subverting her desires and goals to those of her husband. What woman would willingly subject herself to that sort of no-win scenario?
Thankfully, Judy Dean is a woman who intends, and expects, to have her own career and sense of self-worth. That this is so extraordinary speaks volumes about the state of American society.
Judy Dean is a historical anomaly among political wives – the stand-by-your-man spouses who drop their own careers at the first whiff of a presidential run and devote themselves solely to their husband's election. She has instead opted to continue seeing patients who, as she put it in a recent fundraising letter, "want and need to see a physician who knows them when they're ill."
"She's definitely a trendsetter in choosing her role, which is exactly what the women's community has been talking about for a very long time," said Roselyn O'Connell, president of the National Women's Political Caucus.
While the Dean phenomenon may be new in presidential campaigns, it is merely the most public manifestation of the transformation of the institution of marriage that has created greater acceptance for women's careers. A majority of married women and mothers in America now work, as families increasingly need two incomes to stay afloat. This shift in demographics may in turn have created greater acceptance for the idea of a working First Lady.
"[Dean] is saying, I'm going to live my own life. A lot of men and women will admire her for that," says Larry Sabato, who heads the University of Virginias Center for Politics. Sabato notes that many women married to governors, including Dean and Hillary Rodham Clinton, have chosen to maintain their own careers.
I find it sad that this "phenomenon" is even worthy of mention. Perhaps we as a society haven't come nearly as far as we would like to give ourselves credit for. Indeed, what IS so unusual about political spouse having a career of their own? Shouldn't this be the norm? And why is their career even newsworthy? After all, they are not the politician in the family. Perhaps the bottom line is that, even though we talk the talk when it comes to gender equity, we are still miles away from walking the walk.
