Once upon a time I called myself a feminist. Of course I was also of the “crunchy” crowd sans the pot smoking until I started my first coop as a State Senate intern in the winter of 2003.
Seriously though, full fledge – cords, pseudo-birks, wife beaters, emo glasses listening to the heart wrenching tunes of Dashboard Confessional and other not so well heard emo bands. I ate tofu, called myself a vegetarian and religiously touted the fact that I was a bleeding heart liberal from Vermont. I had everything except the dreds and the desire to go protest the war in Washington, DC. It was then that I was on the verge of calling myself a women’s studies minor – I would have had the minor but I was a class or two short, as was the case with my sociology minor.
But my feminista rage has been reenacted lately, not nearly to the same extent but coming from a family where my father had an affair which resulted in my parents divorce and a tumultuous adolescence that consisted of not fitting in and constantly blaming myself for my messed up life, I know how it feels.
So I’m a little pissed that we have yet to see a woman get pissed off. I get it, you’re in the public life but seriously, if your husbands career is over anyhow, then you might as well just put the nail in the coffin in his fucked up life and tell him to get the hell out and take him for all he’s worth.
The press needs it, the young women of America – future wifes of politicians, they need it. Let’s face it, this is just showing men that we’ll stand by them. Boyfriend sent me an interesting article the other day that said we need more Carrie Underwood’s and less Tammy Wynette’s. I for one couldn’t agree more.
And now, after seeing the rollercoaster relationship between the Clinton’s, and now with the former First Lady’s schedule being released and find out she was in the building the day of the blue dress incident – that’s just another punch in the gut for the first lady. I mean, what does it say when the entire American public knows/believes that you’re just in this marriage for the sake of her political career. Personally, I’d think more highly of her if she just once didn’t defend him and said “yes his flirtatious, womanizing ways piss me the fuck off.”
I would commend her even.
However, Silda Spitzer takes the cake. I mean $85,000 is no small chunk of change. And to see your husband’s career go down the shitter while that whore bag of a 20 something is “making millions” and getting covers on Us Weekly, hell I’d be pissed off and wouldn’t stand by his side while he apologized for his ethical wrong doings.
I personally don’t care what you did Governor Spitzer, your philandering didn’t affect me but having seen my own family go through a similar experience, I do care about your children as well as your wife. Granted there is a lot we the public don’t see, but regardless, I’d like to see a little more than some speech some 20 something communications/press staffer wrote up on a whim saying “I’m sorry.” I’d like to see some real remorse. And damnit, I want to see a woman stand up for herself and her emotional well-being.
As boyfriend and I were talking about this all post shower, I reminded him that I would totally be the Carrie Underwood of political wives if he were elected to office and did something like that to me. Fortunately, I have a lot more faith in him to keep it in his pants than I do of other elected officials but thats mostly due to my own luck.
But just think about it for a minute, wouldn’t it be nice to see a woman stand up for herself when finding out of her star husband’s infidelity? Would it just for once be nice to see a Silda Spitzer or Hillary Clinton say something realistic instead of holding this perfect family image for the media?
I do still have feministic like values. I do think women should empower themselves, that they should do what they want to do – whether thats have a career, never have kids and retire at the age of fifty as a millionaire or be the stay at home mother of six. If it makes you happy? Then go for it! Thats what really feminism is about to me. But standing back and playing supportive wife as if you’re June Cleaver, that my friend is not so much.
thoughts? Comments? rants?
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I completely agree. And to be totally honest? I’d be the one to pretend that everything was all right, walk out on that stage with him and then say something REALLY really REALLY cut-throat in the middle of his speech.
In all seriousness. I would not hold punches. Not a single one.
It pisses me off, too. Where’s the rage? One of my oldest best friends got cheated on over a month ago by her disgusting, fugly, douchebag loser of a husband and I think I felt more rage than she did. Then again, that’s probably just me. I have way too much rage for my own good. Thanks for saying “whore bag.” That totally made my day.
I also agree with your statement. Hillary And Bill Clintons marriage was a marriage of conveinence from the beginning. These women do need to take a stand and leave their cheating husbands.
I really hope you pursue a career in politics, even though I am a middle of the road Republican, you make a lot of sense on your blog when it comes to all things political. I would vote for you.
I totally understand where you’re coming from but I have to say that I get frustrated at people talking about how women should leave their cheating husbands. I agree that it would be nice if they did, and that they should be honest about their feelings.
But at the same time, as someone who is about to get married, I know that every relationship is different, that nobody but the people in the relationship can really understand what it’s like, what the dynamic is, or why people do the things they do. I can’t imagine Torsten ever cheating on me, but I also can’t imagine ever leaving him, for any reason. It’s really complicated to end a marriage, to walk out on a life built together, to leave a person that you have envisioned your entire future with, and to ditch the person you love. And sometimes you can work through things like this. Not always but sometimes.
Before I met Torsten I would have been right up there with the rest of the feminists bashing these women for not leaving their husbands. But now I try to reserve judgment because it’s their relationship and their life. That doesn’t mean I don’t wonder why she’s staying or wonder what their relationship is like on the inside. But since I can’t do anything more than wonder, I can’t stand here and say that if it were me, I would definitely leave him or definitely stay. Because nobody can really know what they would do or how they can react until they are the person in the situation.
i wholeheartedly agree with you and have no idea how she could stand by his side. my coworker and i were talking about this at lunch last week and he said “michelle, you’d be there in spirit. dude would have a black eye.”
that’s how i roll.
but seriously to quote carrie underwood (who i so adore):
i would dig my key into the side of his pretty little suped up four wheel drive
and carve my name into his leather seats
I completely agree. I come from a really religious latin american family where it’s ok for men to sleep around (i have a similar story to yours, only it was with her best friend) and the women are supposed to be virginal, good housewives who take care of the children. It pisses me off to see my now stepdad step over my mother and her not having the self-confidence to not put up with his bullshit. And in the end, I’d rather have to deal with my trust issues when it comes to a relationship than be a doormat like some of the women in my family. Trust issues, I can deal with and get over. Cheating, I cannot.
Daily show said it best (when talking about the wife standing by his side at the podium).
“Put the prostitute up there. That’s who everyone wants to see anyways” Silda should have least given him 1 evil eye during his speech!
I was going to say exactly what Jess said, but she put it much more eloquently than I probably could have
I think every relationship is different and even if you think you know what is going on between two people you never really know everything. I am not saying what happened is ok – far from it – but I do think that relationships are personal and private things that we can never fully understand.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I hated seeing Mrs. Spitzer just standing there. Hell I would have made him stand there by himself and say what a douche he was. I would definitely be a Carrie wife as well.
Here, here!
I agree that it is difficult to watch Hillary and Mrs. Spitzer seem to stand by while their husbands behave like jackasses… but I do think that people get all kinds of different things out of their relationships, as Jess said, and it’s really hard to know what kind of calculations go into each individual decision.
Though I would really like to see Silda leave Eliot and go back to her high-paying law job! She could make that $87,000 back and more!
I agree. I understand that marriage is a private thing, but when you live a public life, people look to your reactions to situations and use them as a point of reference for what they would do (or what we think we’d do…hard to tell until you get there). It would be so great to see a woman walk out on a man who has walked all over her. It’s not even a feminist thing, it’s a human thing.
Why sans the pot smoking? LOL
of course, I do’t have much to add to this, but I like the new look!