Pollyana de Moraes Borges, intern at UNRIC Rio de Janeiro
In a world, where women’s role in politics is still underestimated, some first ladies perform or have already performed activities that go beyond assistencialism. Without realising or even as part of a political project, it’s undeniable that first ladies have a lot to say about the governments of their spouses.
Many years before Michelle Obama was being called “the first lady the world’s been waiting for” by Vogue Magazine, a certain President was trying to look smooth in a funeral speech. In 1849, the United States President at the time, Zachary Taylor, was reciting compliments to the former President, James Madison, who had just passed away, when he gently referred to his wife, Dolley Madison, as a first lady. Since then, the term has become the most common way to refer to the wife of a head of state, but a male version of the term has never been so accepted. After all, we are not used to seeing first gentlemen very often.
This male term, actually, doesn’t even exist. This is probably because, according to the Brazilian researcher, Luiza Rogério, there were just 13 women occupying a president or a head of state position in the world during 2008, and this statistic was never much higher. For political scientists, this small number represents one of the biggest consequences of the lateness of women’s permission to vote, that came, for many countries, only after 1918, when the First World War finally ended. If they couldn’t vote, they couldn’t be elected.
Latin America was one of the last continents to allow women the vote, but an Argentinean first lady performed a decisive role in this process. Eva Perón, also known as Evita, pushed the Congress to approve a law to permit women to vote and to be elected. For this reason, Juan Domingo Perón’s party was able to elect, in 1951, 29 women to the Parliament. Played by Madonna in the movies, Evita became popular in Argentina and in the entire American continent for her work to protect women and disadvantaged people, who gave her the title of “Mother of the poor.” Some critics see in Evita as the portrait of cheap assistencialism politics, and she has remained a divisive figure in Argentinean politics, being adored by some and hated by others, but always provoking a reaction.
If South America sees in Evita the first model of a first lady, the United States considers Eleanor Roosevelt it’s number one first lady. The wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who ruled US from 1933 to 1945, not only dedicated her life to help women and workers in general to improve their lives and well being, but also performed an important role as a defender of human rights. After her husband’s death, Eleanor kept working for the disadvantaged and in 1947, upon an invitation by the United Nations, became the President of the Human Rights Declaration Committee, responsible for creating one of the most important documents on human rights, recognised the world over. Despite her not being an example of beauty and charm, attributes that generally are associated with a first lady, the press loved her, especially women journalists, because according to reports of the time, she only consented to interviews if the reporter was a woman.
But journalists aren’t always so favourable. When it comes to first ladies or other women related to politics, they all too often revert to traditional notions of what a first lady should be by writing pieces that do not consider women by who they are or what they do, instead commenting on how they dress and which kind of make up they’re using.
When Michelle Obama came to the White House, it seemed all articles had at least one comment about her clothes, hair and make up. It seems like everybody likes to see a first lady that works out and has an athletic attitude. In some senses this portrait relates to the image of Barack Obama’s administration as youthful and energetic, but in others it is constrained by traditional notions of gender roles in politics – the woman as a glamorous, but submissive, foil to her husband. It seems that people feel more comfortable resorting to these outdated gender stereotypes, because gender equality has no history in the political world.
This all serves to illustrate that, unfortunately, in many ways we are stuck in the 18th century, when Jean Jacques Rousseau used to say: “Ask women about their preferences when it comes to physical things or other things that can be judged in a sensitive way. To men, ask about things that depend on moral judgment and understanding.” ■
Photos: From left to right, wikipedia.org, wikipedia.org/Boghosian, UN Photo, wikipedia.org/Gilbert Stuart.
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