The Hillary Syndrome

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 526.

Read the article carefully trying to guess the meaning of the words in black type from the context. After that, discuss the words with your teacher.

Reading 2

Pre-reading questions – express your opinion:

· What qualities should (or must) have the wives of political leaders? Do they differ from those of female political leaders?

· If you belong to the fair sex, would you rather like to be the former or the latter (or, perhaps, neither)?

The First Ladies of Eastern Europe are intelligent and glamorous. But what have they given up?

In the Soviet era, the wives of polit­ical leaders were neither seen nor heard. These stereotypically dowdy women were only revealed to the out­side world when they appeared at their husbands' state funerals. But Raisa Gor­bachev changed all that. When her hus­band, Mikhail Gorbachev, became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, not only did she wield unprecedented power as his closest adviser but her slim good looks and fash­ionable wardrobe also dispelled the myth of the matronly babushka. A decade later, her prominence - and the criticism it attracted - has influ­enced a new generation of intelli­gent, accomplished First Ladies in former Soviet-bloc countries such as Poland and Bulgaria. Though these women are not prepared to walk three steps behind their hus­bands, they have learned from Raisa and another famous first lady, Hillary Clinton, the limits placed on their role by societies still grap­pling with the concept of sexual equality. Be visible, attractive part­ners to the men in power, but - re­gardless of their qualifications - ­steer clear of politics. The question is: Have they taken one step for­ward, but two steps back?

In many ways, Antonina Stoy­anov is more qualified to be Presi­dent of Bulgaria than her husband Peter, who was a divorce lawyer be­fore entering politics. At the time of his 1996 election, she was working as first secretary to the Bulgarian embassy in London. "As First Lady I have a number of obligations and get to use my previous diplomatic experience quite a lot," she says. But Stoyanov is careful to abide by the cardinal rule of not getting in­volved in politics. That, she knows, would leave her open to criticism and could jeopardize her husband's position. "A First Lady's role is to provide an environment for the President that enables him to work for the benefit of the country," she says. Despite this practiced re­sponse - and her unwillingness to talk about politics - she is by most accounts one of her husband's closest confidants.

Like Stovanov, Jolanta Kwasniewski had a high-powered career before her hus­band Aleksander was elected President of Poland in 1995. After obtaining a law de­gree she ran a successful real-estate busi­ness, but has since switched to that univer­sally acceptable First-Lady occupation, charity work. "People vote for the Presi­dent, not his wife," Kwasniewski says duti­fully. "She is just a partner, though a very important one." That is a lesson she learned the hard way. Early on, her fund­-raising activitiesled some to suggest that she wanted to overshadow her husband or get involved in politics. Poles were unpre­pared for a visible First Lady, so Kwas­nietwski faced a steep learning curve. "Ac­companying my husband on official visits, I've found that the majority of presidential wives have had their own very active pro­fessional lives. The moment their hus­bands take office, they have had to give up their own aspirations, so obviously they look for different fields of activity," she says matter-of-factly.

That these two capable First Ladies are so careful to be uncontroversial suggests that they are heeding the cautionary tale of Hillary Clinton's unpopular foray into pol­icymaking in the U.S. Though Clinton is much admired by both women, Stoyanov says carefully: "Hillary Clinton is the woman of the future. She seems to me to be the kind of woman we would like our daughters to be."

What's left unsaid is that the time for a politically active First Lady has clearly not come - not in the U.S., and much less in Eastern Europe. In the years since the end of communism, women have been facing an identity crisis. Images of the female tractor driver and facto­ry worker have been replaced by those of the beauty queen and housewife. Attitudes have swung from one extreme to the other, and glamour is now what Eastern Eu­ropean women are expected to strive for. Most articles about Stoy­anov and Kwasniewski inevitably mention their looks and dress sense. Stoyanov has drawn atten­tion for her passion for jewelry and hats, and the press wasted much newsprint speculating on the skirt length Kwasniewski should wear to meet Queen Elizabeth.

Having found themselves in the limelight, these women are performing a delicate balancing act: to be prominent but not ambi­tious, glamorous but not frivolous, and most importantly, to be close to political power but not political. An alternative route was taken by Na­dia Constantinescu, the wife of the Romanian President. A lawyer cur­rently working at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, she showed up on election night, did the necessary photo calls and then disappeared from public view. The trade-off is clear. At least for now, even equal partners can't have it all.