Even the most independent-minded political spouses can't shake some traditions, writes ROBIN GIVHAN
IN “JULIE and Julia”, this summer’s cinematic tribute to the influential chef Julia Child, the opening scenes show her arrival in Paris in the late 1940s with her husband Paul, a diplomat. For long before Child was an admired chef, she was a consummate political spouse.
At first, the grandeur of their surroundings have them wide-eyed. But after a few weeks, Child, while enjoying a meal of Dover sole meuniere, laments her plight as a wife of a somebody: a perfect hostess, a supportive confidante . . . bored.
“What will I dooooo with my life,” she wails in her high-pitched trill. She gamely tries everything from hatmaking to bridge.
When she finally decides to take classes at Le Cordon Bleu, she is shuttled to the ladies’ wing of the venerable cooking school and assigned to the housewife track, one that receives no respect. Child’s revolt against her patronising circumstances lays the groundwork for her groundbreaking cookbook.
For the past 60 years, political spouses have been trying to get off – and stay off – the belittling housewife track.
Circumstances have since changed dramatically, with political spouses’ distinguished degrees and six-figure salaries. The wives of presidents have tackled everything from dysfunction in the healthcare system to human rights in Burma to, now, the unhealthy eating habits of an entire nation.
But even the most independent-minded spouses can’t shake some traditions. On the long list of such traditions upheld by the East Wing, one of the most curious might be the “spouses’ programme.”
That is not so much an official title as it is a kind of bureaucratic shorthand for the luncheons, tours and performances that the partners of world leaders attend during the G8, the G20 and other occasions when heads of state gather.
“It was the picture of the ladies who lunch,” recalls Neel Lattimore, who was first lady Hillary Clinton’s spokesman in the 1990s. “At that time, it seemed very traditional – traditional meaning white gloves and hats. It felt that old.”
When Michelle Obama hosts the spouses of the G20 leaders in Pittsburgh today, she will attempt to highlight the administration’s commitment to international diplomacy, show off American art and culture, and avoid those awkward photo-ops that leave the spouses looking like silent props in a mid-20th-century parlour play.
Over the years, spouses have visited a high-tech incinerator in Japan, inspected an earthquake site in Italy and attended a Harry Potter party in London.
Yet for all the group photos, friendly chatter and serious conversations about women’s rights, the spouses’ programme still has the ring of a tradition that might as well date from the era of Jane Austen when, after dinner, men retired to the library for cigars and cognac and a discussion of world events, and the ladies went into the parlour to talk about needlepoint.
Is it an anachronism? “We haven’t talked about that,” says Susan Sher, Michelle Obama’s chief of staff. “We’ve been too excited that it’s the first spousal programme in the US.”
Tradition generally has meant that anything vaguely controversial, anything that might make another spouse uncomfortable, anything bursting with nightly news appeal, has been left off the table. Visiting spouses don’t generally make requests – too presumptuous. And the host spouse avoids pushing the envelope with any event that might distract from her husband.
A visit to a Pittsburgh homeless shelter or a soup kitchen, for instance, would be considered ripping the proverbial envelope into teeny-tiny bits.
The fundamental rule for the host spouse is simple. “Do no harm,” says Lattimore, who recalls that when Clinton hosted the G8 spouses in Denver in 1997, she lunched with the wives at a Rocky Mountain resort.
Obama’s goal is to celebrate the city of Pittsburgh over the course of the two-day meeting. The events announced so far reflect the topics she has focused on as first lady: healthy eating, the arts, and the education and support of young people.
The spouses will visit the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts magnet school, which has more than 800 full-time students and is akin to the type of professional arts school that inspired the musical Fame. They will also tour the Andy Warhol museum.
Because of Pittsburgh’s nickname as the “City of Bridges”, there will be much talk about “building bridges” and “bridges to promote friendship”, Sher said.
The group photograph is unavoidable – as has been its awkwardness. But Obama has created a schedule intended to allow time for relaxed conversation so the women can get comfortable with one another.
Different people will be seated next to the first lady to facilitate new relationships. The women will be able to take a leisurely stroll through the Warhol museum and chat along the way. “It creates possibilities for conversations and not just a photo-op,” Sher says.
And surely there will be much to discuss. These, after all, are women who are lawyers, business executives and philanthropists.
Not all the G20 spouses are women. Joachim Sauer, the husband of German chancellor Angela Merkel, is a quantum chemist who avoids the limelight.
And Nestor Kirchner’s wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, holds his former title of president of Argentina. Sauer is not attending; Kirchner will, but he isn’t touring or posing with the spouses.
"No boys," Sher says. "Just girls." – ( LA Times/Washington Postservice)