Everything is so pretty

I was reading an article in the Post today about how gop scandals are hurting Ohio candidates, when an odd thought struck me. See, Laura Bush is stumping for Ohio candidates because none of the crooked men in power are held in a positive light and Femme Bush has approval ratings in the sixties. Why?

Laura Bush has been a wife throughout this administration. "A wife? Of course she's a wife!" you say. Yes, but that is all she is. She had a Christmas special where she decorated the White House. She reads books to children. She does not have an air of intellectual quality about her.

Wait! I am not criticizing Femme Bush. I am not saying that she is an idiot by any means. Frankly, I don't have a negative opinion about her. Truth is, I don't really think about her at all unless she is in the news, and well, today she is in the news, and so I am thinking about her. And I am disheartened a bit. See, Femme Bush has a positive approval rating because she is simply a wife. She doesn't try to make policy. She doesn't use big words when she speaks. She decorates. She dresses well (usually). She has wife hair. In short, she plays a more traditional woman's role: the subservient housewife.

I know many people did not like Hillary because she didn't act like an elegant princess. People want Jackie O. They got an ambitious woman with a highly successful career, and many people hated her for it. They would tune her out when she opened her mouth regardless of anything she said. They used her health care reform failure as an indication that she was a failure in life. They created a caracature of her so far removed from who she really is that a whole movement developed dedicated towards hating her. I suspect that these rabid rightwingers hold the view, whether they are conscious of it or not, that women should be subservient to men.

Laura Bush makes me wonder when we are going to get with the times and elect a female head of state. Britain had Maggot Thatcher. Pakistan, a Muslim country, had Benazir Bhutto. Nicaragua, Bangladesh, India, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka have had women prime ministers. If Condi weren't hanging out in the tenth circle of Hell with the rest of this administration, I probably wouldn't loathe the idea of her as president. (No, I wouldn't vote for her regardless.) I'm tired of hearing "this country isn't ready for a woman present," especially when it spills from the mouths of Democrats. It isn't time? Well then, when? When is the time? With this attitude, the time is never, and I'm not going to settle for never.