In a sharp departure from previous posts, I rise today in defense of Trump. Wait a minute. Don’t leave me yet. I’m talking about Melania, not Donald. She’s being hammered by pundits and academics for a seeming reluctance to fully embrace her role as first lady. The Washington Post ran a story on the front of its Style section under the heading of “Where’s Melania?” After noting that she “cut an elegant figure” at the inaugural balls, the piece questioned why she hasn’t been seen since.
We are two weeks into the Trump presidency, the Post observed, and several key positions on the first lady’s staff have not yet been filled. Add to that the fact that Melania’s 37% favorability rating is the lowest ever recorded for a first lady, and we are left with the conclusion that something is seriously amiss here. Or so say the Post and its expert witnesses.
Melania made it known some time ago that she intended to remain in New York with the couple’s 10-year-old son so the kid could finish the school year. That’s a problem, says Rider University professor Myra Gutin. She told the Post that Americans are accustomed to seeing the first family together. “She could be giving the administration a little bit of a softer touch, because we do make certain decisions about a president based on his family,” Gutin said. “Ivanka and her family are there, but with Mrs. Trump and Mr. Trump’s younger son, it would be a different kind of feeling.”
Hogwash. First, there is nothing short of daily estrogen injections or a full frontal lobotomy that is going to soften this president’s image. Secondly, Melania and her son, Barron, are not props waiting to be dragged into photo opportunities. They are real people, entitled to lead their own lives, at their own choosing, in or out of the White House.
The first lady concept is an iconic throwback to the old, pre-feminist, economic architecture of American families. The husband ruled the roost and worked outside the home to pay the bills. The wife gave up any semblance of an outside life in order to stay home, cook, clean, manage the household and raise the children, all of which
she did without pay. Although most of the country has moved away from that model, there are those who want an exemption for the White House.
It’s time, way past time actually, to do away with the monarch imagery of the first family. The cultural restraints that made women mere appendages of their husbands were lifted decades ago. Somehow the White House never got the memo. If anyone is seriously hungering for a quick dose of 1950s familial gender roles, let them watch reruns of “Father Knows Best”. Leave Melania alone.
The poor woman immigrated from Slovenia in search of the American dream – provocative photo shoots and marriage to a billionaire. Through a bizarre and cruel twist of fate, the billionaire somehow got himself elected president. So now she’s relegated to a life of sipping tea with the wives of foreign leaders who’ve been insulted by her husband. Come on! That was never in the prenup.
America has been a complicit enabler of first lady spousal abuse for well over 200 years. As a result, many of them suffered depression and substance abuse. One of the victims, Margaret Taylor, prayed unsuccessfully that her husband, Zachary, would lose the 1848 election. When he didn’t, Margaret persuaded the couple’s daughter to play the part of first lady. Sound familiar?
Ellen Wilson said this about the depression she suffered during her husband, Woodrow’s, presidency: “I am naturally the most ambitious of women and life in the White House has no attractions for me.” Lady Bird Johnson succinctly summarized the role this way: “The first lady is, and always has been, an unpaid public servant elected by one person, her husband.”
Eleanor Roosevelt was so determined to avoid the traditional first lady role that she once threatened to divorce her husband, Franklin. The leverage worked and she continued leading her own life, writing newspaper columns and broadcasting radio programs. Eleanor’s position was quite clear: “There isn’t going to be any first lady,” she said. “There is just going to be plain, ordinary Mrs. Roosevelt. . . I never wanted to be the president’s wife, and don’t want it now. You don’t quite believe me, do you? Very likely no one would – except possibly some woman who had the job.”
Because Washington is, above all else, a city rooted in self-interest, there are those nervously awaiting Melania’s first lady rollout in hopes that she can advance their cause. In a rare pre-election speech, Melania let be known that cyberbullying was something she would like to stop. In an instant, regardless of politics, nonprofits were salivating over the exposure a first lady could give their cause. Justin Patchin is co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. He told the Post that “Everyone is kind of looking around, saying ‘Who is she going to turn to?’ “She is a very public figure. At the very least she can bring this issue to further light.”
With all due respect to the very well intentioned cyberbullying lobby, the biggest contribution Melania could make to their cause is if she found a way to keep her husband’s small hands away from Twitter. It might well go down in history as one of the most significant achievements by a first lady. Other than that, let’s just let Melania be Melania.