My name is the (First) LORD!
I'm no feminist. But I am a fully modern Gen-X guy, and I have to ask:
Who gives a fuck what Laura Bush was wearing?
Eventually, I'll explain why these sentiments are related.
Let's imagine a magical land in which I am married to the president-elect. No I'm not gay. I'm imagining a female president.
It could happen.
Would there be a story about the dress that I wore to the inauguration? Probably. But if I were to wear the formal men's attire of the day, would that be a news story?
And what would they call me? The male compliment to "Lady" is "Lord".
"First Lord"
*Best Samuel L Jackson voice a white boy can muster*
"And you will know my name is the LORD when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"
School prayer: "We're not praying, we're having imaginary conversation time with the President's husband".
That'll teach the right wingers to vote for some women. They might get away with school prayer.
Of course, I think the whole dress thing is part of our innate human desire to have both male and female symbolic figures. Catholicism has practically raised Mary's status to that of unofficial goddess. We need Laura to be some idealized female thing. And as we learned from Hillary, the first Lady should be proper, homey, read books to kids, bake cookies, and have no opinions on important matters, cuz that's just not what we want out of a first Lady, as a culture.
So I wonder if the same would be true of a First (my name is the) Lord?
(I'm now hoping our First Lord is a black dude. That would kick ass. He could pull it off. Oprah for President...)
Would I have to keep my mouth shut? Read books to kindergarteners? Talk about my decorating plans for the White House? "Yeah, I'm gonna get a plasma TV and a play station, and a bar with a tap. The Joint Chiefs will come over and it'll be awesome. I dunno what's up with all these curtains. They suck."
Ostensibly, I will have been clever before the election. I may have even had some opinions on important things. Will I, too, have to suddenly become arm candy for my spouse?
My Point: We should only keep in place traditions for the first spouse that we'd keep irrespective of the first spouse's gender. And while it may have been tradition, we have to ask what our traditions and ceremonies signal about our culture and values. After all, the whole inauguration ritual is a great big culture creation mechanism. (If you're an anthropologist, be my guest to comment on the role of ceremony and ritual in culture here). So we need to change the ritual, ceremony, tradition to reflect our new values. If we really believe one doesn't need a penis to be president (we seem to have waived the brains qualification already), then we should begin transforming our institutions such that they recognize that the first spouse might some day be a man.
Unless we expect the first female president to be a Lesbian.
In which case, carry on.
Who gives a fuck what Laura Bush was wearing?
Eventually, I'll explain why these sentiments are related.
Let's imagine a magical land in which I am married to the president-elect. No I'm not gay. I'm imagining a female president.
It could happen.
Would there be a story about the dress that I wore to the inauguration? Probably. But if I were to wear the formal men's attire of the day, would that be a news story?
And what would they call me? The male compliment to "Lady" is "Lord".
"First Lord"
*Best Samuel L Jackson voice a white boy can muster*
"And you will know my name is the LORD when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"
School prayer: "We're not praying, we're having imaginary conversation time with the President's husband".
That'll teach the right wingers to vote for some women. They might get away with school prayer.
Of course, I think the whole dress thing is part of our innate human desire to have both male and female symbolic figures. Catholicism has practically raised Mary's status to that of unofficial goddess. We need Laura to be some idealized female thing. And as we learned from Hillary, the first Lady should be proper, homey, read books to kids, bake cookies, and have no opinions on important matters, cuz that's just not what we want out of a first Lady, as a culture.
So I wonder if the same would be true of a First (my name is the) Lord?
(I'm now hoping our First Lord is a black dude. That would kick ass. He could pull it off. Oprah for President...)
Would I have to keep my mouth shut? Read books to kindergarteners? Talk about my decorating plans for the White House? "Yeah, I'm gonna get a plasma TV and a play station, and a bar with a tap. The Joint Chiefs will come over and it'll be awesome. I dunno what's up with all these curtains. They suck."
Ostensibly, I will have been clever before the election. I may have even had some opinions on important things. Will I, too, have to suddenly become arm candy for my spouse?
My Point: We should only keep in place traditions for the first spouse that we'd keep irrespective of the first spouse's gender. And while it may have been tradition, we have to ask what our traditions and ceremonies signal about our culture and values. After all, the whole inauguration ritual is a great big culture creation mechanism. (If you're an anthropologist, be my guest to comment on the role of ceremony and ritual in culture here). So we need to change the ritual, ceremony, tradition to reflect our new values. If we really believe one doesn't need a penis to be president (we seem to have waived the brains qualification already), then we should begin transforming our institutions such that they recognize that the first spouse might some day be a man.
Unless we expect the first female president to be a Lesbian.
In which case, carry on.
posted by Kenneth at 2:18 PM
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