Powerful Women and the Men that Embarrass them

08 Mar 2006
Evening Standard

In the privacy of the House of Commons tea room women MPs of all parties are largely sympathetic to the unfortunate Tessa Jowell. This is because we all know that our families have the potential to be our downfall. Scandals concerning male politicians are usually about money, sex or drink. But with female politicians it is always the family.

This is a relatively recent problem. When I entered Parliament in 1987 there were far fewer female MPs, their average age was older and a high proportion was single. Those who were married tended to have partners who were genial old buffers whose idea of excitement was a second gin and tonic. It is only since the Nineties that large numbers of younger woman with young families and thrusting careerbuilding husbands have entered parliament. And with those families come endless opportunities for embarrassment for the ambitious female politician.

You have to feel for Tessa. Just when she thought she had got her children through: the agonising-choice-ofsecondary-school stage, being-sick-inthestreet-to-celebrate-end-of-exams stage and buying-cannabis-in-pubs stage, here comes her husband plastering her all over the front pages with his (alleged) money laundering. Female politicians being embarrassed by their husband or son is a truly international phenomenon.

In 1984 US Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro seemed poised for a glittering future when she was chosen as the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate. But media investigations into her husband's tax affairs destroyed her career. Benazir Bhutto studied at Harvard and Oxford, and became the first female prime minister of a Muslim country. But she was brought down by corruption scandals swirling around her husband (who went on to serve eight years in prison). Indian prime minister Indira Ghandi dominated politics in the subcontinent for 20 years but her corrupt and incompetent son Sanjay was her biggest weakness. And Margaret Thatcher has a son, Mark, whose business activities, including (allegedly) funding an African coup, have caused her severe embarrassment down the years.

Tessa prides herself on her mastery of the wifely virtues. Her favourite hobby is apparently embroidery. But when her "I don't bother my pretty head with how the mortgage gets paid" gambit failed she was forced to save her career by (apparently) jettisoning her marriage. The old feminist slogan used to be "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". In other words, far from being indispensable, men cause more problems than they solve. And as she waits to hear if the husband she has doted on for 23 years is going to stand trial for corruption, even Tessa must be wondering whether those feminists might not have been on to something after all.




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