The Bachmann candidacy evokes some of the familiar questions about female
presidential candidates and poses new ones. On the familiar side are the twin
questions of looks and intelligence. For female candidates, much more than for
men, appearance matters. Yet it is the factor that dare not speak its name. Of
course Bachmann’s attractiveness, like Palin’s, contributes to her success.
But mentioning appearance is the third rail of
gender politics, as Vin Weber, former Minnesota congressman and current Tim
Pawlenty supporter, discovered. “She’s got hometown appeal, she’s got
ideological appeal, and, I hate to say it, but she’s got a little sex appeal
too,” Weber
told The Hill newspaper about Bachmann’s prospects in Iowa. It is safe to
mention Mitt Romney’s chiseled chin or, on the flip side, Indiana Gov. Mitch
Daniel’s balding pate and short stature. Commenting on female candidates’ looks?
Never a good idea.
Raising doubts about a female candidate’s
intelligence is similarly treacherous. Bachmann’s
historical gaffes — moving the battles of Lexington and Concord to New
Hampshire, for example — are fair game. Yet some of the questioning — Are you
hypnotized? Are you a flake? — has decided, if unintended, undertones of
sexism. It is difficult to imagine male interviewers using that same dismissive
language with a male candidate.
Then there is the matter of Bachmann’s views about subservient wives and how
that would translate to the Oval Office. I want to be respectful here of
Bachmann’s beliefs about appropriate gender roles and the marital balance of
power. I couldn’t disagree more with her views, but I recognize that they are
biblically based and in the evangelical mainstream.
The classic version of criticizing the candidate’s spouse involves fears of
the meddling, overbearing wife. Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign promise of “two for
the price of one” did not exactly go over well with voters. Ordinarily, the
gender tables-turned version of this critique — female candidate’s husband as
behind-the-scenes Svengali — would be dangerously imbued with elements of
sexism. Can’t she think for herself? Who’s pulling the strings?
But Bachmann’s candidacy poses the question of how to accommodate the
evangelical worldview of women’s proper relationships with their husbands with
what seems to me the inherently feminist notion of a female leader of the free
world.
One way to thread the theological needle is to argue that the Bible assigns
leadership roles to men in the family and church but is silent on, and therefore
leaves room for, women in politics. This seems like a stretch, especially since
Bachmann has credited her husband with directing her professional life.
I don’t lose sleep over Marcus Bachmann as Oval Office puppeteer, mostly
because I cannot imagine Michele Bachmann making it there. But given where she
is in the polls, it is fair and necessary to ask her about how she would
reconcile the tensions between her understanding of the biblical view of woman’s
role and the demands of the presidency. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind
hearing from her husband, too.