I honestly hadn't given Elizabeth Edwards much thought. I see her as a strong woman, who's life has taken some very public unexpected turns.
Then I start seeing the media surrounding her new book.
Maureen Dowd: But it's just a gratuitous peek into their lives, and one that exposes her kids, by peddling more dregs about their personal family life in a book, and exposes the ex-girlfriend who's now trying to raise the baby girl, a dead ringer for John Edwards, in South Orange, N.J.
Kathleen Parker: Among modern sacrileges, those topping the list include: (1) visiting Mexico’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine and asking, “Who painted it?” Or, slightly worse, (2) questioning Elizabeth Edwards’ motives.
The Huffington Post and Connie Schultz were a bit more kind.
Caryl Rivers put it simply:
Elizabeth Edwards has taken hold of the one power she has left--being able to tell her own story. She's not thinking of her husband or her children or the other woman or the other woman's child. She's claiming something for herself. Judge her if you will--for being too trusting, too ambitious, too willing to serve her husband's ambition, too smart, too angry, whatever.
But let her have her say.
Edwards has invited criticism by writing this book, and some of it is earned. While she admits to being devastated by her husband's infidelity, she absolves him of responsibility for his choices, depicting him instead as vulnerable to a predator's wiles. She also fails to acknowledge that she let so many down when she continued to campaign on her husband's character after finding out about his affair.
What is troubling about many of the attacks, though, is their focus on her willingness to speak publicly about her pain. What writers like Dowd, Parker and Traister fail to acknowledge, and perhaps never have had to consider, is the easy privilege of their own outspoken lives.
Maybe that's why I cut Edwards a wider swath. I met her once in 2007, only days after she announced that her cancer had metastasized and was terminal. I don't know her, but I do know something about her world.
I'm married to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, and so I know how it feels when someone tries to refract everything you do or say through the lens of your marriage. I wrote a book about Sherrod's 2006 Senate race, with his blessing. But some argued that this wife, this writer, had no business telling her tale. The campaign had been a rewarding but difficult year for both of us, but those who cared only about the candidate thought a candid account of my experience was inappropriate, if not irrelevant.
To me, the only irrelevance was their definition of wifely duty.
The similarities between Edwards and me end there, but not my empathy. She has something to say and an audience that wants to listen. That should be enough, but there's more to her story and it is her story to tell.
What we seldom hear in the uproar over the book is her persistent theme that, for her, time is running out. She does not know, she writes, what to do with talk of anything happening more than a year away.
So what are your thoughts? Is Elizabeth doing more harm than good in publishing this book? Or is her story one that needs to be heard?
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Elizabeth Edwards: not perfect..
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/13687
This issue has been on my mind a lot the past few days. I don't know why it is affecting me so much. Probably because it leaves me so conflicted.
On one hand, I think all of this is overblown and not a big enough of an issue for us to be wasting our time. Also, it's their marriage and they can work it out on their own.
However, I (along with the rest of us) did not choose to make their relationship and "traditional ethical values" one of the platforms of his campaign. So this is why I think this issue is relevant. Also, I have been in love with Elizabeth up until this point. She seems like a wonderful smart, strong, and caring woman.
I dislike the way she is putting this betrayal of her trust in the spotlight but actually NOT telling the "story" since she is not telling the truth. She is covering for his behavior which rubs me the wrong way.
I wish some of these political wives who have given up so much of their lives to their husbands careers only to get disrespected would stand up for themselves. And leave.
If they left, they wouldn't have their only remaining connection to power and fame. Who here knows the name of John McCain's first wife? Or Newt Gingrich's former? Or what became of Donna Hanover, Giuliani's ex? Or Senator James Webb's exes? They have descended into oblivion. Meanwhile their ex husbands continue to live in the spotlight, public office, speaking tours, television, or writing articles. So in many cases, leaving doesn't give these women anything.
Most women leave men to escape a bad situation, to escape, but in these cases, the power differential between the man and the woman is so great, that the woman is better off staying with the man even if he emotionally abuses her. They have to "stand by their man."
Eleanor Roosevelt is a woman who, in my opinion, handled the power differential between her and her husband very well. When FDR came to power in 1933, one of his first moves was to cut many social programs to reduce the deficit (he expanded or created new programs in other areas). Eleanor disagreed, arguing these programs were needed during the Depression. She wrote an article explaining her position in a column in a womens' magazine, and on the next page, he wrote an article explaining his side.
The Roosevelts demonstrated several things. The first was that even as a wife, Eleanor had an active mind and cared about the issues of the day. Politics was not just "men's business." The second was that she could disagree with his policies while still supporting him. The third was that they were intellectual equals. Franklin was not just going to ignore her because of his greater power afforded him the ability to, he actually took the time to write down his response to her views, treating them as warranting a response. And even though he was President elected in a landslide and she was just his wife, in the magazine they were both equals, given equal space, and it was up to the reader to make up her mind.
This allowed Eleanor not only to demonstrate her ability and interest, but to gracefully oppose her husband while acknowledging and accepting the power differential between them. In many ways, it was a more advanced gesture than most political couples today could brag about.
"Most women leave men to escape a bad situation, to escape, but in these cases, the power differential between the man and the woman is so great, that the woman is better off staying with the man even if he emotionally abuses her."
I don't think that emotional abuse is worth staying with someone who goes on Meet the Press. I don't think that having a lack of respect for yourself should be traded for power. This power is false if it's not grounded in your own sense of power and self-respect.
So what if I don't hear about John McCain's first wife? Not having a recognizable name is a small price to pay for peace of mind and being known as "____'s wife".
I believe that this is how it should be. However, I don't doubt that women like this do, in fact, often stay because being the wife of a powerful man is the only real importance they have ever felt.
It doesn't even have to be in politics. Think back on Jason Kidd's wife. This woman called 911, saying that the beating she'd taken from him was "nothing" compared to what he usually did to her. Yet, she stayed. Story was that she wanted a career in television (think an Entertainment Tonight-like career), so she stayed with him to keep herself in the public eye. She let her son witness his father beat his mom for the sake of position.
The whole thing makes me sick. I do think that infidelity is relevant when it comes to a political figure. If you are in a traditional marriage (and they obviously are, or she wouldn't be feeling betrayal), you made promises to your spouse. Fidelity was one of them. If you can't keep your promises to someone you supposedly love, why should I trust you to keep any promise you make to me, some anonymous voter?
As for Elizabeth. I feel for her. I know she feels alone and hurt, not to mention the fear she has to feel due to her health situation. I would actually respect her if she held him responsible and told him to get lost. After all, he made the vow of fidelity to her, not this woman she is vilifying. He broke that promise. (That said, I have no respect for a woman who would screw over another woman by sleeping with her husband. That's petty, hateful, selfish shit.)