First Lady Firsts - Building Gender Balanced Business

November 25th, 2008

It seems the most emailed blog of recent weeks has been, not about Barack’s victory speech, but about Michelle’s victory speech dress. The debate rages about the symbolism and roles of America’s new first lady, after a post-racist, gender-focused presidential election.

Is Michelle a role model or not? Is she moving up or giving up? As she leaves her highly-paid vice-presidential job at a hospital in Chicago, is writing editorials entitled “My No. 1 job as First Lady is to be First Mom” helpful or sinful? Are some people suddenly nostalgic for Sarah Palin’s swashbuckling style of motherhood?

Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, supports Michelle’s decision. In a letter of advice to Michelle in last week’s The Times newspaper she said: “She is absolutely right to make her family central to all she will do. It’s not only the most important role of any parent. It is also the best way of keeping her husband grounded and in touch with real life.” Interesting, from a Prime Minister’s wife who never left her job as a lawyer. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, France’s own First Lady, maintains her singing stardom, telling the International Herald Tribune recently that “I thought that maybe for a woman nowadays, it’s important to have a job and keep it.”

It is strange in 2008 to be reading accounts from women who write about work and family as though they are opposing forces. How many working men and women are working because their families are central? How many career women are working in a conscious effort to offer their daughters (and sons) a role model of conciliation and control? How many women continue working, passionately committed to creating a world that will be healthier, more balanced and more sustainable for their children? How can we imagine that our daughters will be more enhanced by sleepovers than by their mother’s visions, dreams and success?

It is also hard to understand how anyone could view the role of First Lady as a big sacrifice for a woman of any ambition. Cherie complains of the irony “that in these days of pushing for equality, those married to our political leaders have to put their own ambitions on hold while their spouses are in office.” This reveals a strange, and relatively narrow idea of ‘career’ and ‘ambition’. In an era of knowledge, networks and globalisation, can anyone imagine a more privileged position as being the First Lady in the White House, from which one can learn, build and push for one’s purpose and beliefs in life? OK, she’s not elected… for now. But she’s likely to learn from her elders.

Former First Lady Hillary seems likely to be joining the new administration as Secretary of State. Not quite the role Clinton had wanted, perhaps, yet an impressive podium from which to influence the world. Michelle’s time too will come, if her ambitions lean that way. And her daughters will be watching – and learning – from every single one of her choices.

The crucial word in all of this is choice. As long as women feel they have one, we won.

In the meantime, Michele will probably have more contacts and more clout with more people than she did at the hospital. As she wrote herself, the issues that her husband campaigned on “are my passions. Now that the election is won, I’ll keep working to find solutions that make a real difference in people’s lives. With Barack serving as President, we will fill our home with talk of how to serve our nation’s families better.”

We have finally entered a century where women in political power are no longer rare. Germany, Chile, Finland, the Philippines, and Venezuela are all run by women. Canada, the UK, India and Israel have already been there and done that.

Michelle will be like many of them. She knows you can have it all. She also knows you can’t have everything all at once. But keep your eye on this First Lady, and her lawyer predecessor. They are members of a new generation of savvy sisters. Their ambitions go way beyond their CVs or their salaries.

Michelle, Hillary and Sarah in the US, Cherie in the United Kingdom and Ségolène in France. Ambitious mothers all. Get used to it, and all the different choices they offer us, at last.