The presidential campaign completed one full revolution when Bill Clinton found himself standing by his woman on national television. The moment came during a debate before the Illinois and Michigan primaries, when rival candidate Jerry Brown accused the Governor of steering state business to his wife Hillary's Arkansas law firm. "You," the furious Clinton replied, "ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife."
Conflict-of-interest charges are nothing new for political spouses, especially wives. They are easy to make and hard to refute, and can obscure a hidden intent to put an uppity woman in her place. "This is the sort of thing that happens to women who have their own careers," Hillary Clinton said about charges that she helped a savings and loan represented by her law firm to get a break from the state securities board, which is appointed by her husband. "For goodness' sake, you can't be a lawyer if you don't represent banks." Clinton was so rattled by the accusations that she forgot that she hardly ever represents banks. And before she could convey her conviction that feminism means the choice for women to work or not, she snapped, "I suppose I could have stayed home, baked cookies and had teas."
It is doubtful that Clinton would have blundered into such a feminist minefield if the charges hadn't struck the hypersensitive spot inside women who try to make it in a man's world. Many of them still feel that somehow they haven't made it on their own or will be dismissed if they step over some invisible line of appropriate female conduct. This is particularly touchy in politics, which remains a bastion of prefeminist expectations, even though more and more politicians' wives have professional careers. The little wife is still a Norman Rockwell staple of American campaigns. George Bush is not joking when he says more people turn out for his appearances when Barbara Bush accompanies him. Local newspapers are still filled with stories about the wives of public officials visiting hospitals and revealing their favorite recipes.
According to Ruth Mandel of the Center for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University, the unspoken rule of political life is that a wife will tend to home and family and be by her husband's side when he runs. Working violates that rule. Being successful in a primarily male profession shatters it, as Hillary Clinton is learning. Most legal experts agree that Clinton took the needed steps to avoid conflicts, by entering into a virtual prenuptial agreement with her firm that anticipated every possible pitfall. She does not represent clients before state agencies, and she refuses her share of the firm's profits that flow from such work. "She's done everything that she can reasonably do and still practice law at a top law firm," says Washington lawyer Marc Miller, author of Politicians and Their Spouses' Careers. "If you dice her practice up into any finer points, it severely limits her opportunities to do what she is eminently qualified to do. It means we don't want wives tiptoeing anywhere near public life." Lawyer Ruth Harkin, wife of Senator Tom Harkin, agrees: "Men don't get this scrutiny, because it is assumed they deserve their success, but somehow a wife doesn't."