| Happy Friday Rulers! I’m Samantha Latson and I’m excited to be your host for this week’s edition of Women Rule. As a Chicago native, I love all things Chicago, so it’s not surprising that I’m team Angel Reese and Chicago Sky! Although I do prefer thin crust pizza over deep dish. Now that you’ve heard my hometown spiel, let’s get into these political controversies. Recently, Americans got a front row seat to the spectacle of powerful men, who, upon finding themselves in the hot seat, appear to throw their wives under the bus. Two husbands — Justice Samuel Alito and Sen. Bob Menendez — are the new faces of this age-old phenomenon. Alito’s initial response to an upside-down flag outside his Virginia home was nothing short of: Uh, that’s on her. Wednesday, in two letters to Congress, Alito doubled down on his stance, refusing to recuse himself from Jan. 6 legal cases. “I had no involvement in the decision to fly that flag,” Alito wrote. “My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not. My wife was solely responsible for having flag poles put up at our residence and our vacation home.” His wife, Martha-Ann, has yet to issue a public statement. Then there’s Menendez, who was indicted on bribery charges along with his wife, Nadine. He’s accused of using his power to trade political favors with New Jersey businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Now that his trial is underway, the senator’s attorneys are pointing the finger squarely at Nadine. Nadine, Menendez defense attorney Avi Weitzman said, kept her husband “in the dark on what she was asking others to give her…. She tried to get cash and assets any which way she could.” These cases shed new light on an old phenomenon: the blame-my-spouse defense. We’ve seen it in the past with other politicians. In 2019, Former Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), pled guilty to stealing $250,000 in campaign funds for his personal use. But until that guilty plea, Duncan was busy scapegoating his wife, Margaret Hunter, on national television. “She was also the campaign manager so whatever she did, that’ll be looked at too, I’m sure, but I didn’t do it,” Duncan said on Fox News in 2018. And in 2014, Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were accused of trading government favors for gifts and loans from a businessman. While in court, McDonnell’s team painted his wife as irrational and desperate for attention, making her susceptible to a “crush” on a businessman bearing gifts. “Scapegoating is a tale as old as time,” says Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics. “It’s a classic situation.” So why do they do it? Blame the patriarchy. “You have powerful men who are trying to deflect the blame,” Sinzdak tells Women Rule. “People who should know better are trying to say, ‘Oh no, it's not me, it’s my wife.’ And that speaks to some of the cultural expectations in the patriarchy that we live in.” Along with the blame game, the stand-by-your-man strategy is used in political scandals, an example of the expectation that women should demonstrate loyalty no matter what. In 2018, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh stood by her husband, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who was accused of sexually assaulting a woman he attended high school with. And who could forget Hillary Clinton’s infamous line while sitting next to her husband on 60 Minutes? “You know, I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette.” But she did stand by her man. Meanwhile, Melania Trump so far has remained silent. She didn’t show up at any of his trials. But she hasn’t left him, either. Maybe women in positions of power handle things a bit differently. Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.), who was the first Black woman elected to the Senate in 1992, encountered controversy when her boyfriend/campaign manager was accused of sexually harassing staff. “I was getting attacked because of who I was dating,” Braun, the former U.N. Ambassador to New Zealand. “And it’s like wait a minute, I’m not throwing him under the bus. It just didn’t seem like the honorable thing to do, so I wasn’t gonna do it.” She said she finds Alito’s and Menendez’s spouse-blaming tactics “disgusting.” “I don’t know who they think they’re fooling with this,” she says. Race and gender play a role in the political scandals, according to Nadia Brown, professor of government and chair of women and gender studies at Georgetown University. “Typically white women are positioned as second in line to power,” Brown says. Because of sexism, white women typically don’t have the same political power as men. But their race grants them a certain amount of access. “Their proximity to power is often couched under their loyalty and allegiance to upholding white patriarchal supremacy,” Brown says. That means that political wives, when faced with their husbands’ scandals, usually make the decision to remain close to power. Which means standing by their men. We’re not likely to see this tactic disappear any time soon. “So we see male politicians who “want to stay in power and have access at any means necessary,” Brown says. “And if that means sacrificing my wife, then so be it.”
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