5-9-90 The flap of the day has to do with Barbara Bush and Wellesley College. Bush, of course, is the wife of the president; she’s known as the “First Lady” of the White House. Wellesley is a woman’s college on the east coast. I gather that Barbara Bush was chosen as Wellesley’s commencement speaker this year. However, a hundred fifty students protested her selection on grounds that Bush’s sole claim to fame is having married a wealthy, powerful man. That, they say, flies in the face of “what they’ve been taught” in college—namely, that one is and ought to be judged on the basis of merit, not family ties. I salute these students. Barbara Bush dropped out of college during or after her first year to marry George and bear his children. She never went back. To my knowledge she has never held a paying job. Her role has been that of traditional housewife and mother, though, with the Bush wealth, she has probably done little in the way of domestic chores over the years. George, meanwhile, made a fortune in the West Texas oilfields, entered politics, and moved through a succession of political appointments, culminating in his election as President of the United States in 1988. Barbara, loyal wife that she is, stood by him all these years. Their children are grown and married, so she plays the role of doting grandmother to all of them.
The reason I salute the Wellesley protesters is that they have a right to select their own role models. The fact is, not many of them want to become appendages of men like Barbara Bush did. This is not to say that they plan to forgo having and raising children within the confines of a marriage, for I’m sure many or most of them do. But they also plan to have productive, rewarding careers, something Barbara Bush never chose to undertake. Can you blame the students for preferring someone else? For my part, I despise the mentality that makes marriage and childrearing a live option. Women in this society are made to feel guilty and incomplete if they pursue careers of their own. If they pursue careers at all, it has to be in addition to, not instead of, the traditional duties of wifery and motherhood. Naturally the columnists have jumped all over the Wellesley protesters. Some accuse them of being hypocritical, since undoubtedly many of them are attending college (an elite one, no less) with their parents’ money. That misses the point. The protesters are not accusing Barbara Bush of being privileged; they’re claiming that she is not an acceptable role model because of what she chose to do with her life. In contrast, they’re choosing to have careers. Other, more conservative columnists see this protest as an attack on motherhood, the flag, apple pie, and all that. But that’s precisely the point of disagreement. Radicals such as me do not value motherhood; it is an inferior role and occupation. It is the traditional and most important means of suppressing women.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 