I saw this earlier today at Feministing, and I had mixed feelings about it at first. Participants in the Miss Hartford High pageant were being taught etiquette — including six proper seating positions and how to be quiet and wear makeup and act properly at a tea service — on the theory that learning manners and etiquette was something that would help the contestants when they enter the business world. And that, for some reason unknown to me, the business world is apparently having tea a lot these days.
Jessica was fine with the etiquette, but thought the lessons went too far into enforcing proper gender roles:
“Elegant” sitting positions, not talking, wearing makeup: clearly the recipe for a lucrative career.
I wasn’t willing to get too down on the program, given that these girls already have so many strikes against them in terms of how they’re perceived by people who can give them entree into the business world — most of Hartford High’s students are poor and black or Hispanic, and will undoubtedly be trying to get jobs in insurance companies run by white people from the suburbs. What harm, I figured, could come from giving them the tools to increase the chance to be taken seriously as a job candidate? After all, I knew from observing my best friend from law school interact with potential employers at the dog and pony shows recruiting programs put on that white people will regard even a very well-educated, “articulate” black woman with impeccable manners and perfect grammar and crisp enunciation as just one “aks” away from the ghetto. If she experienced slight stiffening and frozen smiles and evident watchfulness, how would a poor kid from the North End fare? Is it worth focusing on the gender stereotyping when it might help her get a job?
But then I looked a little more closely at the article, which I hadn’t had time to read earlier. And the first thing I noticed* was that my assumption that this whole pageant was a school-related thing wasn’t quite right:
The pageant isn’t until the spring, but throughout the school year the 11 contestants are learning the behavior and etiquette that transforms a girl into a young lady. Mastering the poise to carry themselves at a tea party, such as the one Sunday, is a primary goal of the program run by Catholic Charities with a 21st Century state grant.
Um, exactly why is Catholic Charities in the business of running high-school beauty pageants?
And why are they getting government funding for it?
While looking for information on the 21st Century grants, I came across this and this, which described the grant program:
The 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program is a nationwide program of the U.S. Department of Education to provide learning and recreational opportunities for children and adults during non-school hours in a safe and drug-free environment.
If teaching kids etiquette is a worthy goal — and it is — then why is it tied into a) a Catholic Charities grant and b) a beauty pageant? Because it’s nice that there are a select group of young women learning to take small bites and use the right fork at a business lunch, but you’d think it would be a skill many of the students might want some instruction in, given the reaction of local business leaders to Hartford High students:
Three years ago this month, I. Michael Borrero, a former school board chairman, gathered Hartford business leaders for a lunch and asked them what they thought the school system should teach students to help them succeed in the business world.
Teach them etiquette, the business leaders said.
Throughout most of the lunch, employers talked about the woeful table manners, style of dress, speech, attendance, punctuality and overall behavior of many Hartford teenagers that made it hard for them to succeed in internships or entry-level jobs. The business leaders said they wanted employees who know how to work as part of a team and can fit in with the dominant business culture.
Leaving aside the question of just how many actual Hartford teenagers these business leaders know well enough to know that they’re not punctual and don’t work as part of a team, this little snippet illustrates what these kids are up against before they even get in the door. If this religious group is going to be getting government grant money to teach kids etiquette, they should make the program available to anyone who’s interested.
____________
* Actually, my first thought was, “Ohmigod! Rachel! She’s still at the Courant!” I worked with her on another newspaper a hundred years ago.
I agree that the lessons should be offered to all students- but that the makeup portion should be eliminated or mentioned only in passing, such as to say how much is too much.
But, perhaps they think that the few girls that had the training will teach their classmates, sort of a civilizing infkuence of sorts.
How strange is it that the opportunity to learn life and business skill sets is packaged and sold as a beauty pageant to a select few young women.
Other than that fact, I can’t bring myself to bash on the program too much.
I most definately learned how to apply makeup through an extracurricular program. I appreciated knowing what is/was appropriate for a job interviews, school, and going out.
On another note, I am fairly confident that tea parties are not in the vogue if you’re trying to break into a male dominated profession. It’s still all about professional conferences and networking lunches/dinners. And they hardly ever serve tea at those. I wish they did, because the room is usually over-air conditioned for the dudes in jackets and ties.
I think etiquette should be taught to everyone, even required in schools, but this program seems bound to fail because it (1) has a built-in disparagement of the teens the programmers say they care about (as shown in the article when it discusses how business leaders are horrified at today’s youth) and (2) is focused (not just implicitly) on poor, minority youth are as being once again in the wrong and need to be saved from themselves. It maintains the view that the workplace is a white-normed place, that business values are white, middle-to-upper-class values, not those of ‘the other.’ This suggests (and I want to acknowledge possible transgression) that others who try to enter these spaces and act on the white terms will be seen, if they are seen at all, as intruders. They will never be given credit for their achievements. For this reason, I think we need to examine the politics of this type of program in every detail you and Feministing mention: This isn’t about helping youth; it’s about keeping them in their place.
The article does say they hope to expand to male students next year. I wonder if that means they’ll expand to non-pageant girls as well.
None of that is actually etiquette, though.
Despite what the vast majority of people assume, etiquette doesn’t concern what spoon you use or whether you wear makeup or not. Etiquette concerns how you treat other people. Wearing makeup has nothing to do with how you treat other people.
For instance, a lot of people mistakenly think that “etiquette says” you have one year after the wedding to write thank-you notes. This sounds like a strange dicta, and it is: that’s because it’s absolutely untrue. The real rule is that you must thank someone who buys you a gift as soon as possible after receiving it. This means in practice that you get those notes out starting the day you return from the honeymoon, and you don’t stop until they’re done.
Etiquette is all about making other people’s lives easier or more comfortable. Nobody is made more comfortable by your wearing makeup, but people are made comfortable if you dress appropriately and are groomed (showered, hair combed, etc.). They are especially not made comfortable if you come dressed to the nines with makeup on and treat them like crap.
I think anyone who gets the vapors at what “those kids” are doing these days:
1) Doesn’t know many kids;
2) Doesn’t know history, and;
3) Has forgotten everything in their life before age 25.
I have the privilege to advise a group of high school students for the Minnesota YMCA Youth in Government program. Are the young men and women sometimes brash? Often irreverent? Somewhat naive? Absolutely. They’re teenagers. When I was seventeen, I was brash, irreverent, and naive too. So was everyone who’s ever been seventeen–it’s part of being seventeen.
Teaching some etiquitte is fine and dandy, but as someone who works in business, I can still say that simple computer skills are vastly more important.
OK, I’ve worked in corporate America for 13 years. At my last job, I was a business unit CFO at a Fortune 200 company. My next job will be something similar. Never in my career did I ever go to a corporate tea. Lunch, yes. Cocktail party, yes. Dinner, yes. Tea, no. [At least not in US-based companies. I concede the possibility that European- and/or Asian-based companies may be different.] Nonetheless, the further you move up, the more likely you are to come into contact with wealthy people. So, yes, learning proper table settings and manners is quite useful. The business leaders might be surprised at how many people from all sorts of non-wealthy backgrounds don’t know those, however. I’ve had to walk any number of white guys through proper table settings in my life.
Further, teaching these teenage girls to be quiet is counter to what they need to learn to succeed. It reinforces one of the disadvantages most women have in corporate environments. You need to learn how to speak up (in an appropriate manner, obviously). Those who move up the corporate ladder are those who are not afraid to speak up and make their opinions heard. Corporate America rewards those who sell themselves. Not those who sit back and wait for people to recognize their worth. I had to learn that lesson myself, and I have imparted it to those who have worked for me or whom I’ve mentored over the years. I believe that part of the wage gap (not all of it) is caused by the fact that, due to socialization, men are more likely to request raises and promotions than women are. You’re not competing with people who are sitting back and waiting for someone to ask their opinion or assign them to a high visibility project. Women are socialized to wait to be asked. Men are socialized to ask. Unsurprisingly, the latter behavior is what is rewarded in a male-dominated environment. Note that the business leaders didn’t say word one about being quiet. Only about speaking Standard English.
I think that the program, as structured, is actually going to counter these girls’ chances to move up the corporate ladder. Proper table etiquette won’t offset being quiet. Not by a long shot.
Ooooh… now I get that cartoon on the Humor Times Ad on this site….
I actually think that teaching these young women to associate meetings with food is a stroke of brilliance. The best attended and best behaved meetings that I have attended have had a snacks component. Not large meal size portions but the small tidbits associated with a High Tea, these young women may be tracked high by their bosses by simply having their meetings remembered with the happy glow of the carbo-saturated. Also if you can find a better training ground for the back-biting insidious infighting of the modern business world than backstage at a beauty pageant, then put that forward as a model for corporate behaviour.
I believe that limiting the number of participants is wrong and it should be offered to young men as well.
But they are. At least now. That will change, of course, as workplaces, and particularly the management ranks, diversify. But you have to deal with what you have, not what you wish you had.
And Hartford, in particular the insurance industry, is a very conservative work environment. If these kids can’t even get a second look because “business leaders” have written them off as hopelessly ghetto, how will they ever get the chance to change the business values of the workplace?
Even college campuses offer basic business ettiquette courses. Business ettiquette absolutely needs to be taught. I don’t know what they are specifically teaching at this tea service, but if they are teaching them to mingle and keep a hand free (if buffet style) or how to engage the person on both sides of you (if seated) then those lessons are applicable to business dinners and happy hours as well. You can also teach people that they are at work even if it’s a social function through a tea service just as well as through a dinner service.
I think my problem is similar to Jessica’s – they are calling it “etiquette” but really it’s gender roles.
Many people are making the assumption that weathy = good manners and poor = bad manners. I was reared in a home of “modest means,” and my parents taught me basic manners. In fact, growing up in the South, manners were emphasized. I seriously doubt that these “less wealthy” parents are throwing meat to these kids in cages at night.
Reinforcing table manners is a great idea for all kids. It is more important to teach kids how to function at a business lunch or dinner. The whole tea and make up program is sexist drivel. I would advise young women not to wear too much make up for a typical interview.
Many people are making the assumption that weathy = good manners and poor = bad manners.
I don’t think that’s it exactly. I think there are certain differences in what might loosely be called manners between the wealthy and the poor and those differences can be used as an extra way to stigmatise the poor. We can argue about whether it’s better to dismantle the stigma rather than teaching poor kids to ape the manners of the wealthy, but like zuzu says, you have to deal with the way things are.
Yes, that’s what I meant in my comment, even if it wasn’t clearly worded. Working your way through a formal table setting is not intuitive. You have to be taught that, and most households these days just don’t use formal table settings. Throughout most of life, you’ll never need to know it. However, when you’re at an affair with the wealthy, not knowing it will count as a strike against you.
Lots of people, for example, don’t know that the bread plate goes to the left. They know that the glass goes to the right, so, totally understandably, they think that the bread plate is where their glass is. However, food is traditionally served from the left, while beverages are poured from the right. Fish knives throw a lot of people off still. The “proper” way to butter and eat a roll. How to sip soup “properly”. How to hold a wine glass. All these things are noticed and weighed. My bf comes from a middle class background and doesn’t know any of that. His manners are fine, but if he were ever in an environment where the formal settings mattered, he’d be lost. He’s just never in that environment. I only learned it because my mother’s maternal grandmother came from a well-to-do Russian family. Although she married a poor man and didn’t live a well-off life thereafter, she still drilled it into her children, and so on down the line. I actually eat in the European fashion because of that.
I will say that a lot of business leaders didn’t know any of these things either when they started out, because not all of them come from wealthy backgrounds. Either someone mentored them along the way, or they took an etiquette course after being embarrassed once or twice. There’s a niche business in teaching executives “proper” table manners.
Here’s MY “table manners”:
The point is to get the food in your MOUTH, not all over your person.
Sums it up rather nicely, and it’s a bit more polite than “DON’T BE A FREAKIN’ SLOB!”
Who the hells puts thier elbows on the table anyway? Unless you were sitting VERY close…
A lot of these trappings are sexist, classist, Victorian holdovers. However, I don’t see why good behavior (politeness, inside voices, being considerate of others) has to be seen as any of those things.
People need to know manners. They also need to know how to eat at a formal dinner, because as many in this thread have mentioned: it can make or break the situation.
Take out the make up and “ways to sit” nonesense, and you have the beginnings of a very useful class–for everyone. You don’t have to be a poor minority to not know that gazpacho soup is served cold.
It’s too bad that these kinds of “etiquette” classes have to exist at all. Anyone who thinks worse of someone else because she isn’t holding her wine glass correctly, or because she picked up the wrong utensil at the wrong time during the course of a meal, is a petty human being and shouldn’t be allowed to do the hiring for a company.
Basic manners — not talking with your mouth full, not putting your elbows on the table — are one thing. Obscure rules about the minutiae of fine dining are something else entirely. It’s like scrutinizing the grammar and writing style in a candidate’s resume and cover letter, except much less important.
But what do I know? I get to wear jeans to work every day.
Hartford is a curious town, because very few people who actually live in Hartford work in those conservative business environments. They commute in from very white suburbs like Avon, Simsbury, and West Hartford, and sometimes the less-white places like East Hartford, Glastonbury and Windsor. The racism in some of those towns is pretty overt (or at least it was fifteen years ago, when I was in high school). I suspect the students have been written off as “hopelessly ghetto” before they ever get into an office.
I would be a lot more indignant about this whole concept if my graduate school hadn’t offered “Etiquette Dinners” to all undergraduates (and grad students) as part of their career counseling services.
I think table manners are much more of a problem even among middle-class kids than people think, because family dinnertime gets shoved to the side when Mom and Dad always have to work late because of cutbacks at work. Not to mention that sometimes even middle-class parents find it too time-consuming to teach table manners — my niece couldn’t even use a fork at the age of four because my (now ex-) sister-in-law thought it was easier to just feed the kid herself.
So, overall, I’m strongly in favor of teaching these things, especially to young adults who are getting ready to get out into the job market. But teaching it as part of a beauty pageant? Through Catholic Charities? Yeah, that’s sending up a few hackles.
It’s like scrutinizing the grammar and writing style in a candidate’s resume and cover letter, except much less important
I always scrutinize the grammar and writing style of a resume and cover letter! If you can’t spell or use the English language why would I hire you for a well paid job?
Teaching people how to eat properly at business functions is an empowering tool. Why would you want to be the one who doesn’t know? Surely it is better to be in the know, however “arcane” you find the practice.
Make-up, however, is a bizarre thing to teach. I have been told by mother that I don’t wear nearly enough. A head-hunter also told me this in an interview- and I thought I had TONS on!
Glastonbury is “less white”? Since when?
Very few brown or black faces in GHS in my day, and many of them were from other districts. Like Hartford.
OK, maybe in relation to Simsbury.
Okay, I could be wrong about Glastonbury. I was trying to be inclusive of those towns over there ::waves vaguely Eastward::. Let’s replace it with New Britain.
Why does everyone hate the east of the river people? What have we done?
I don’t hate east-of-the-river people at all! I just never really had any reason to go over there when I lived in CT, so I know very little of their strange and exotic ways.
hometown pride hijack: why does everyone forget the diverse and eclectic Elmwood when discussing the Greater Hartford area?
we are not just West Hartford’s dirty orifice, after all.
yeah, most of West Hartford is white and snooty (growing ever more so, if it’s possible) – but what of the multi-ethnic, multi-racial, working-class Elmwood?
I don’t have much of a point – I just get tired of the assumption that the west-of-Hartford area is uniformly posh.
Elmwood kids (despite being maybe not white and/or not rich) go to the exceedingly prestigious and much-lauded West Hartford schools, which as far as I know do not go out of their way to teach business/professional etiquette. At least they did not when I was in high school.
I don’t know what the statistics are, as far as the employment success of those non-white, non-rich kids who come from Elmwood but go to West Hartford schools.
They do have the distinct advantage of not having to put Hartford Public on their applications.
When I worked at a grocery store on the East Hartford/Glastonbury border, we were instructed not to accept any checks with an account address of Hartford. Just a wee bit racist.
good point, zuzu.
Oh yes, our cider pressings and racetracks are to be envied.
STAFFORD MOTOR SPEEDWAYWAYway!
Am I the only woman in America who was never taught how to apply make-up? I can’t be the only one. Not that a cotillion/make-up seminar is what I need, but I will admit to feeling even more alienated than normal from other women for not sharing this particular cultural experience (thanks, mom!). And also even more ill-equipped to navigate the “professional world” and its requirement that women give at least a passing nod to femininity.
Didn’t some law firms and random ass-backwards judges – until extremely recently, and perhaps even still – require that female associates wear make-up and skirts?
Red Stapler – was that a Red Dwarf reference? If so, I love you.
I can attest anecdotedly in support of using proper manners and how that can definitely make positive impression:
Once on a temporary construction job as nothing more than a laborer I had an accident and was shuttled away to the hospital. The manager took me out to breakfast after the hospital stitch-up. He asked about my background and my interests and then we went back to the office and I resumed my duties. A few days later, I noticed I was given much more attention by the management. Later, I met up with the manager I breakfasted with, he told me he had told his colleagues that I was ‘better than the others’ and ‘not like any other laborer’ why? Because I used proper table manners while eating and he was impressed. Within a couple of weeks I was promoted (due also to the fact that I kicked ass working), but I know also that the positive impression I made that day had an effect.
Also, during my stint as a welfare mother I took up organizing to try and counter the damage during the welfare reform debates. I also ended up lobbying at the state house on bills that were coming down daily effecting hundreds of women. I dressed properly in conservative suits that I purchased at thrift stores, careful of course, to make sure I bought well tailored, classic styles that fit me properly. It was a regular assumption that I was not ‘one of them’ until I decided to make the fact known and then usually there was embarrassed surprise — and the effect of getting my point across.
My father was raised by a woman who grew up in a ‘proper’ southern household as a child and through no fault of her own, lost her family and was raised from about 6 on up in a children’s home. Not only did they drum into her proper manners, but she was obsessed with teaching her children propriety as well in the interest of assuring that she get them as far away as possible from her roots of poverty.
As a result, my homelife was one in which proper behavior and manners were demanded, dinner was at six everyday with a fully set table, cloth napkins and all. Respect for ourselves and our family was drummed into me from as far as I can remember. Many of my peers thought my strict upbringing antiquated, but I look on it today as having given me the tools that have helped me to climb out and over the herd.
Conversely, being a single mother has made it very difficult if not in some ways nearly impossible to have the same type of stability and structure I grew up with. This hasn’t helped my kids any and I can see the deficits, although I also know that the efforts I have put in to teach them what I knew have helped them as well. I can never get over my surprise at how many people have been surprised at the manners my kids exhibit which I take as just basic proper behavior.
lucizoe – No. I can – sort of – manage to apply lipstick and eye shadow and mascara, but I don’t recall anyone ever teaching me. My sister doesn’t wear it, either, at least that I know of. My mom only rarely wore the stuff, and my girl friends and I never got into doing that sort of girly stuff together in middle and high school. I did wear mascara and eye shadow with some frequency back then, but I’ve gotten out of the habit; I don’t feel like spending the time on it, and really, what’s the point? Besides, I wear contacts, and I don’t want to get gunk in my contacts.
So I rarely wear it, except for costume parties :) I wore makeup to one job interview, when I was looking for work as an administrative/executive assistant, and I felt like a total freak. I looked fine, I applied it pretty subtly, but I didn’t recognize my face in the mirror. And places that have hired me have obviously not cared that I didn’t wear any; I didn’t get the job where I wore facepaint to the interview.
Make-up, quietness, beauty-pageant connection…feh.
But it’s not enough to teach people word-processing or medical transcription skills. Here’s my real-life example: I once worked at a medium-sized law firm. I was hired as a paralegal, but as they began to cut back on personnel, I was required to assume more secretarial and support tasks. That’s why I was sitting at the receptionist’s desk when the receptionist applicants showed up for their interviews.
One young woman was referred from the local employment development office. I’m sure she’d completed the required classes, but nobody had taken the time to see whether she’d been clued in to the extra-curricular requirements. She was a personable young black woman, cheerful and pleasant. But the first thing she did when seated on the reception room couch was to get a potato chip bag and an onion dip container out of her handbag, and to begin eating.
Okay, god knows I’ve gone on job interviews on my lunch breaks before, but I kinda sorta knew that I had to eat on the run, and that opening a crackly bag and noisily chowing down while waiting for my interview was not a good idea.
She didn’t know. She was trying to make a giant step, job-wise, and she was gonna fail, if not for the potato chips, then for some other infraction that had nothing to do with basic intelligence.
I have a friend whose partner has been employed for a long time (at little pay) to teach young people exactly what that young woman hadn’t learned: basic main-stream work habits. You show up at the designated hour. You check out what other people are wearing and you adjust a little, if necessary. If you’re going to be late, you call. Et cetera. There are a lot of people who have done their studying and their homework under chaotic, inconsistent conditions, ever since grade school. The fact that they don’t know that it matters whether or not they show up for work, i.e., that they matter, has nothing to do with their innate abilities.
I believe I had a point. Oh yeah. Etiquette, work readiness = good things. The mission is helping people succeed. Beauty pageants are irrelevant, and tea parties seem quaint, but on the other hand, you have to know the rules before you can break ‘em. And I’m in favor of breaking some rules.
Well, Glastonbury could be considered multi-cultural if you count the Townies…. ;)
I do think the tea/beauty pageant thing sounds pretty ridiculous, but I can definitely see how even some of the ‘girly’ stuff could be useful. For example, I’ve never understood why
face paintmakeup should be mandated in any business-related setting — who the f*** cares whether my eyelids are blue, much less how long my eyelashes are? But it is often an unspoken requirement, and as such, I would appreciate being shown what makeup is appropriate if I aspired to such a job. (I’m a dancer, so I can do stage makeup just fine, but I honestly don’t know ‘how’ to wear makeup off the stage.)None of which is to say that I think it’s a good thing that I would need to learn that skill; that’s a different debate.
Didn’t some law firms and random ass-backwards judges – until extremely recently, and perhaps even still – require that female associates wear make-up and skirts?
I know that there is a judge in Texas that requires all women appearing before him to wear skirts. I think that he’s still on the bench. It’ll be a another decade or so before we get rid of some really geriatric judges in Texas.
I was required to wear skirts up until 1998. And until the turn of the century, it was questionable whether you could wear pants to court.
@ #3: It maintains the view that the workplace is a white-normed place, that business values are white, middle-to-upper-class values, not those of ‘the other.’ This suggests (and I want to acknowledge possible transgression) that others who try to enter these spaces and act on the white terms will be seen, if they are seen at all, as intruders.
As someone else pointed out, this is TRUE (that the workplace is white-normed and minorities are often seen as intruders–which is part of why they may not get hired) in many cases. Our society as a whole is incredibly white-normed (see Robert Jensen’s “The Heart of Whiteness” for his explanation of why the US is essentially a white supremacist society). Of course, the solution isn’t erasing minority identities by imposing white values on them. Ideally, proper business behavior would become something that trascends racial boundaries–but who knows how/if/when that’s going to happen.
With regard to the makeup issue, the book “Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office” (Lois Frankel) features an anecdote that was really striking to me. I may not have it entirely right (and that might not even be the right book, but I think so), but I’ll try to communicate the gist of it. Essentially, the (male) colleagues of a female scientist were asked what the female scientist should do to present a more professional image. The most prevalent answer? She should wear more makeup. Not conduct more research, publish more papers, write more books, or teach more classes. If a woman is to be viewed as professional, even in the sciences (a discipline I wouldn’t have associated with the whole skirt/heels/makeup thang), she needs to WEAR MORE MAKEUP. Wow.
My understanding is that Catholic Charities is separate from the Catholic Church, and so that it could behave in a non-discriminatory fashion and receive federal funds. Of course, with the Chimp in charge, that could have all changed.
zuzu, is there some precedent that judges cannot require females to wear skirts in court? I’ve been out of Texas for many years, and I must have missed something. Many thanks for assisting me to avoid skirts (and panty hose, which brings up another contested issue).
It was always one of those unspoken-but-well-known things, though I have heard of cases of judges sanctioning attorneys for wearing pants b/c they didn’t show the proper respect for the court.
I finally started wearing pants to court in 2000, when I had a hearing in front of Kimba Wood and I could see she was wearing pants under her robe.
lucizoe: Yes. Yes it was. :)
larkspur: Thank you for your post. You eloquently made all the points I was trying to.
People entering the workforce are expected to exhibit certain habits. Some are taught in schools…most are not. There’s plenty I didn’t know after graduating college.
This isn’t a gender or race thing. This is a “world is changing, but not all of it at the same time” thing.
so what about the differences between European style and American? for example, if I recall correctly from fancy dinners out with the French Club in high school, where American table style says to keep your free hand in your lap when not using it, Continental style frowns on it and prefers you keep both hands above the table line. I used to be really into table ettiquette trivia, but never found a satisfactory answer to that.
I need to know these things – I work for a business-casual IT startup now, but I may be a political wife someday!