Lori Alexander just posted a blog praising Jackie Kennedy for being a good helpmeet to her husband. \u201cI watched a YouTube video about and interviewing Jacqueline Kennedy<\/a> yesterday and I want you to read these words carefully, many of them said by her,\u201d Lori wrote. I have questions.<\/p>\n Lori described Jackie\u2019s words in the video as follows:<\/p>\n \u201cI liked staying in the background. I think he appreciated that in a wife.\u201d She was devoted to making him happy. \u201cI think a woman always adapts, especially if she\u2019s young, when she gets married. She becomes the wife that she sees her husband wants!\u201d<\/p>\n If she couldn\u2019t help him in politics, she could keep harmony in the home. \u201cI think it\u2019s so good to be able to forgive quickly and I know that\u2019s the quality that Jack liked in me.\u201d She would apologize quickly if a dark cloud seemed to form between the two of them and he loved that.<\/p>\n \u201cJack demands that the man be the leader and his wife look up to him as a man.\u201d Someone asked her where she gets her opinions. She answered that she got all of her opinions from her husband. \u201cHis political opinions would be the best,\u201d she said. She liked the way the Japanese women modeled marriage to their husbands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Let me just say, first, that Lori barely addresses all of JFK\u2019s affairs. \u201cShe made it clear that the two of them lived for their children and each other amid the rumors of affairs,\u201d Lori writes of Jackie. This doesn\u2019t address a big problem with Lori\u2019s patriarchal views\u2014the very views she praises Jackie for holding: there is no accountability for the husband.<\/p>\n If the wife forgives her husband no matter what he does, looks up to him by default (and not based on whether it is deserved), and adapts to her husband\u2014becoming \u201cthe wife that she sees her husband wants\u201d\u2014what\u2019s going to stop him from being an unrepentant philanderer? Absolutely nothing. In theory, a man might feel guilty about cheating if his wife. But why? If his wife is unceasingly deferential and adulatory, why would he even feel bad about it?<\/p>\n In some sense, husbands and wives are also accountability partners. They are there to support each other, yes, but each also encourages the other to be the best version of themselves they can. If a woman can\u2019t call her husband on bullshit when there is bullshit, that gets short-circuited. (Meanwhile, patriarchal teachers like Lori argue that husbands should<\/em> call their wives<\/em> on bullshit, because it is their job to protect and guide their wives\u2014see this article<\/a> for example.)<\/p>\n Lori praises Jackie\u2019s comments on marriage as though Jackie\u2019s marriage is something women today should want.\u00a0It isn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/em>JFK had a ridiculously large number of affairs, and they weren\u2019t all that secret. Perhaps Jackie turned a blind eye to them because she saw them as normal, as just what men did\u2014or perhaps she let them go because she didn\u2019t think she had any choice. But I\u2019ve never seen any suggestion that they had a mutually agreed upon open marriage.<\/p>\n Add to this the way Jackie talks about marriage in the video Lori references, which I watched. I wanted to see the context of the quotes, and let me just say that the context did not help<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cJack demands that the man be the leader and his wife look up to him as a man,\u201d Lori quotes Jackie as saying. Here\u2019s the full quote from the video:<\/p>\n Jackie: \u201cJack so obviously demanded from a woman a relationship between a man and a woman where the man would be, you know, the leader, and the woman would be his wife and look up to him as a man. I always thought women who were scared of sex loved Adlai.\u201d<\/p>\n Interviewer: \u201cThe challenge [unintelligible].\u201d<\/p>\n Jackie: \u201cYeah! Not that there\u2019d be the challenge with Jack, but it was a different kind of man. You know, all these twisted, these poor little women whose lives hadn\u2019t worked out could find a bomb in Adlai, and Jack made them nervous.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What is that.<\/p>\n I am not a historian of the postwar era, but I suddenly wish I was. Was the word on the street that washed up career old maid women supported Adlai Stevenson because they were scared of sex and couldn\u2019t handle a real<\/em> man like JFK? Because that\u2019s what it sounds like here!<\/p>\n I\u2019m so fascinated by that last bit\u2014which Lori completely<\/em> left out\u2014that I\u2019m having trouble focusing on the first bit. But I do want you to notice something about it:<\/p>\n \u201cJack so obviously demanded from a woman a relationship between a man and a woman where the man would be, you know, the leader, and the woman would be his wife and look up to him as a man.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jack demanded<\/em>. We don\u2019t know whether this is what Jackie wanted<\/em>. We only know that she quickly recognized that her husband was completely set on being the dominant figure in their marriage, and that her only options were to put up or shut up.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not attractive.<\/p>\n Okay, what\u2019s next? These bits, as told by Lori:<\/p>\n \u201cI liked staying in the background. I think he appreciated that in a wife.\u201d She was devoted to making him happy. \u201cI think a woman always adapts, especially if she\u2019s young, when she gets married. She becomes the wife that she sees her husband wants!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oy. There isn\u2019t really more context for these quotes, except for this statement by Jackie: \u201cHe married me really for the things I was.\u201d I\u2019m not sure how that fits with her statement that a woman adapts to become the wife her husband wants\u2014because she did<\/em> also say that\u2014but it\u2019s interesting that Lori left out Jackie\u2019s statement that her husband married her\u00a0for the things she was\u00a0<\/em>and not because he wanted to shape her into something else.<\/p>\n Next there\u2019s this from Lori:<\/p>\n If she couldn\u2019t help him in politics, she could keep harmony in the home. \u201cI think it\u2019s so good to be able to forgive quickly and I know that\u2019s the quality that Jack liked in me.\u201d She would apologize quickly if a dark cloud seemed to form between the two of them and he loved that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again, there wasn\u2019t really more context here, but I\u2019d like to note that this isn\u2019t really healthy if one party and one party only is the one constantly doing it. It\u2019s odd that patriarchal teachers like Lori at once want men to be the leaders and also want women to pander to and infantilize men so they never have to actually grow up or take responsibility for the results of their actions.<\/p>\n Also, am I the only one reading this emphasis on being willing to forgive Jack quickly as a reference to his constant philandering? Because that\u2019s not exactly a selling point there.<\/p>\n Finally, Lori adds this description from the video:<\/p>\n \u201cJack demands that the man be the leader and his wife look up to him as a man.\u201d Someone asked her where she gets her opinions. She answered that she got all of her opinions from her husband. \u201cHis political opinions would be the best,\u201d she said. She liked the way the Japanese women modeled marriage to their husbands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ouch<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the full quote in context:<\/p>\n Jackie: \u201cSomeone said, where do you get your opinions, and I said I get all my opinions from my husband, which is true, how could I have any political opinions, you know, his would be the best.\u00a0<\/span>It was really a rather terribly Victorian or Asiatic relationship which we had.\u201d<\/p>\n Interviewer:\u00a0\u201cA Japanese wife.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackie: \u201cYeah, which I think is best!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What.<\/p>\n Wait, what?<\/p>\n Okay, first of all, her comment about not being able to have her own political opinions is once again not<\/em> a selling point. That\u2019s not okay and it\u2019s not what most women want today. It\u2019s as though women existed as an appendage<\/em> of their husbands\u2014which, legally, at one point, they did<\/em>.<\/p>\n