The East Wing: First Ladies‟ Mediated Messages, Media Strategies and Gendered Discourse

Lee Betancourt

Villanova University

Honors Department Communication Department Political Science Department

Advisor: Dr. Heidi Rose, Communication Reader: Dr. Matthew Kerbel, Political Science

Defense: May 6, 2010

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...... 2 Abstract ...... 3 The First Lady’s Place in the White House: An Introduction ...... 4 A Qualitative Study ...... 8

Feminists and the First Lady: An Unusual Pairing ...... 11 Political Communication Strategy and the First Lady Role ...... 13 Media Framing and Consequences for the White House ...... 16 First Lady Studies: A Synopsis ...... 17 Methodology: Parameters of the Study ...... 18 Lady Bird Johnson ...... 22 Rosalynn Carter ...... 22 Hillary Clinton ...... 23 The First Lady as Performer ...... 23 Crafting Identity, Through Performance, Against Society’s Backdrop ...... 27 Consequence of the Rhetorical Presidency for First Ladies ...... 31 Gender as a Lightning Rod ...... 36 The First Lady’s Image within the Larger White House Image ...... 46 Consequences of Multiple Roles within Identity Management ...... 50 Disempowerment as a Consequence of Identity Management ...... 59 Concluding Thoughts: Playing with Power, Paradoxical Roles and the Future ...... 64 Appendix:...... 69 Works Cited ...... 72 2

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the people who gave me the inspiration for this thesis, who guided me through the past two semesters and who have always been so patient with me, not only over the past few semesters, but for my entire life. I first thought of the idea for this study in Dr. Rose‟s

Qualitative Research Methods class, and I want to thank her for giving me such a detailed understanding of feminist rhetorical criticism, for guiding my early thought process on this project last year, and, of course, for agreeing to be my advisor. She has given up many of her busy hours to read my drafts and listen to my ideas, and for that I am very grateful. Thanks also to Dr. Kerbel, my second reader, whose 2008 Election class sparked my interest in political communication and taught me to examine media messages critically. The Honors Department has enabled me to pursue my interests and has given me such a unique academic experience here at Villanova; I will begin and end my college career in the Honors seminar room! Of course, I also want to thank my parents and my sister, Holly, for always pushing me to achieve, for supporting me when I got overwhelmed and, most recently, for listening to me stress about this endeavor over the phone! Looking back, I realize that I need to especially thank my Mom for consistently yet gently sharing feminist perspectives on the world; I may have resisted at first, but now these have become the cornerstone for the paper that culminates my college career! I would also like to thank Raul Garcia, who was always there to give me feedback on my paper, spent many 3 a.m. nights in the library with me and helped me to keep a positive outlook on this project, and so many other things in life. Writing a thesis is certainly hard work, but working on it while Raul and many of my friends worked on their own was a great motivator this year. 3

Abstract

The institution of the “modern” First Lady has itself changed little despite the many different women who have held the role. How have First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson, Rosalynn Carter and

Hillary Clinton attempted to leave their mark on the position? How do they rectify the public nature of the role with their personal identities? How have the media chosen to frame First

Ladies, and has this focus shifted over time? Using feminist rhetorical criticism and a lens of the

First Lady as an instrumental performer, as illuminated by Erving Goffman‟s identity management framework, this study analyzes both the media‟s framing of stories on First Ladies and the First Ladies‟ attempts to position themselves in the media and to the American public. 4

The First Lady’s Place in the White House: An Introduction

History shows that the role of President of the United States is largely undefined; the 43 men who have held the role 44 times have enacted the Executive Branch to their liking. Hidden behind the president‟s shadow is another role — less definable, less accountable, yet no less active or consequential.

The First Lady, with an office in the East Wing of the White House, is considered an important part of the administration — she is awarded a physical space of recognition. This space, distinct from the chaos of the West Wing, is also determinably different. Perhaps the location belies the First Lady‟s second-class status in the hierarchy of the Executive Branch; she is not “worthy” of a West Wing office. Or perhaps this separate space metaphorically carves out a separate identity for the First Lady, apart from the political deal making and policy crafting of the West Wing. Either way, the physical location of the First Lady‟s business office sets the premise for her entire role. As a White House fixture, the First Lady is a political figure, but without defined political roles, she is clearly separate from the President‟s immediate advisors.

Within this paradigm though, First Ladies have often tilted the balance. Some place more weight in the political camp, others in the social camp, and still others enact a separate sphere that combines both — forming an aside to the presidency that is very much its own political and ceremonial entity, a sort of microcosm of the presidency itself. In other instances, First Ladies have chosen to be entirely separate and completely private, withdrawing from public criticism but also eliminating their opportunities to influence history, policy and society. This model, however, is likely a thing of the past; when today‟s women — First Ladies certainly included — are given opportunities, they grab them and make things happen. 5

Although the First Lady holds a political function, the role is not inherently political because she is not elected. The role of First Lady is also cultural — as in political culture,

Washington culture, American culture and the larger cultural place of women in American society. In modern times, though, the cultural has tended to become political, so a First Lady associated with culture first and foremost still has important consequences on society.

The position of First Lady, when not tied to a specific individual, is an abstraction. We often reify it in our minds by thinking of a specific First Lady when we are primed to do so; over time, we have attributed specific characteristics to the position that enable us to make it more concrete. Because it is an abstraction, the position of First Lady is not unlike a fictional character brought to life onstage. The character exists, in ambiguity, but with some generally understood, accepted, and defined notions. Each person who inhabits the role, though, amplifies certain notions of the ambiguous character, and diminishes others. Through performance, each person brings parts of themselves to the role. They change the overall role, but for the most part, they put the expected characteristics into practice, allowing these ideas to proliferate and continue, while enacting and adding to a “script” of sorts for future First Ladies.

Complementing the idea of performance is the idea that individuals, whether First Ladies or the average American man or woman, are shaped first and foremost, by society. No person can separate his or her life from the lives of others; the resulting shared experiences form societal interaction. People certainly have the agency to shape themselves, but often, attempts to do so are less successful than we would like to believe because we are prone to spend most of our efforts thwarting negativity surrounding our identities. We constantly push back against societal norms while still fearing societal repercussions of our actions, which sociologist Erving Goffman terms our continuous “„impression management‟” (Treviño 14). Performance becomes a way to 6 work on and enable identity management when the identities we attempt to cultivate stretch beyond the limits of our true selves, or when we are invested in our impression management to a stronger degree than is natural. This could be the case in a small instance, such as during a job interview, when we enact performance to show that our identity constitutes hard worker, charismatic individual and responsible adult. It can also take place on a much larger scale, such as within the office of First Lady, where one woman has to be so many things to so many people for such a sustained period of time. This type of identity management can act to distort true identity and can establish unrealistic expectations, especially for women, as society is pulled in different directions by often-competing dominant frames that seek to influence societal norms.

First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson, Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Clinton are the subjects of this study. The women, remarkable in their own right, all brought significant presence to the position of First Lady and shaped it in a way that the role, as each left it, was more significant than each had found it. Lady Bird Johnson incorporated the First Lady‟s “pet project” — a way to safely engage in shaping policy that both enables and constrains the woman who holds the role. Rosalynn Carter reinterpreted the presidency itself when she became what some call a

“copresident” (Beck, Whitmore and Clift, 22). No woman before, and few since, have gotten as close to the President‟s daily grind as she did. Hillary Clinton was, perhaps, one of the most polarizing women in America, and certainly the most polarizing First Lady America has ever witnessed. She moved light years beyond “pet projects” to attempt an overhaul of the nation‟s healthcare system, winning praise and critics equally magnanimous. Her own political capital was so strong after eight years in the White House that she was elected a U.S. Senator from New

York, without ever having held any elected positions before. 7

Not only did Johnson, Carter and Clinton permanently alter the role of First Lady, but the three women were outspoken enough that they made the role count. As an unofficial position with undefined potential, it is up to the individual woman to determine whether or not she wants to give her time in the White House a voice. More so than other modern First Ladies —

Jacqueline Kennedy, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan and Barbara and Laura Bush; these three First Ladies, Johnson, Carter and Clinton; chose to step into a role — with all the baggage it carried — wholeheartedly, leaving indelible marks on the nation, its women, the administrations they were a part of and future First Ladies.

It is no coincidence that these three First Ladies bracket the most modern women‟s movement. Lady Bird Johnson‟s time in the White House shows how feminist seeds had been planted, but had not yet taken root, in mainstream America. Rosalynn Carter seems the perfect depiction of a progressive 1970s female but was more traditional than it would seem at first glance. And Hillary Clinton, who came of age during second wave feminism, embodied, to different people, the modern woman‟s scope of choices, her inescapable dilemmas and even her shortcomings. More than with other First Ladies, the nuances of gendered portrayals and language thrive within these three women and their daily discourse. In a time so momentous for women, the actions of the First Lady serve as the manifestation of conflicts for women and prescribe acceptable behaviors and predominant cultural norms. As the cliché by famous newspaperman Philip Graham goes, journalism is the “first rough draft of history.” The media characterizations of one woman, the First Lady, go a long way toward ascribing contextual meaning to all other women. Conversely, the First Lady, in a position of influence and practically unlimited resources, is afforded an opportunity given to very few women: the ability 8 to influence the trajectory for women in the United States. Reviewing a First Lady‟s actions and words serves to show how enthusiastically each woman latched onto and took up this role.

A Qualitative Study

I am using feminist rhetorical criticism to study First Ladies Johnson, Carter and Clinton, their identity formation, performance and management; communication strategies; the frames the media chose to promote for each woman and the greater societal context in which all of these events occurred. Alongside that paradigm, I am combining political communication theories, sociological theories and broader feminist theories to situate my understanding of my research topic and to supplement my findings. Feminist rhetorical criticism falls within the qualitative paradigm of communication studies. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, qualitative researchers, state that this paradigm asserts, “Objective reality can never be captured. We know a thing only through its representations;” and they also state, “Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible” (5, 3). Qualitative studies are especially relevant to studying First Ladies because they offer an in-depth look at specific instances and do not attempt to whitewash inconsistencies or outliers in order to create a uniform, overarching generalization.

Instead, the nuances make the studies more complex and meaningful. Robert Watson states that because, as with presidential studies, the study of First Ladies has few case studies with wide variation, it “lends itself poorly to quantitative assessments and methodologies” (431). In their studies, Denzin and Lincoln identify specific periods of qualitative studies; especially relevant to this study are the Modernist/Golden Age phase and the Blurred Genres phase. The

Modernist/Golden Age phase added feminism and cultural studies lenses to rhetorical criticism, while during the Blurred Genres phase, “The researcher became a bricoleur, learning to borrow 9 from many different disciplines” (Denzin and Lincoln 3). In this study, for instance, the bricolage includes political communication, feminism, rhetorical criticism and understandings of

Presidential and First Lady studies, public relations studies and history. The other disciplines serve to enlighten the language choices within the research texts.

Feminist rhetorical criticism, as the name suggests, adds a feminist perspective to the critical point of view that rhetorical criticism already employs. The methodology takes stock of artifacts, which are any text or object created by humans, in order to unpack the object‟s inherent meaning. The method attempts to expose taken-for-granted assumptions and societal norms within a piece, and is especially conducive to looking at historical or “objective” texts, as I did in this study. “Objectivity” purports to portray what is, but rhetorical criticism approaches these texts with a skeptic‟s or novice‟s scrutiny of the situation that facilitates paying closer attention to the work. Rhetorical criticism allowed me to consider the face value of a text, then to go line- by-line or phrase-by-phrase, as if with a fine tooth comb, to come away with a much more accurate, nuanced reading of the many forces at work within the text. William L. Nothstine,

Carole Blair and Gary A. Copeland describe rhetorical criticism most fully: “It takes up a text and re-circulates it, that is, „says‟ or „does‟ that text differently, and asks the listener or reader to re-understand and re-evaluate the text, to see and judge it in new ways suggested by the critic”

(3).

Just as rhetorical criticism is conducive to pairing with historical or “objective” texts, it is also conducive to combining with other theoretical perspectives, in this case, feminism. Feminist rhetorical criticism means that out of all the critical lenses a researcher focuses on a text, the feminist one is the most prominent and directs all of the others. Inherent within feminism is what historian Nancy Cott calls its “Characteristic doubleness, its simultaneous affirmation of 10 women‟s human rights and women‟s unique needs and differences” (qtd. in Meagher and

DiQuinzio 3). When added to rhetorical criticism, feminism means that the researcher is looking for instances where women‟s human rights are absent or challenged from the perspectives of difference and power relationships, innate within feminist thought. Feminist scholars Donna M.

Nudd and Kristina L. Schriver state:

A rhetorical critic adopting a cultural feminist perspective is likely to critique current rhetorical practices for their sexist domination … Does a given communication artifact convey the largely feminine characteristics of caring, nurturing, cooperation, and intuition? Does it glorify aggression, competition, and individualism to the exclusion of other perspectives? How do the messages around us „normalize‟ a distinctly masculine perspective? (274)

In this qualitative study, the messages I‟m highlighting are, of course, mediated messages.

Communication devices like newspapers are able to “Transmit messages about gender widely and quickly” (Nudd and Schriver 277). This makes the messages more consequential, especially since they are perceived to express mainstream values while also defining what mainstream values are. As Nudd and Schriver argue, within mainstream messages, “The words we choose often unknowingly privilege a patriarchal perspective” (279). Within this study, the majority of messages are about women, and many are crafted by women, yet they still privilege traditional, dominant gender discourses. Because of this, it is also important to look equally critically at the

“recording” side of feminist rhetorical criticism, where “The techniques used to create an artifact are scrutinized … an artifact does not stand apart from the processes that make it” (Nudd and

Schriver 281-2). While many First Lady artifacts are presumed to be created by females, the perspectives present in them represent a greater White House, male-centered agenda and the need within this agenda to promote the First Lady in mainstream ways. This dual purpose, of the

First Lady as self-promoter and White House promoter, certainly shows through the artifacts‟ deeper meanings. 11

Feminists and the First Lady: An Unusual Pairing

Because the position of First Lady, in the United States, is often how the country‟s most powerful woman holds her authority, Feminist scholars and critics have extensively considered the validity of the role. Many Feminists applaud the First Ladies‟ use of power to effect change and impact others. However, a large majority of Feminists question the symbol that the First

Lady represents for women. They wonder whether the potential power of the position can or ought to be rectified with the fact that a woman comes to hold this power through the institution of marriage and, subsequently, the power is always defined through affiliation with a man.

While generally, the First Lady‟s power is criticized because it is illegitimate in the sense that she is not elected, Feminists judge legitimacy on how the First Lady comes to her power sharing abilities in the first place. Feminist scholar Germaine Greer expresses, “The courtesies extended to male politicians‟ wives in the West should never be justified in the name of equality because the duties expected of politicians‟ wives are demeaning and dishonorable” (27). The fact that a

First Lady gains her power by way of her husband‟s office is considered problematic, as is the fact that the only jobs that the power awards her are not substantial, but ceremonial.

Greer‟s 1995 New Republic essay, which urges the world to abolish all ceremonial First

Lady duties and adopt the communist model of a First Lady, where she is expected to maintain her own career and separate interests, decries that in the United States, “The First Lady is the archetypal lipstick-skirt-high-heels beside the archetypal suit.” The feminist also author takes issue with the fact that, “It is still true at the end of the millennium that the surest strategy for a woman who is seriously interested in executive political power is to marry a man who either is or is going to be the president of the United States” (21). The “archetypal lipstick-skirt-high heels” to which Greer refers falls into the “Expressions given off” category that Goffman describes as 12

“The more theatrical and contextual kind, the non-verbal, presumably unintentional kind, whether this communication be purposefully engineered or not” (The Performance of Self 4). He goes on to say in the book, “When an individual appears in the presence of others, there will usually be some reason for him to mobilize his activity so that it will convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey” (4). Taking Greer‟s and Goffman‟s statements together, then, the outward appearance of the First Lady, and the inner characteristics it purportedly represents, are crafted to be just so; even such seemingly unintentional things, like dress, are all carefully considered parts of each First Lady‟s identity management.

Although Feminism has certainly, on occasion, demonized the role of First Lady, it has also lent its holder a recognition that would otherwise be less possible. For example, Kellerman writes, “The women‟s movement has lent a new import to the wife of the president (as well as to other female relatives). We may expect her to be given both new responsibilities, and also a more tangible recognition of the old [responsibilities]” (“The Political Functions” 305). With new responsibilities, though, come higher stakes for identity management. Now, the First Lady needs to form impressions around her new roles, not only around the ones that society already has accepts. So while it may be easier to enact roles with fewer preexisting norms, the risks are greater. On expanded roles Goffman writes, “When the individual … obtains a new part to perform, he is not likely to be told in full detail how to conduct himself … it will be assumed that he already has in his repertoire … pieces of performances that will be required in the new setting” (The Presentation of Self 77-78). When a First Lady uses old frames in new situations, though, we see that the effects are not always positive; the First Lady often has to backtrack to remedy misconceptions and overgeneralizations that resulted from overusing old frames. 13

Because she is impossible to separate from her husband at first public introduction, then impossible to separate from his administration once he is elected, the First Lady is a political figure. While the cultural versus political roles and functions of the First Lady are always up for debate, at the very least, the First Lady is political by association. Because of this, political communication theories become relevant to each First Lady‟s time in the White House.

Political Communication Strategy and the First Lady Role

Political communication is especially useful for studying Johnson, Carter and Clinton because they all lived and worked in the White House during the television era, when political communication has become exponentially more important. The generally accepted notion, as expressed by Presidential Communication scholar Lori Cox Han, is that “Successful presidential leadership in the media age relies heavily on developing effective communication strategies in order to implement policy goals and to ultimately create a lasting historical legacy (2). Although

First Ladies do not have specific policy goals, at least not when compared to the magnitude of the president‟s own goals, the women are certainly instrumental in creating the “lasting historical legacy” to which Cox Han refers. As an example, Jacqueline Kennedy is not remembered for her involvement in her husband‟s Cuba policies (she is, in fact, probably the least involved modern First Lady), but is paramount when considering his historical “Camelot” legacy. Cox

Han and others write of “the rise of the rhetorical presidency during the twentieth century,” a necessity since “the news media is the primary link between the president and the public, especially in terms of setting the national political agenda” (2). Political communication studies, first and foremost, showcase the instrumental nature of White House communication strategies because “high approval ratings can translate into more successful dealings with Congress;” the field also points scholars to the “perpetual campaign of the modern presidency” (Cox Han 8). As 14 communication grows in import to the White House, what the First Lady says will gain more attention. Ironically, this will align with greater White House control over the First Lady‟s messaging, so what is said will be less indicative of the First Lady‟s own identity and more indicative of the White House‟s conception of her identity, based on what the White House perceives the public desires in a First Lady.

One problem of political communication is that the texts available for analysis are always, of course, political (Watson 431). Although this complicates studies that attempt complete objectivity, this is not the goal of qualitative research, which recognizes the

“situatedness” (position) of not only the researcher but also of the author of the texts being analyzed. Who was his or her audience? What were his or her motives? What “spin” is placed on the texts that is possible to unpack? Political communication scholars remain aware of these questions, placing them in the similar vein that rhetorical critics would, since rhetorical critics are always looking for and seeking texts‟ deeper meanings, which are invisible to the casual, untrained observer.

When examining First Ladies‟ statements, words and actions, then, it is imperative to remember that while the First Lady is an independent actor, she has to “answer to” both society and its norms, and, more consequentially, to the White House. Her political communication, indeed her communication all around, must fit within the larger framework of White House messaging, where the President, not the First Lady, is the object of all efforts. Understanding the dichotomy, then — that the First Lady must promote herself and her role, but only as it is congruent with the overall White House message — it makes sense that Feminist scholars often

“Uncover a logic of paternalistic treatment of women … that purports to protect them but almost always disempowers them and sometimes harms them” within political communication 15

(Meagher and DiQuinzio 1). We see this when the White House promotes the First Lady; they promote her in the most favorable way according to the lens of the American public, because this is with whom consequences lie. Needless to say, the most favorable view of the First Lady, as considered by the American public, is not necessarily the same as the most favorable view that the First Lady would have of herself. A 1998 Ladies‟ Home Journal poll found that only five percent of women nationwide felt that the President‟s wife should spend the majority of her time

“Becoming involved in government affairs.” However, we have seen in First Ladies Carter and

Clinton, that this is their preference. In contrast, 57 percent thought that the First Lady should

“Devote herself to special causes” (“The First Lady”). Because the White House reacts to the public‟s desires more so than it shapes them (given the endless campaign and constant popularity polls), First Ladies are similarly compelled to pander to the public‟s wishes.

Media Framing and Consequences for the White House

Framing is a strategy used by journalists and public relations professionals alike to promote the most favorable or salient angle of a story, person or event. When removed from the media world, though, framing is still used every day, by average people, in daily discourse. This is better known as social framing; sociologist Erving Goffman first developed the framing metaphor (Treviño 2). Goffman “suggests that social experience is structured by „frames,‟ schemes of interpretation, that guide us in defining the multitudinous social situations we find ourselves in” (Treviño 20). In Frame Analysis, Goffman argues that we constantly have to ask ourselves, “What is it that‟s going on here?” (Treviño 39). Framing the situation helps us to do this succinctly, every day, in every kind of situation. Even the President uses framing. Cox Han writes “Presidents, through rhetoric, now play an elaborate game with the public in the hopes of maintaining high public opinion ratings” (6). Rhetoric is the tool that puts framing into action. 16

There has been an increasing shift, at least as far as framing within political communication goes, to frame the person, not the policy. Cox Han says that this is an outcome of television coverage and that “Presidential advisors now develop communication strategies that seek more support for the president and less support for specific policy proposals. This has led to an emphasis on ceremonial, rather than deliberative speech” (6). Framing, then, while trying to narrow the focus on a subject for the public‟s understanding, sometimes obscures the real issues.

It is much easier, of course to maintain a constant frame — such as framing Bill Clinton as a good father in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal than it is to maintain many different frames — Bill Clinton as healthcare reformer, Bill Clinton as gun safety promoter, Bill Clinton as participant in the Bosnian crisis, all in the name of keeping his popularity ratings up. Political framing, then, often frames in the simplest terms possible for easy understanding and for the sake of continuity, which adds to the credibility and longevity of the frame while perhaps reducing more accurate and nuanced understandings of the person or event being framed. Continuous and simplistic understandings are often favored over complete ones in political communication.

First Lady Studies: A Synopsis

Within the larger framework of political communication, research on the First Ladies is seen as amateur when compared to presidential studies. Robert Watson sums up the state of First

Lady scholarship by saying:

Without agreed-upon parameters for the office, no statutory authority, and few discernable roles, it should not surprise readers to learn that the studies of first ladies historically lacked anything approaching systematic inquiry, a conceptual framework, the development of theory, or the development of models by which to test theories. In fact, although several well-researched and useful accounts of the first ladies have appeared in the past fifteen years, the development of theories and approaches to the study of presidential spouses is a very recent phenomenon and is still evolving. Even in contemporary times, much of the writing on first ladies remains anecdotal” (434-5).

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However, Watson does provide an exception to his dismissal of First Lady scholarship: the past

15 years. Of course, Watson wrote his essay in 2003, so he is referencing a time period since approximately 1988. In this time, not only have the number of studies increased exponentially, but the scholarship has become more serious and more theoretical. Because the First Lady‟s role is ambiguous, there are many angles available to a First Lady researcher. Before 1988, most biographical accounts of the First Ladies lacked analysis and focused on the social aspects of

First Ladies‟ lives, those sorts of anecdotes that filled society pages until the end of the 1960s.

Today, though, “It is now conventional wisdom that the president‟s spouse wields influence at

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and has emerged as a political force with which to be reckoned”

(Watson 425). This realization has grounded the study of First Ladies in more serious topics, and has brought a wide array of theories from multiple disciplines to the study. Within this more serious treatment of First Ladies, though, was a devolution witnessed around the First Ladyship of Hillary Clinton. As of 2003, there were 27 biographies on Clinton, compared to nine on

Johnson and five on Carter (Watson 426). However, the quantity is misleading, as the quality of many of the Hillary Clinton biographies is debatable; some “are clearly written for the purpose of creating a scandal ... Hillary Clinton … attracted a number of obviously biased and negative accounts of her life” (Watson 429). That the field is growing is certain, that it always grows for the better is not.

One limitation that has affected all past First Lady scholars, and will continue to do so, is that the field has insufficient material available for analysis. Watson writes, “The amount of information on First Ladies is a teaspoon compared to that which exists for the presidents” (432).

Because there are few instances of published White House diaries, letters and other 18 correspondence, it is more useful to use news sources to gain an understanding of the First

Ladies‟ time in the White House, as I am doing in this study.

Methodology: Parameters of the Study

The proliferation of omnipresent media means that the First Lady, like other members of the White House, cannot escape the public sphere or media judgment. Although the period from the 1960s-2000 is most distinctively marked by the hallmark of electronic media, print media was still the most ubiquitous during the 35-40 year period of this study. Print articles from mainstream media outlets attempt objectivity, so while they may not be devoid of bias, they portray the opposing sides of an article relatively accurately. Each journalist has a chance, though, within an “objective” piece, to choose a frame and dominant themes (found in the lead and headline), to ask questions selectively, to interview whomever they choose and to narrow the many relevant quotes down to the most provocative. Their purpose is to tell a story accurately, but this simplistic purpose often competes with a journalist‟s other purposes: telling a story in the most exciting way, telling the story first, and telling the story in a way that will sell the most papers.

Journalists writing more in-depth features have more narrative creativity available at their discretion and can take greater liberties with the analysis and opinion they wish to include.

These articles go beyond telling the news; they try to characterize the person who is making the news. The narratives contain a richer style and provide the reader with a sense of the larger implications of a story, meaning that the judgments these pieces made (explicitly and more subtly) especially helped me to determine the dominant media frames journalists assigned to each First Lady. These same pieces also give more of a forum for the First Lady herself. 19

Interview questions are more open-ended and her subsequent quotations give readers a better sense of her thoughts and who she is.

Newspaper and magazine articles and essays allowed me to unpack the language, style, theme and tone used by both the journalists and the First Ladies to gauge the push and pull of media framing of the First Ladies and First Ladies‟ attempts to frame themselves in the media, to the public. I am also using some secondary sources, including biographies, in my study, mostly for the purpose of situating specific events and White House decisions in an overall historical and situational context and to pin down the most accurate understanding of First Ladies‟ public relations strategies possible.. By bringing together different sources — news pieces, features, biographies and sometimes even past analyses, I am making use of an inductive method, like other qualitative researchers, who “Deploy a wide range of interconnected interpretive practices, hoping always to get a better understanding of the subject matter at hand” (Denzin and Lincoln

4). This means, again, emphasizing a “bricolage” approach, which Denzin and Lincoln define as

“A pieced-together set of representations that is fitted to the specifics of a complex situation (4).

Beyond bricolage, other qualitative research metaphors include quilt making, creating a montage and jazz improvisation. The idea is that sometimes, “The researcher needs to invent, or piece together new tool or techniques … Choices regarding which interpretive practices to employ are not necessarily made in advance” (Denzin and Lincoln 4).

I attempted to use approximately the same number of articles for each First Lady studied, however, when selecting articles, the sheer number of pieces written on Hillary Clinton, as opposed to those written on her predecessors was overwhelming in and of itself. Although there were more articles on Clinton, it was also necessary to be more selective and read more of them; the nature of journalism today renders shorter articles. For this reason, it was necessary to read 20 more (short) articles on Clinton and fewer (long) articles on Johnson. Rosalynn Carter, as she is in many instances in this study, was somewhere in the middle. The articles vary beyond length and number. One of the reasons for shorter pieces on Hillary Clinton highlights the trend toward more “straight news” articles on the First Lady. Many articles mirror those used to cover the daily happenings of any other political figure. Short articles on Johnson tended to be society page write-ups only. Although this is, of course, an interesting observation for where the First

Lady made news and where journalists expected her to make news, these articles are not particularly insightful for my study. As such, it was necessary to analyze longer magazine features to gain an accurate understanding of Lady Bird Johnson‟s treatment in the press and communication strategy. Most available articles about Rosalynn Carter were news features, not typical magazine features, but incorporated some of the “human aspects” usually found in magazine-type pieces. The articles were, for the most part, from news magazines, so they combined objective perspectives with longer, more narrated styles.

During the tenures of more recent First Ladies, articles on the women and their whereabouts became more “mainstream” and were integrated into the general sections of the paper, not only confined to the society pages. Articles themselves branched out to become more inclusive of aspects of the First Ladies beyond fashion and hostessing. This mirrors a shift in the content of magazines themselves; they catered to a broader audience (more women) which would be more interested in not only the President, but also the First Lady. At the same time, female journalists reported on subjects more broadly than they had been allowed to cover in the past, providing “„a fuller picture from a commentator with a different viewpoint,‟” at least according to 1984 Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro (qtd. in “Covering Today‟s

Woman”). Even with a greater acceptance of females in the newsroom and the shift where 21 women who once only landed in the society pages now land on the front page, women are still demonized in the press. Hillary Clinton, in particular, was “„shabbily treated‟ … particularly by women reporters vying for prominent story treatment and the attention of their mostly male editors” (“Covering Today‟s Woman”). Even articles, written by women and published as recently as 2000 (on Hillary Clinton), covered the same subject, with largely the same negative framing, that articles from across the media spectrum did.

I analyzed articles from a number of publications including The New York Times,

Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Boston Globe and The New Republic.1 In addition, some of the most numerous and most insightful articles came from women‟s magazines, like Redbook, Ladies‟ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping. This was not something that I expected as I set out to select articles to analyze. However, these pieces proved invaluable. For one, the magazines are well established and have long existed, demonstrating their popularity and consistency. Also, the magazines specifically write about the First Ladies within the frame of womanhood because their audiences are women and because the vast majority of their editors and reporters are women. Because I was keeping an eye on representations and enaction of gender at all times, these magazines provided ample opportunity to actively use the Feminism that I paired with my rhetorical criticism.

Although the focus of this paper is on the actions of each woman within the role of First

Lady, the respective tenures of Johnson, Carter and Clinton in this position did not happen within a vacuum. The American public had grown accustomed to each woman through campaigning or while her husband held other elected offices. The women‟s actions and the media messages that grew out of these prior encounters shaped how each woman chose to frame herself once the time came to fulfill the role of First Lady. They were working with, or sometimes against, the image

1 For a complete list of the texts analyzed, see the appendix. 22 that the public already possessed through socialization. To account for this understanding, it is important to understand the First Ladies within the contexts of their pre-White House lives.

Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird Johnson‟s given name was Claudia Alta Taylor; she was known for being

“always a wise and dependable partner” to her notoriously stubborn husband (We Rate 15 First

Ladies, 219). The same Good Housekeeping article ranked her as a 9 out of 10 for having

“Influence on the President” yet only awarded her a 2 out of 10 for being “Outspoken.” Lady

Bird Johnson‟s influence was perceived as almost entirely behind-the scenes; she was described as a “perfect presidential helpmate” for her work editing and critiquing speeches, among other more reactive duties (Kellerman, “Campaigning Since Kennedy” 246). In one most essential word, Johnson was transitional. She magnified the role of the First Lady as campaigner and brought policy into the First Lady‟s sphere by working on projects like HeadStart and crusading to beautify America (Mead, 14).

Rosalynn Carter

Articles from Jimmy Carter‟s time as president depict his administration as a “family presidency,” and his wife Rosalynn was no exception. The Carter family — especially Jimmy and Rosalynn‟s children, who varied in age widely, campaigned extensively. Of all the family members, though, Rosalynn was the most involved; she was even the top fundraiser for the

Carter/Mondale campaign, candidates included (Kellerman, “Campaigning Since Kennedy”

253). By some measures, Rosalynn Carter even took her involvement too far. This co- presidency, as it was often called, was viewed with skepticism by a public that preferred one dominant male leader. Good Housekeeping said that she “Is the first First Lady to describe herself as an „extension‟ of her husband. She is intimately involved in the President‟s policy 23 decisions and attends high-level briefings and some Cabinet meetings” (“We Rate 15 First

Ladies” 220). Carter‟s involvement, and the reaction it garnered, showed that despite the progressive and tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, the majority of the American public was still only comfortable with a 1950s-style woman in the White House.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton, more than the other two First Ladies in this study, defined herself in terms separate from her husband. She maintained a thriving law career while Bill Clinton limbed the political ladder. Although she had more self-definition, the various ways in which she defined herself were never static. Even when she was young, she switched political affiliations. In 1964, she was a “Goldwater Girl,” and a few years later, she considered herself a liberal (Pesmen 15).

Within her identity shifts, though, Hillary Clinton epitomized the achievements of the modern woman — she and Bill were the first two-career Presidential couple (Paglia 24). To sum up

Hillary Clinton, feminist scholar Greer states, “All the contradictions in the historic role of the

First Lady meet in the embattled figure of Hillary Clinton, obliged both to fill the traditional role of First Lady and to superintend the implementation of one of Clinton‟s most important policies, healthcare reform” (26).

The First Lady as Performer

The three women in this study, had it not been for the First Lady role, would have been remembered very differently, and perhaps would not have been remembered at all or by so many. But when Lady Bird Johnson, Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Clinton stood to the side as their husbands took the Presidential oath of office, the women became, excusing the cliché, part of something larger than themselves. The role of First Lady has history — some would call it baggage — that brackets how each woman can be understood individually. Each woman‟s 24 image becomes inextricably linked with the ambiguity that is the First Ladyship and, as a result, becomes associated with the specific qualities that each previous First Lady brought to the role.

Goffman provides a theoretical structure for the understanding of individual identity development and how individuals are impacted by society. Besides Goffman‟s discussion of the individual in relation to society and how the two shape one another, his theory is especially pertinent because it adheres to the same principles that rhetorical criticism does. As A. Javier

Treviño explains, “Goffman goads us to pay close attention to the routine, seemingly trivial social behaviors and emotions that most of us take for granted most of the time” (2). This parallels rhetorical criticism‟s goal of unpacking where and how an artifact

Seeks to influence our personal and collective behaviors by having us voluntarily agree with the speaker that a certain action or policy is better than another option … The speaker is ultimately trying to make one course of action seem the best” (Kuypers 13).

This makes Goffman a good theoretical match for developing a complex understanding of insights derived from rhetorical criticism. Using rhetorical criticism, “We are looking at how humans strategically communicate to bring about a certain state of affairs” (Kuypers 13).

Goffman, on a more micro level, parallels these exact sentiments. In his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, he focused on “The notion that people, as social actors, endeavor to engineer a particular conceptualization of themselves before others” (Treviño 18). While

Goffman focuses on how an individual self-promotes to bring about a desired outcome or public image through many different channels — but most importantly, though face-to-face interaction and self-expression, rhetorical criticism looks at how people, intentionally through artifacts, try to promote certain ideas or ways of viewing the world. As for gender, Goffman himself took an interest, publishing three times on the subject in the 1970s. His work was “the product and record of three eras—the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s” (Treviño 8,10). This aligns Goffman with the 25 time periods of Lady Bird Johnson and Rosalynn Carter in the White House and also parallels

Hillary Clinton‟s coming of age. Although many scholars have built upon his work, Goffman remains incredibly relevant because he cultivated metaphors we still use today and because his idea are contemporary to the women in this study and still insightful by today‟s standards.

Although Goffman is often linked with social constructionism, he took issue when anyone tried to align him with specific theoretical traditions (Treviño 11). Goffman himself said,

“Where I differ from social constructionists is that I don‟t think that the individual himself or herself does much of the constructing. He comes to a world, already in some sense or other, established” (qtd. in Treviño, 11). First Ladies not only come into an established world when they exist as individuals outside of the First Lady role, but they also specifically come into a pre- established White House world of political culture when they exist within the First Lady role.

The protocol, tradition and expectation of the First Lady role are already there; the First Lady falls into these; she does not recreate the role. For example, although materialism seems to have nothing to do with the functions of the First Lady, a material standard is one societal understanding we have of the First Lady — a societal understanding that Goffman might say would constrain how the First Lady can manage her identity. Greer writes, “The First Lady must project a vivid image of the opulent American standard of living” (24). This idea becomes one of the frames available to First Ladies; Nancy Reagan immediately comes to mind because of her opulent taste; and it is certainly one of the frames the media chooses when reporting on First

Ladies, pointing out that Rosalynn Carter recouped her inaugural dress from her husband‟s gubernatorial election and explaining why Lady Bird Johnson preferred bright colors

(Montgomery, 37) 26

Scholars looking to cite trendsetting First Ladies often point to Eleanor Roosevelt‟s unprecedented both then-and-now activism, the role‟s potential elegance, as established by

Jacqueline Kennedy; and the uprooted (to the West Wing) office of Hillary Clinton, cementing the First Lady‟s politicization. Each of these new “traditions,” Goffman would argue, came to be less out of individual initiative and more out of societal involvement, readiness for change and shared understanding. For Goffman, an individual‟s truly autonomous actions are few and far between; action is shaped, in thought as in enactment, by societal norms.

Crafting Identity, Through Performance, Against Society’s Backdrop

It‟s impossible to study the role of First Lady without encountering that word: role. It penetrates speeches, newspaper articles, interview questions and interview answers. Usually accompanying the word is subsequent theater imagery — extended metaphors of performance — enveloping the First Lady and all that she does. Most of these metaphors go unnoticed, in part because they blend so seamlessly into our understanding of the First Lady position that we take them for granted. Once awakened to one comparison, though, the metaphor seems to proliferate.

Just as with a theatrical role, each new performer (new First Lady) has a certain opportunity to alter the role to her liking. However, the person‟s own personality and personal touches cannot grow so big as to overwhelm the role. Each performer must realize that the role is bigger than she is. The same is true of the institution of the presidency, where because of the overall

“Institutional parameters... the office is not reinvented with each new occupant in the White

House … presidents tend to behave in similar ways since they are faced with similar political and institutional environments” (Cox Han 4-5). This statement, for the most part, parallels the experience of the First Lady, although the First Lady has fewer political constraints than the

President does, which makes audiences and actors rely on history and tradition more heavily. 27

While the expectations and norms may be altered slightly, the goal, of both theater and First

Ladies, is to replicate the anticipated persona for each audience. This is why journalists consistently asked First Ladies about their ideas of the role (“In Their Own Words”). A theater buff viewing Julius Caesar in London and in Chicago expects each city‟s Brutus to share in the qualities of a universal Brutus, the one they remember from each time they have viewed the play.

No matter where the performance is held and no matter who plays the role of Brutus, the character will be recognizable, even when each actor lends his special touches to the role.

Inherent within the performance, though, is the idea of a script, which can be contrasted with an explicit understanding of the First Lady role, since, of course, there is no official script that the

First Lady reads from. However, I would argue that while the role is not scripted, the First

Lady‟s rhetoric is controlled and limited — she is not given the freedom to speak as she wishes because the parameters of her role in the White House do not make this possible. For example,

Rosalynn Carter expressed that at the very least, topics of conversation were scripted, even if the conversation was not. Of her frustration with the “usual” First Lady topics, she said, “I remember being on Meet the Press, and the people asking me about the clothes I wore and what I cooked — if I cooked — and those kinds of things. And I didn‟t want to talk about those things;

I wanted to talk about the issues and [how to] get things that were important to me done”

(Johnson Robb 69). Carter wanted to center her First Ladyship on politics, but was constantly pulled back to scripts of those expected societal norms that Americans and the media have come to expect for the First Lady, including fashion and housekeeping. Before she could influence society or even fully craft her identity, Carter ran into a wall of social expectations that she had to surmount. Journalist Gail Sheehy wrote in an article on Carter that “[Rosalynn Carter] determined to let the rest know in the first 10 minutes that she was there to talk substantive 28 issues” when it came to her overseas trips, like to Latin America.2 Carter had to challenge the assumption that because she was First Lady, her presence would lack substance, which was the dominant assumption because of previous First Ladies‟ choices and portrayals.

When Goffman says “the individual‟s very identity is controlled, even determined, by such overwhelming societal forces as institutions, roles, and social frames,” we might choose performance as a way to embody the social expectations in our lives (Treviño, 14). Performance allows us to be someone else, a someone else who is usually pre-defined by society and its expectations. First Ladies, for example, when forced to have the First Lady role usurp their individual roles, choose performance, and its metaphors, to help them fulfill this new role. For example, Lady Bird Johnson took the performance role past its most explicit metaphor and included the notion of rehearsal. “I walked on stage for a role I had never rehearsed,” she said of her sudden ascension to the role due to John F. Kennedy‟s assassination. “I just wanted to do the best I could. I considered it one of the greatest opportunities in the world that‟s not defined by law” (Johnson Robb 79). Johnson, especially, had to deal with one reality of performance that dictates that no role is entirely your own. The role is the collective of all previous First Ladies, and when you follow one who especially stands out in an audience‟s mind, your own experience in the role is scrutinized all the more heavily, and through the lens of the previous performer.

For Johnson, this previous performer was Jacqueline Kennedy; journalist Ruth Montgomery writes, “It was not easy for [Lady Bird Johnson] at the age of fifty to step into the glamorous shoes of 34-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy” (33). Montgomery made use of the performance metaphor and explains, “Never having been a scene-stealer, the older woman made

2 Rosalynn Carter represented Jimmy Carter on a diplomatic mission to Latin America, which was the first time a First Lady had acted as a presidential substitute abroad. However, many Latin American leaders felt that by sending his wife instead of going himself, Jimmy Carter “did not take their countries seriously” (“Rosalynn‟s Turn at Diplomacy” 36). 29 a point of remaining in the background during those first agonizing weeks” (33). Even when assuming the role of First Lady, the previous actors who have held the role sometimes figure into the new actor‟s critical reception. This is why comparisons abound within the role of First Lady; some who have held the role are especially memorable.

The impression that those particularly memorable First Ladies, like Eleanor Roosevelt and Jacqueline Kennedy, leave on the nation‟s consciousness adds to the “overwhelming societal forces” that Goffman referred to (Treviño 14). This phenomenon expands beyond the First Lady to even the presidency itself, where Cox Han expressed that the entire Johnson administration had to face “Inevitable comparisons to the Kennedy image” (53). The individual‟s agency is always working with or against social structures; Lady Bird Johnson enacted her role in the shadow of all previous First Ladies and most of all in the shadow of her immediate predecessor,

Jacqueline Kennedy.3 Goffman writes that when an individual is forced to push against an especially strong social structure, most of his or her agency is spent on the efforts of self- protection and self-promotion. Treviño calls this a “more cynical picture … the individual as manipulative con artist…engaged in „strategic interaction,‟ all in an effort to enhance and promote the self” (14). The agency that in this case could be used for social change and expansion of the First Lady role through self-promotion is instead diverted toward self-protection because society poses such a challenge to the individual‟s identity.

Hillary Clinton is a perfect example of this. Because she was so different from First ladies who came before her, the expectation was that she would be a different kind of First Lady, too. One public relations specialist, who worked with Rosalynn Carter and Kitty Dukakis among other politicians and political spouses said, “That [First Lady] role is very slowing being brought

3 In “What Kind of Woman is Our New First Lady,” by Ruth Montgomery, comparisons between Lady Bird Johnson and Jacqueline Kennedy abound. She compares their favorite meals and sports, among other things. 30 into the 20th century. Hopefully, as it moves into the 21st century, Hillary will be the first one to break that mold” (Pesmen 3). With her policy involvement and accumulation of personal political capital, Hillary Clinton attempted to do just this. However, she was constrained by having to be overwhelmingly involved in her own image protection. She was consistently portrayed as a “„Cruella de Vil‟” figure and had to “approach personal attacks as if they were simply policy questions to be analyzed and solved like any other problem” (Pesmen 3; Bennetts,

“Pinning Down Hillary” 107). The result was that she had to “keep reinventing herself” (Pesmen

3). Identity management became the main component of Clinton‟s overall identity.

Although this could be a reality for any person, the effects are especially magnified for a

First Lady because the societal forces working with or against her are so large and so numerous.

First, the rhetorical presidency, which dictates style over substance in today‟s political communication, requires the First Lady‟s increasingly instrumental nature in serving as a public communicator, taking up much of her time and efforts. The First Lady‟s gender, with all of the norms that womanhood predicts, ties her role to ideals of femininity and expectations for women; these social pressures constrain the roles she can adopt and prescribe acceptable ways to act in the public sphere. Although the First Lady is an independent persona, she is also inseparable from the White House, which asks a lot of her, and she must subscribe to and promote the greater White House image, which may not always neatly match the one that she herself wishes to actively cultivate. With so many societal norms she must work with, the First

Lady often falls back on expected performances and archaic scripts; it is the safest and most self- protective choice. This is consequential for her status as a “role model,” the growth of the First

Lady position to mirror women‟s role in society and her own disempowering behaviors and subsequently fragmented identity. 31

Consequence of the Rhetorical Presidency for First Ladies

The media shape the perceived identity of the First Lady; however, because perceived reality is crucial for the First Lady, the impact of the media on perceived reality is just as great as the impact of society on true reality. Cox Han writes that individual presidents can only “„lend their touch‟ to media strategies…playing a part in effecting the outcome of press coverage” (5).

So too can First Ladies use their agency to “lend their touch” to the press coverage they receive.

They can choose to grant or deny interviews and can attempt to influence what the press writes.

Many journalists wrote about being “granted” interviews with the First Lady, using language that privileges the First Lady‟s upper hand (Berkman 146). However, the modern press is often seen as uncontrollable, and the First Ladies‟ self-protection can only go so far in altering the prevailing social norm, as facilitated by the media. So while Goffman refers to face-to-face interaction as the utilized method of self-promotion, the idea can just as easily be applied to media interaction, since the First Lady does not come into direct contact with the American people. Instead, the media act as the go-between and are the site of the First Lady‟s attempts “to guide and control — through setting, appearance, and manner” and in a “thoroughly calculating manner” which “reinstates the symmetry of the communication process, and sets the stage for a kind of information game” (Treviño 35; The Presentation of Self 6). The media were not equally effective or even equally active in their attempts to transmit ideas about the First Lady, but they were always consistent when it came to portraying and perpetuating social norms.

Rosalynn Carter and Hillary Clinton, who formed more active roles in the White House than Johnson did, understood the need for the First Lady to participate in the presidency and expressed the idea that their participation was crucial to the American public‟s relationship with the President. In 1980, Rosalynn Carter said, “I can be helpful in making [Americans] more 32 aware of [Jimmy‟s] positions on issues, and making them feel he‟s in touch with them and cares about them. I think it‟s important for the President‟s wife and family to be out there because people feel so isolated from the Government, and this makes them feel they‟re part of the process” (Bennetts, “The Wives‟ Campaign” A30). In this instance, Goffman would see that

Rosalynn Carter participates in the rhetorical presidency as part of an identity-managing team, which he defines as “Any set of individuals who co-operate in staging a single routine” (The

Presentation of Self 80). The cooperation takes place during the campaign, but is also carried out throughout the Carter administration.

And the Carters were certainly a team. Throughout their time in the White House, journalists wrote that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter represented a “Highly advanced model of partners” (Sheehy). However, because of her centrality to the rhetorical presidency, it becomes apparent that Rosalynn Carter‟s role in her marriage partnership did not truly stray far from Lady

Bird Johnson‟s role in her more traditional marriage. First Lady scholars write, “[Lady Bird

Johnson] assembled and managed the parts so that Lyndon could run” (Kellerman, “The Political

Functions” 311). Lady Bird was in the background and while she was not as instrumental in day-to-day policies as other First Ladies, she contributed substantively, sacrificing any credit she might earn for herself; Lyndon Johnson earned all of the credit from her efforts. Although today it‟s certainly easy to look back at Lady Bird Johnson and see her as a traditional mid-century housewife, she was far more progressive than the times. Journalist Elizabeth Janeway wrote that

“Washington is full … of brilliant men … reporting the latest news from Capitol Hill … The ladies, however, are comparing hairdos or recipes or nursery schools” (64). Comparatively, though, Janeway points out that Lady Bird Johnson‟s “speech is tangy, terse and individual …

Bird has always been a full partner in the marriage” (65). Still, she very much referred to herself 33 as a “political wife” (Mead). Even when it came to such a stereotypical topic as the First Lady‟s fashion, Johnson showed herself to be more of a wife than an individual. She tells her daughter, who wrote a Good Housekeeping article in 1992, “Clothes have never dominated my life.

Lyndon did care about clothing. He‟d sometimes say, „Don‟t wear that muley color…you are not going to sell for what you are worth” (Johnson Robb 78-79). Johnson was willing to sacrifice her own style, her own choices, even her individualism for her role in a relationship that, while it was a partnership, featured one partner as a lead actor and one partner in a supporting role throughout the rhetorical presidency.

Rosalynn Carter was also an important part of the partnership that today forms the modern presidency which becomes amplified because of the rhetorical nature of administrations.

Because she was outspoken on key policy issues, the perception was that Rosalynn Carter was a true co-president; Sheehy went so far as to say that Rosalynn Carter “runs her half of the mom and pop presidency.” She spoke out in favor of the ERA, represented the president on diplomatic trips and often, did “the political dirty work” (Sheehy). The Carter partnership, then, seems a more accurate representation of our notions of “partners” in both marriage and business; however, Rosalynn Carter did not stray far from conventional understandings of “wife,” either.

Lady Bird Johnson always acted in accord with Lyndon Johnson; in a similar vein, “White

House reporters cannot remember hearing Rosalynn Carter utter a public word distinguishable from Jimmy Carter‟s, not ever” (Sheehy 1). Others dubbed her obsession with her husband “a halo of that singular adoration” (Sidey 1). The subhead of the article “Change Comes to the

White House” impresses, “Rosalynn Carter has her own ideas on how to play the role of

President‟s wife.” Besides expanding upon the theatrical metaphor of the First Lady, the subhead calls that role “President‟s wife,” not even giving as much credit as the questionably 34 appropriate “First Lady.” Although she was active in the partnership that the Carters exhibited, her role as partner, it is clear, was still that of “President‟s wife.” However, this did not lessen her rhetorical role. Rosalynn Carter became a confidante of sorts for the American people, offering them a peek “behind the scenes” at the White House. Jimmy Carter himself sought to

“„dismantle the symbols of the imperial presidency‟” and “bring the presidency back to the

American people” (Cox Han 141). Rosalynn Carter was the perfect person to do this because while she provided the link to the presidency that the American public craved, she also provided a safe way for the President to connect with them. Because of the stake she had in the presidency and because of her personal relationship, she would not betray the administration or speak out beyond her given bounds. Not only did the administration trust her, but so did the

American people. In 1980, she was America‟s “Most Admired Woman”, tied with Mother

Teresa (Johnston and Johnston). When she spoke out, the public listened, so she reflected positively on her husband. The administration expected her to sing her husband‟s praises, and the public entrusted her with the ability to communicate on behalf of the White House; as such, she was able to communicate that her husband, the President, is “More optimistic … more mature, very solid, very steady” (Sidey 1).

A continuous thread running through the public discourse of Johnson, Carter and Clinton was the role the women played in sharing funny stories about their husbands with the public, again harkening back to the personal connection the public craves within the rhetorical presidency. When speaking to the media about their husbands, all of the women attempted to make their husbands seem more human, likeable, or a combination of the two. Lady Bird

Johnson recounts stories about her husband having a “light complex to a pronounced degree,” where he is adamant that the family always turn off lights, a practice he inherited as a boy 35 worried about turning kerosene lights off for safety (Montgomery 34). Rosalynn Carter talked about jogging and jumping in the White House swimming pool with her husband (Sidey 1).

Hillary Clinton complained about her husband‟s channel surfing (“In Their Own Words” 95).

By bringing up their husbands‟ memorable quirks, the First Ladies served as their public humanizers.

Hillary Clinton adhered less to the traditional rhetorical strategies of the First Lady as part of the White House; she spoke out more about her modern role than did previous First

Ladies. However, it is important to note that while she added more progressive characteristics, she also did not attempt to take away from more traditional First Lady characteristics, like the

First Lady as mother and wife. In a November 1996 Good Housekeeping article, Hillary Clinton talked about what she considered the most important portions of her role as First Lady during her husband‟s first term. She defined the job by including:

Taking care of my husband and daughter; overseeing the activities in the White House, from hosting state dinners for foreign leaders to planning the Christmas schedule; helping my husband in any way he asks, such as when I worked to improve health care for all Americans; and working on projects that concern me, such as improving our adoption system, increasing awareness of the importance of regular mammograms, and speaking out on behalf of the rights of women, children, and families (“In Their Own Words”).

This quote, save for the part on healthcare and the technology of mammograms, could just as seemingly been said by Mamie Eisenhower or any other traditional First Lady, but in fact, was said by one of America‟s most progressive First Ladies, Hillary Clinton. This shows the extent that Hillary Clinton was constrained by the traditional roles; she mentions taking care of her family and hostessing before she brings up her most noteworthy accomplishment as First Lady, working on the healthcare bill. Even though her activism was part of Bill Clinton‟s rhetorical presidency, Hillary Clinton still carried this out in traditionally feminine spheres, like projects related to children and other women — “soft” issues. It was as if, once arriving in the White 36

House, she was expected to put all of her efforts and all of her competency toward work areas where, the idea was, she could safely display her prowess in a non-threatening manner.

Just as Carter used the public figure status allotted her to praise her husband, Clinton, though the epitome of a modern feminist that she was, was not immune to talking about her husband, instead of herself, when she was given a stage. During Bill Clinton‟s 1996 reelection campaign, DNC officials pulled a last-minute switch, substituting Hillary Clinton in for then-

Indiana Governor Evan Bayh. The speech, which was just as noteworthy for its attempts to soften her image as it was to promote Clinton‟s candidacy, gained notice in a New York magazine essay because “every third sentence included the words my husband” (Sontag 29).

Greer writes that the First Lady‟s inescapable ties to her husband mean that she must be content standing in the background: “Any indication that her husband and family are not in themselves sufficient to absorb all her energies is disadvantageous to her husband‟s prospects … she cannot seek public acclaim for herself” (23). Clinton moved slightly past this traditionalism in her speech — earning public notice and acclaim for herself in the keynote slot, but it was mostly a one step forward, two steps back scenario. Yes, she gained the spotlight, but in the biggest performance of her career, on the largest stage she had ever stood on, Clinton shone the spotlight awarded her on her husband, adhering to the timeless, traditional First Lady script.

Gender as a lightning rod

The effects of a tendency toward self-protection are also magnified because up to this point, only women have held the First Lady position. As such, it is impossible to separate the role from the female gender — and from the harsh criticism and stigmatization that all women face. This includes, on the parts of both the media and the First Ladies themselves, sculpting 37 language about femininity “in ways that are not complex, resulting in disparity and domination” over women (Nudd and Schriver, 278).

Women in important roles have always faced the challenge of balancing their inherent femininity with the authority that their roles require, despite the fact that societal norms discourage women from acting with traditionally authoritarian traits like aggression, bluntness and hyper rationality. Many journalists assert that Clinton tried to soften her image as a “shrewd lawyer.” Camille Paglia writes, “Hillary had discovered that the masks of femininity could be learned and appropriated to rise in the world” (Paglia 24, 26). Clinton, Johnson and Carter had all held authority roles before arriving in the White House; however, because of their gender and the stigmatization that can result when women are in power, the First Ladies had to craft their identities in relation to outdated ideas of women, authority, careers and power. The media, too, used gender norms to frame the First Ladies; the expectation was that the press would overemphasize a First Lady‟s feminine characteristics and downplay any characteristics that might detract from notions of weakness, dependency and motherhood in her character. Clinton, though, by emphasizing her abilities, somewhat unknowingly challenged the press‟ tendencies to stress feminine ideals when framing First Ladies. Instead, the press framed her as “„an evil liberal‟” (Pesmen). Although Clinton supporters argued that when she switched her image from

“professional woman to political expert to healthcare specialist to cookie baker … „What people don‟t realize is that Hillary is all of those things,‟” it was nearly impossible for the press to frame her as such (Pesmen). Simplistic frames persevered, as they often do in political communication, and every time Clinton tried to shift the emphasis of her dominant frames, she “overestimated her abilities to control circumstances” and her “pious self-righteousness” came through (Fields;

Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 107). 38

Johnson attended the University of Texas and received her Master‟s Degree in Journalism in 1934, especially rare for women in this decade. This is rarely mentioned in articles, and when it does come up, it is buried in the piece and always as a supporting detail, not as a main point

(Janeway, Montgomery, Munroe, “The New First Lady”). Instead, after emphasizing her overwhelmingly feminine characteristics, the journalists often dub Johnson as “a model for all the women of America” and as possessing “a conception of total womanliness” (Mead12, 20).

The journalists were doing exactly what feminists criticize the media for doing —

“Emphasiz[ing] emotionality, concern and care for others” as a way to create “a conception of motherhood and femininity” (Meagher and DiQuinzio, 3). It is within this traditional feminine persuasion that Johnson had to form her public identity, despite having achieved more than a

“traditional” woman during this era would have accomplished.

With her Master‟s Degree and her million-dollar business, Johnson was successful even by today‟s elevated standards and certainly stood out among women in the 1960s. The press recognized her business and (later) political savvy; Time wrote that she was “As shrewd a businesswoman as she is a politician.” An article early in her tenure as First Lady explained that

Lady Bird Johnson had “pyramided a $21,000 investment in a run-down radio station into a million-dollar property” (Montgomery 33). This story is found, shockingly, only midway through the article. Her huge accomplishment would have been placed much closer to the lead in the article if she was a man, but here, it comes after stories about her children, her marriage and her housekeeping abilities. It‟s almost an insult, later, when the reporter, referring to

Johnson‟s business abilities, states, “In addition to being competent, the new First Lady is friendly, good-looking, intelligent and faultlessly groomed” (Montgomery 33). This seems to be an early conception of the paradox that future First Ladies would find themselves in the midst of; 39 women had to be both competent and likable — which often meant good looking, motherly and sociable.

When these expectations were first cultivated, they were relatively attainable because they were seen as interrelated — “Total womanliness takes responsibility at home for a husband and children, in the community and in the world at large” (Mead 20). But as women‟s expectations for themselves grew and they started to choose careers that did not necessarily align with the interests of their husbands‟ careers or their own family life, they “Truly believed they could „have it all—children and careers” (Managhan 218). Expectations of what “having it all” meant grew, and the First Lady became trapped under an inescapable microscope where her gender constrained the roles she could play. This is evident, of course, even when she acted independently of her husband, but was more true under the umbrella of the rhetorical presidency, since the very marriage that anointed her a “political partner” also constrained her personal choices. Kristen Isgro writes that “Marriage, as a legal category and a public institution, fixes socially appropriate sex roles for men and women, perhaps more determinably than any other social force or institution” (40).

The world‟s socially appropriate sex roles have consequences for our discourse and contribute to gender-appropriate “scripts” where women emphasize fulfilling their gender roles and men speak well of fulfilling their own. Within the First Lady‟s acceptable script is the objective to mention a husband‟s accomplishments at all times and to downplay one‟s own when the credit can just as easily be given to the husband. Lady Bird Johnson was reluctant to take credit — publicly and, apparently, in private, for her ideas: “I see some of my ideas put into practice. I‟m not sure Lyndon remembers where he got them” (“The New First Lady”). She was not impatient to be recognized as an individual and her discourse suggests that her ideas came up 40 casually, without a lot of forethought on her part. The ideas were certainly only suggestions; one can infer that the President did not readily ask for her advice and that when she offered it, she did not want to appear pushy when speaking with him or when recounting the ideas and scenarios to the public. Her husband himself stated, “[Lady Bird] is just as reluctant to be pushy now as then” (Montgomery 55). Her husband made this comment in a widely circulated article, showing his colluding role in portraying his wife as a gentle, mothering type.

One of the most glaring examples of the First Lady‟s script and the implications of gender found within it were present during the Carter administration. It was generally well- known that Rosalynn Carter was a political First Lady and the public was not bereft of anecdotes depicting this, such as the one telling of how Rosalynn Carter slipped into the Vice President‟s chair at a meeting (Recer, Avery and Fritz 27; Holt and Whitmore 18). However, Carter was conscious that she should try to maintain the (gendered) understanding that the First Lady was a background player. In one interview she “sometimes confused her pronouns, intriguingly. „I just … uh … we … I … uh, Jimmy thought, and I agreed with him, that it was better to do it fast” (Beck, Whitmore and Clift 22). Carter seeks to camouflage not only her presumably important role (“I”), but even after showing the shared nature of the presidency, she instinctively reverts to a figure of speech that gives all of the credit to her husband, as is the traditional presidential model. She moves to disempower herself more in each subsequent statement and ends up speaking in a way that gives herself the least credit, falling back on a traditional gendered understanding of marriage and social norms.

Hillary Clinton, even when she depicted the activist First Lady most clearly, also fell back on gender norms. Matthew Cooper wrote that Clinton‟s testimony “was as much about gender as it was about health care … More important than her presence as the chief architect of 41 the health plan, she said, were her roles „as a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a woman‟ concerned about health care” (11). It would seem laughable if a President supporting healthcare reform said he was approaching the issue as a father or a son, or if the chief architect of the bill, a

Senator, would say that he wrote the plan as a “brother and man.” Hillary used her gender as a justification to tackle healthcare, one of the few substantive issues that also falls under the realm of “nurturing” topics. She may have been a trailblazer in some ways, but in other ways she was traveling the path that so many of her First Lady predecessors, and women in general, also followed. Even when it came to defending her involvement and her public persona, the suggestion was that Clinton exploited her gender. One crisis PR professional, Robert L.

Dilenschneider, suggested, “„If I was Hillary, I‟d go on Oprah‟s show and discuss my fears and hurts … A lot of people would empathize‟” (Pesmen 3). First Ladies certainly have scripts, and the fact that Clinton would enact hers on a “women‟s show” demonstrates how powerful they were. Although Clinton did not react in such a scripted way, which would have used the societal norm that females are non-rational to her advantage, she did show that she took the criticism to heart. Leslie Bennetts observed “the aura of sadness hangs over [Clinton], as tangible as a haunting whiff of perfume” (“Pinning Down Hillary” 106). The gendered nature of her role was one expectation, but the fact that no matter which aspects of gender she chose to enact resulted in criticism was yet another. She was in a no-win situation: “Hillary Clinton quickly became a litmus test not only for her husband‟s administration but for the nation‟s unsettled attitudes about working women, political ideology, and family values” (Black 19).

In the White House, marriage becomes a political force, so its related aspects, like gender, also become politicized. This is why even in private matters, the media was quick to frame the First Lady by her gender, and to allude to the political implications of her female 42 status. Villanova professor Sally J. Scholz explains, “Politicization brings things that might otherwise be kept behind a veil of propriety or privacy into public realms of discussion” (194).

This is why private, gendered subjects, like clothing, come up in so many media frames, as we saw with Rosalynn Carter. When she was asked, in 1977, “What do you like least about being First Lady?” she answered, “One thing that does bother me … that‟s to have people ask,

„What have you got on?‟ or „Who made that dress?‟ … Margaret Trudeau [wife of the Canadian

Prime Minister] told me that she just said: „If you were interviewing my husband, you wouldn‟t ask him those questions, would you?‟ I‟m tempted to say that myself sometimes” (“Change

Comes to the White House”). Carter wanted to move gendered topics of discussion further out of the realm of acceptable and expected discourse for the First Lady. This is again reflected when, as explained above, she made the point multiple times early in an interview session that she wanted to talk about “substantive” topics (Sheehy 1). Carter had the intellectual capabilities to talk policy and the desire to be involved in policy issues; she brought briefings home every night and underwent 26 hours of directed briefings before her Latin America trip (Black 18;

“Rosalynn‟s Turn at Diplomacy 36).

Although Carter wanted to talk past traditional feminine topics, she did not stray as far from traditional gender norms as her White House involvement might otherwise suggest. It was well known that Carter “Never challenges her husband publicly,” and she was described as

“giggly” (Sheehy 1) emphasizing her emphasis on a girlish front. Carter had the opportunities to gain advantages not normally given to her gender, but she often fell back upon socially expected gender roles. For example, she frequently emphasized her painful shyness (Recer, Avery and

Fritz 27; Beck, Whitmore and Clift 22). Others cite that her calm demeanor was too passive.

Journalist Sherrye Henry wrote that “Her collectedness gives her authority. Her voice does not. 43

It is small, thin” (163). Carter clearly had a lot to say, but it‟s not clear whether audiences were underwhelmed by her “placid” nature where “a girlishness remains” (Henry 203). It seems safe to assume that Carter‟s weak presence would hurt her image, but one of her most positively portrayed characteristics is her ability to “„come out with tough statements and do it in a ladylike manner” (Recer, Avery and Fritz 27). The press accepted her activism because it was veiled in femininity. It‟s difficult to know how much of this was calculated, especially since Carter said

“„I‟ve never tried to build an image‟” (Henry 203). In any event, the success her mannerisms found in the American press and with the American public would have done nothing if not implore Carter to continue down this path.

The perceived inability to enact femininity and simultaneously enact strength is one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton attracted so much more negative attention than Rosalynn Carter did. Unlike Carter, Clinton was not seen as being able to simultaneously work on “charming supporters” and “pounding home” political messages, as Carter could (Recer, Avery and Fritz

27). Instead, “She has always fared poorly in matters of substance” (Fields). Bennetts wrote about Clinton‟s sadness but also identified a contrasting emotion: rage (“Pinning Down Hillary”

106). The public sensed that she was “completely furious” over the “rabid media climate,” among other things (Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 106, 108). However, while Clinton could communicate effectively across gender roles, as Carter could when “pounding home” political rhetoric, Clinton lacked some of Carter‟s apparent charm. “„She‟s tough,‟” some said, while others called her “threatening” or “stiff-necked” (Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 155,

156, 159). Clinton was an effective communicator on the one hand, but lacked the feminine connection that many Americans sought; her competence appeared to come at the expense of her emotional responses and charm that might otherwise fill a void. 44

While Lady Bird Johnson certainly displayed competency during her life, she never put her business-savvy on display during her interviews. Not only does she downplay her accomplishments for herself, but she devalues education in general for women through some of her statements. She “jokes” that it‟s important to have skills that can get you “„in the door”‟ of job to succeed, “„or else marry the boss!”‟ in her own words (Montgomery 34). She herself, while not quite “marrying the boss,” was a woman with strong educational credentials who did little independently with her education once she got married. She was a successful businesswoman in her own right, but even then, she gave it up to work on behalf of her husband‟s political efforts. In this and other instances, both in her personal and public lives, she often seems torn between traditional and progressive values. She earned her Master‟s in journalism, but never worked in journalism and preferred to talk about her family than current events. She urges women, at a speech she gave at a Radcliffe College commencement ceremony, to keep in mind the importance of their husband‟s careers — at a celebration of potential and achievement at a women‟s college, no less.

Rosalynn Carter, one would expect, would demonstrate more of her own successes during her interviews. She was a noted feminist and claimed, “„I‟m not a passive person myself”‟ (“Change Comes to the White House”). However, she often fell back upon the frame of passive wife. Although she is upfront, anecdotally, about asserting herself during her marriage, she also recognized the need to cultivate the image of a feminine, supportive wife. In a

1977 interview, when asked, “Do you ever disagree [with the President] on questions?”, she responds, „“Oh, I argue with him … I think sometimes I win”‟ (“Change Comes to the White

House”). However, in 1980, after she was publicly criticized for being too involved in the White

House, Rosalynn Carter, when asked how she kept political disagreements with her husband 45 apart from her personal life said, „“Oh, we talk politics all the time … I don‟t know there‟s a dividing line. Sometimes I really get mean.”‟ She quickly counters this with the much more supportive „“But I can be more helpful if I encourage him and don‟t criticize”‟ (Sheehy 1). It‟s almost as if Carter self-corrects when she pulls away from her harshness. Although it‟s not clear whether traditional conceptions that women ought to be passive in their relationship with their husbands affected Carter‟s own marriage (in fact, they likely did not), it is clear that it affected her representation of her marriage to the public. Most notably, Carter only said good things about her husband while in public (Sheehy 1). One ex-White House staffer went so far as to say

“„The only thing on her mind since she was 18 was to please Jimmy‟” (Holt and Whitmore 18).

Carter demonstrated the selflessness of a past era with the ambitions of her contemporary era, making her a perfect fit for a White House partner: she had the drive and know-how to act as a co-President, yet she was content to work on behalf of her husband and “their” goals, not for her own independent satisfaction or credit.

Clinton was similarly single-minded in achieving White House goals, but less content to work in her husband‟s shadow. An article at the end of Bill Clinton‟s term pronounced, “She‟s finally stepping out from her husband‟s shadow” (Berkman 146). Clinton accomplished much as

First Lady, but not as much as she could have in a role independent of gender and marital expectancies and earned through her own merit, instead of her marital relationship. Still, Clinton spoke out more about her own achievements than Carter ever had. She made a point to state, „“I was in public life separate from my husband, before I ever married my husband”‟ (Bennetts,

“Pinning Down Hillary” 106). This same article notes, “For Hillary Clinton, humble is very hard” (107). Clinton‟s independent accomplishments, it seems, were larger than either Johnson‟s or Carter‟s, but so was her penchant to accept credit for them, as was the norm for “Today‟s 46 woman … she‟s her own person” (Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 154). Here, Hillary

Clinton altered the First Lady script, adding the tendency to talk about oneself, not just one‟s husband.

The First Lady’s Image within the Larger White House Image

With the rhetorical presidency, a greater emphasis has been placed on White House image. The image of the President makes up the majority of the “White House image,” but the

President‟s family, friends and advisors can also make or break a positive image. And today, positive image is everything; “The current political culture now demands presidents to be popular leaders” (Cox Han 5). As substance is continually diminished and image is used as a substitute, the First Lady has a harder role to fulfill and constantly has to invest all of her efforts in image maintenance. On this subject, Goffman would portray the First Lady, in tandem with the White House, as a “team” conspiring to perform the idealized roles (The Presentation of Self

105). The popularity war is nearly impossible to win for the duration of an entire presidential term, but every President tries, and the expectation is that as a President increases the import he places on image, the First Lady must react in a complementary manner.

Not only is the First Lady‟s image more important to the overall image of the White

House, but as a result, the White House strategy dictates her own strategy. Even when the First

Lady attempts to act autonomously, she is quickly reined in if, for any reason, her attempts work opposite to what the President and the rest of the White House are working toward. Again, her identity, during her White House years, is always considered in relation to her husband‟s identity. For that reason, the White House administration considers the First Lady‟s interests only insomuch as they support the greater White House agenda. Even after campaigning, when the First Lady‟s image carries the most consequential weight, she is committed — practically 47 required — to continue to perform her past image, even if it was more constructed than real.

This is because of the need for the First Lady‟s contribution of her own successful, continuous image to the rhetorical presidency; if her image survived and augmented the campaign, logic goes, it should remain untouched during the administration. At this stage of the First Lady‟s performance, her preeminent loyalty to the White House works to constrain her. As Goffman sees it, every person is his or her “own jailer” (Interaction Ritual 10). When the First Lady seeks to protect not only her own reputation and image but also that of her husband and his overall administration, she is performing “protective orientation” by behaving in a manner that supports the others‟ image (Interaction Ritual 91). This is especially relevant when considering why some of the First Ladies who were undeniably progressive in their political views and pre-White

House personal actions (i.e. Hillary Clinton), silenced themselves while in the White House.

Hillary Clinton was “criticized for putting her own political aspirations on hold,” especially by feminists (Berkman146). However, the co-dependency of First Lady must perform in a way that does not distract from the main player — the President — and in a way that must, in fact, support every aspect of his own impression management. This helps us to “Understand why a message is packaged in a particular way” and shows that even when opportunities come up to do otherwise, women choose to make themselves “peripheral in terms of significant discourse”

(Nudd and Schriver 282, 279). When Lady Bird Johnson spoke of her own accomplishments, she always tied these achievements to those of her husband. For example, “I wanted to concentrate on whatever parts of Lyndon‟s programs made my heart sing,” she said even 20 years later, in 1992 (Johnson Robb 79). She even spoke of being inspired to start her involvement in environmental programs and Head Start after hearing her husband‟s impassioned speeches (Johnson Robb, 79). Her own programs and ideas were always tied directly to her 48 husband‟s programs and ideas. She even urged other women to do the same, as she did in

Radcliffe commencement speech : “While indeed the world beckons … it still all begins right with you, in your job or studies, in your home, in your husband‟s work, and in your community”

(Mead 20). The idea that a woman can impact the world through her husband became an important part of the White House rhetorical strategy for the First Family, and still exists up to this day.

In this instrumental sense, the White House chooses to amplify the First Lady‟s media and public presence only insofar as it makes the President look better. This is why, after demonstrating her feminist outspokenness, Betty Ford did not campaign widely for husband in

1976, but Lady Bird Johnson, who served to soften her husband‟s stubborn image, was an extraordinary campaign asset in 1964. Greer, a feminist scholar, writes that “The image of a desirable, adoring wife reflects glamour back upon the president; her attractiveness increases his media visibility” (22). Barbara Kellerman, in “The Political Functions of the Presidential

Family,” describes this aspect of the First Lady‟s role as “decoration,” defined as something or someone that can “enhance the man, make him at the most more glamorous and at the least more appealing” (305). It seems that this function of the First Lady might have been diminished as the women‟s movement gave her more professional opportunities within and outside of the First

Lady position. We might expect the First Lady to enact a more active, less decorative role, as

Rosalynn Carter did, when she was “the President‟s best defense … turn[ing] around the criticisms, mak[ing] the lemons into lemonade” (Henry 163). However, television simultaneously increased the need for presidential decorations because of the rhetorical presidency, solidifying this traditional First Lady function within even a more progressive sphere of duties. 49

Of course, part of this decoration idea is that the President‟s overall image places a lot of weight on his personal image and how the public perceives his family life and character to be.

The White House, then, is invested in promoting the image that the First Lady is one piece of the

President‟s happy family puzzle. Lady Bird Johnson is quoted as saying, “I think people can assess a man a little in relation to what kind of wife and family he has” (“Jackie Kennedy and

Lady Bird Johnson”). This sentiment still lingered administrations later. In polls taken during the 1980 campaign, “Many people … mentioned their perception of the Carter family as close and of the Carter marriage as a happy one: „A model for the nation,‟ said Erna Heininger of

Burlington” (Bennetts, “The Wives‟ Campaign” A30). Goffman writes that our identity management is constrained by societal norms; in this case, Rosalynn Carter could not act outside of the White House‟s intentional frame that the Carter marriage was strong and happy by publicly demonstrating “too much” independence. Everything that she did had to support her husband and this societal expectation for the First Family. Because “Both wives inspired much less negative reaction than their husbands,” the White House used the First Ladies instrumentally, to help their husbands‟ campaign and policy efforts — “„It‟s an extra asset for the country,‟ said Tom Delahanty of Lewiston [Maine]” (Bennetts, “The Wives‟ Campaign” A30).

In the First Ladies, the White House found messengers who could garner the same levels of attention that presidents could but, up until Clinton, would receive less criticism for the substance of these ideas. In that sense, the First Ladies were a perfect White House PR tool.

The way the First Ladies understood their relationships to the President and his political goals looked differently for each First Lady. Carter took the understanding of her own identity in relation to her husband‟s identity further than most First Ladies before or since have done.

She went so far as to call herself a “„political surrogate‟ for her husband” and an article bestowed 50 on her the title “Mrs. President” (Recer, Avery and Fritz 27). Lady Bird Johnson, in contrast, had specifically referred to herself as a “political wife” — “She herself … put it, „the wife of a lifelong laborer in the political vineyard” (Mead 20). Hillary Clinton, it seemed, tried to avoid defining herself in the manners that Carter and Johnson did. This was potentially because she herself became not only a “political wife” or “political surrogate,” but also a “true” politician, albeit later in life. On occasion she took issue with the term First Lady, in one article pronouncing it “with exaggerated emphasis, as if it were such a curious locution it should have quotes around it” (Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 109). Whether or not she was the “all-

American mom-in-sweatpants” First Lady or the “yuppie-from-hell-in-a-power-suit” First Lady,

Clinton felt herself too large for the First Lady role itself. The Economist wrote that Clinton was a “„chameleon … she has as many [roles] as she has hairstyles: First Lady, political strategist, lawyer, wife, mother, cookie-baker, health-care reformer, Vogue picture-poser, intimidator, charmer‟” (Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 155, 160). Johnson and Carter were not suspicious of defining themselves, and always did so in relation to their husbands, while Clinton rescripted the First Lady‟s self-definition by avoiding definition all together.

Consequences of Multiple Roles within Identity Management

The final reason that explains how self-protection comes to form the majority of the First

Lady‟s agency is that she has so many roles she must protect. The First Lady has historically had to protect her roles of spouse to the President and mother to their children. In more modern times, she has also had to protect her roles of career woman, feminine woman, campaigner, and so on. Before being elected, the First Lady has to protect her political identity (again, in relation to her husband). Once elected, a First Lady has to fulfill the many “sub roles” of the First Lady position — and with all of the history that comes with them. Even when describing gendered 51 roles, like wife and mother, which First Ladies could still express in progressive ways, the choice is often made to “Describe gendered ideals in stereotypical ways” (Nudd and Schriver 278-9).

Before the role of First Lady as career woman came to be accepted (and among some, expected), Lady Bird Johnson spoke to the First Lady‟s multitude of roles. Johnson‟s definition of the parts that comprise the First Lady role, at least in one interview, was, “Of course, quite obviously, your first business is to take care of your husband and provide him with a little island of serenity. The second job is to tend to the children and try to make sure that they get as much out of it as they can, and give as much to it” (Johnson Robb 79). It seems that Johnson favored her time‟s ideal role of woman as wife and mother first and foremost, then just applied it to a larger stage. The press found ways, like describing her “mild Southern manner,” to amplify that

Johnson‟s identity was overwhelmingly feminine (Montgomery 33). This added continuity across her roles in a way that worked to justify her involvement and competency in each role.

Using Goffman‟s framework, the media during the Johnson era was acting “With the sweet guilt of conspirators” and working to support Johnson‟s own assertions of her traditional, feminine values (The Presentation of Self 105). This harkens back to Nudd and Schriver‟s quotation:

“Does a given communication artifact convey the largely feminine characteristics of caring, nurturing, cooperation and intuition?” (274). Indeed it does; in this case, first, as a frame chosen by Lady Bird Johnson and her White House colluders, then intensified and disseminated by a news media eager to both flatter Johnson and to promote mainstream patriarchal values. In this case, the performance stars Lady Bird Johnson, but the media play supporting cast roles in their involvement, as opposed to the objective drama critic role we might expect, and have come to expect them to play with First Ladies like Hillary Clinton. 52

While Lady Bird Johnson chose to impress onto the public the centrality of the wife/mother role during her time as First Lady, Rosalynn Carter chose to stress the partner role that a First Lady had the potential to play. Although Rosalynn Carter worked to earn a partner status, the press often chose to emphasize how her overall character seemed out of place for someone who was attempting to be a “partner” of the most powerful man in the world. A 1980

New York Times article states,

[Rosalynn Carter] speaks so softly one must sometimes strain to hear her. As always, she is immaculately groomed, her honey-colored hair set just so, her clothes unwrinkled, her makeup unmussed. But Rosalynn Carter‟s sweetly demure image and her breathy voice belie the message she is delivering around the country these days, a message that has grown sharper over the long campaign (Bennetts, “The Wives‟ Campaign” A30).

The journalist juxtaposes Carter‟s traditionally feminine attributes with her active, more traditionally masculine role in order to expose the contradictions present in Carter‟s identity.

However, within the dual role that she played, the press explored that “Mrs. Carter is relaxed and seems comfortable in her role today” (Recer, Avery and Fritz 27). As an interesting contrast, the press also went out of their way, decades later, to show Hillary Clinton‟s discomfort with her role. Journalists wrote of her “sometimes-confused search for identity,” while others said that her presence in the role of First Lady was “complicated” (Paglia 24; Bennetts, “Pinning Down

Hillary” 156). As for Carter, her role constrained her to be a traditional woman in most regards but because of the societal context allowing women to take up careers more readily, also allowed her to be more active in the White House than previous First Ladies had been.

Clinton seemed disjointed in the many First Lady roles, at least in the eyes of the press, though if she performed the roles separately, they may have had no qualms about her performance. Instead, one of Clinton‟s friends, Nancy Snyderman, said “„[Clinton‟s] putting her complexities out in public. It‟s like sensory overload. People want her in a package, and you 53 can‟t package Hillary Clinton‟” (Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 156). Sharon Rockefeller,

President of WETA, the Washington PBS affiliate said of Hillary: „They see the snapshots, they see the Polaroids, but they‟re not able to put them together in an album‟” (“Covering Today‟s

Woman”). The roles of the First Lady parallel the roles of women at the time; the 1990s woman‟s roles did not always neatly coincide, and this was shown, on the largest stage, ripe for the most pointed criticism, in the roles of Hillary Clinton.

Johnson herself stated, “The role of First Lady has changed with the role of women in general” (Johnson Robb 79). Throughout Johnson‟s time as First Lady, women were expected to treat running a household as their job and they were supposed to do it to the best of their abilities.

The consequence of this was to underestimate the potential of both women and First Ladies when they were confined to household duties. As women expanded their work to interests beyond their own houses, so too was the First Lady expected to expand her own duties beyond specific White House ceremonial ones. Jumping ahead 30 years, The 1990s woman could be and was so many different things: woman, wife, mother, professional, feminist, traditionalist and so on. Clinton tried to be all of this, but ran into trouble because the press felt that she did none of these things well enough. It was the dilemma of the modern woman on a larger stage, with higher stakes, an instead of „conspiring‟ with Clinton, the press‟ response was closer to

“conspiring” against her. They obsessed over Clinton‟s fragmented personal identity to portray her public identity as equally fragmented. Her role was the portrayal of a number of different roles in one, but her audience expected the transitions between roles to be seamless. She, on the other hand, expected them to overlook the flaws and see her as wholly invested in each character as she chose to enact that role. At first, “Hillary tried to balance politics and parties,” but the public found it hard to accept a First Lady who tried so actively to portray herself as both equally 54 substantive and ceremonial (Black 19). The fragmentation itself was more politically damaging to the President than an abandonment of traditional First Lady duties would be, so the White

House put her to use as a political asset, chairing the healthcare reform task force. Even once she became easily framed using politics, the press kept clinging to Clinton‟s fragmented identity; this disconnect meant that it was easier for the press to frame stories in terms of conflict, as opposed to explanatory or exploratory frames. Allida Black writes that, “Rather than examine policy and the presidential budget for her imprint, the press preferred to ask, „where‟s Hillary?‟” (19).

Often, the press chose to point out the parts of Clinton‟s identity that clashed with her femininity. It seems as if, because she attempted so much, the press felt they could pick apart her identity to expose the contradictions. Even when Lady Bird Johnson displayed behaviors that would not be considered conventionally feminine, the press did not amplify their importance, which likely harkens back to the idea that the First Lady was considered a distant, elite subject not eligible for tough scrutiny at the time. For example, Ruth Montgomery reports that Johnson and her husband loved deer shooting, but does not connote that this goes against

Johnson‟s overarching feminine identity (Montgomery 34). Alternatively, the growth of the rhetorical presidency dictates that any of Clinton‟s actions would have garnered much more attention than any of Johnson‟s actions would have, a result of White House efforts to make continuous news and the media‟s efforts to always have a new story. The proliferation of commentators weighing in on any given news event between Johnson‟s time and Clinton‟s time also signifies that any misstep Clinton made would be blown out of proportion simply because of the sheer number of people who had the ability to talk about it. Within the Johnson time, the dominant media frame matched the White House frame; during the Clinton era, the proliferation of differentiated media frames meant that often, the most outrageous frame, or the most critical 55 frame, gained much more prominence than it otherwise might have — sort of overcompensation for the prior era of agreeability. Johnson was called “Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson” and referred to with the utmost respect, while the press called Hillary things as terrible as “man-woman” and

“bitch goddess” (Munroe; Paglia 26). By all accounts, including that of Newsweek reporter

Eleanor Clift, “„The White House press room has never been as relentlessly petty and mean as it is today‟” (Cox Han 232). Others said that the Clintons were “victim[s] of bad timing, entering the White House at a point in history when the press had become even more contentious for a president to deal with than ever before” (Cox Han, 233). Clinton‟s break-the-mold attitude hit

America at perhaps the worst time, at least as far as “friendly” media were concerned.

A marked shift occurred somewhere between the tenures of Johnson and Carter — that of the First Lady as a viable subject of scrutiny. Hillary Clinton faced scathing media criticism; this could not have been a larger reversal of the romanticized media treatment during Johnson‟s time as First Lady. Compliments were copious and stories treated her with kid gloves to the degree that “objective” articles seemed more like texts designed to honor her. Indeed, one article in

Time said, “The Washington newspapers love [Lady Bird Johnson]: hardly a day goes by without her picture on the society pages” (The New First Lady). Of course, it is certainly the case that

Lady Bird Johnson was not considered important enough for political scrutiny — she was only mentioned in the society pages. However, there was a distinct sense that the First Lady was different, that she deserved reverence; there was almost a prevailing notion that the First Lady was the American version of royalty. This notion had dissolved within 10 years, by the time that

Rosalynn Carter got to the White House and conducted interviews in her personal office — as if with equals (Sheehy 1). Social norms were more fixed during the Johnson administration than they were during either the Carter or Clinton administrations, which meant that Johnson had to 56 push against more of society‟s expectations for women and, specifically the First Lady.

However, the media scrutiny was almost non-existent during her time; the First Lady, for the most part, was not seen as a subject who could be criticized. As such, when the First Lady was constrained by society she was more free of media constraints, and as societal constraints lessened, the media presence grew stronger. This meant that for Johnson, Carter and Clinton, it was difficult to surmount such institutionalized constraints, from whatever source — society or media — made them manifest.

Although Johnson represented many instances of trying to portray traditional values and

Clinton tried to give the impression that she could personify both traditional and progressive ideas, Rosalynn Carter often attempted to work against the dominant social forces by using the platform she was awarded, as the wife of the President, to create a more progressive interpretation of herself and the First Lady. She used most of her autonomous efforts toward that end and devoted much less time and effort to impression management, amplifying the notion that her image, too, was fragmented. Journalists Dan Holt and Jane Whitmore described her role as

“fuzzier” as “she spread herself into more areas” (166). From society‟s perspective, the framework that Rosalynn Carter existed in, “Perhaps the only agreed-upon roles for a first lady are presidential supporter and White House hostess” (Watson 434). Carter tried to supersede these roles with the role of presidential partner, to mixed results. In 1978, journalists depicted

Carter‟s attempts to “become a ‟70s style Eleanor Roosevelt” as “frustrating” and “mostly unsuccessful.” Instead, she was “an aggressive and articulate advocate for Jimmy,” a “political role she filled so well in the 1976 campaign” (Holt and Whitmore 166). While other First

Ladies, like Lady Bird Johnson, gained voice as they enacted traditional roles, Rosalynn Carter seemed to lose it. Holt and Whitmore said that “her voice often became muted” (166). 57

It certainly seems as if as the First Lady‟s roles expanded and as what was expected of her from each role grabbed more of the public spotlight, she had to spread herself thin — often too thin — in order to accomplish some of everything. Very often, she did many things, fulfilling all of her roles in some way, but because she did so much and because there were so many extra societal factors pushing her in certain directions, she didn‟t do much of anything well. As she performed so many roles, the performances became disjointed. The characters didn‟t seem to blend into one another. Instead, by covering so much ground, the First Lady made more apparent the contradictions within her identity, or at least, the contradictions between her public persona and her personal identity.

Unfortunately, as the performance becomes more and more disjointed, even more

(critical) lenses are pointed at the performer. All of a sudden, the stakes are even higher. This requires more self-protection, and the First Lady tries to please everyone by “playing it safe.”

Greer explains the First Lady paradox as such: “The more people cared about what [the First

Lady] thought, the more careful she had to be about keeping her thoughts to herself and saying nothing that might complicate her husband‟s affairs” (22). This ties back to not only the idea that when the microphone is on, the spotlight trained or the TV camera rolling, the First Lady must choose her words and actions carefully, but also to the idea that the First Lady‟s words and actions matter most importantly for what reaction they have on her husband‟s world.

The fact that the First Lady takes up a role so wholeheartedly could potentially have significant consequences for her true identity. Although journalists wrote that “Mrs. Carter is relaxed and seems comfortable in her role today,” they use the term without exploring the deeper meanings within the metaphor (Recer, Avery and Fritz 27). This, of course, could mean that the performance now comes naturally to her; Goffman writes that “One finds that the performer can 58 be fully taken in his own act; he can be sincerely convinced that the impression of reality with which he stages is the real reality” (The Presentation of Self 17). It is hard to know whether this was a consequence for Rosalynn Carter or other First Ladies. Especially when each woman is asked to perform and manage so many identities simultaneously, it seems unlikely that each woman would pick one to fall back on as her true reality. It is more likely, then, that “To the degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experience a special kind of alienation from self and a special kind of wariness from others” (The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 236). For the First Ladies, this “alienation from self” meant acting out of character — transferring human behaviors like self-pride into collective pride for the administration and practicing self-protection to an incredibly pronounced degree. This self-protection, though, also took the form of collective self-protection to such an extent that disempowerment of self was common. Even though, as spouse of the most powerful man in the world, the First Lady would be expected to hold power, too, the general sentiment is that because the power isn‟t accountable, it is misplaced. The fear that grows out of this sentiment is incredibly powerful in its influence on First Ladies and their actions.

Disempowerment as a Consequence of Identity Management

The Vice President, according to American laws and customs, is the President‟s “number two,” his “running mate,” his “campaign partner.” The language, especially “mate” and

“partner,” coincides closely with the language used to describe a spouse. In some cases, the First

Lady not only shares discourse with the Vice President, but truly blurs the lines between personal partner and political partner — in some famous instances stepping on the Vice President‟s toes.

In one of the most famous examples, Rosalynn Carter quietly slipped into Vice President Walter

Mondale‟s empty chair at a cabinet meeting (Holt and Whitmore). Some journalists felt that this 59 was a physical manifestation of what was already true in behind-the-scenes practice: that the

First Lady was the President‟s true (personal and) political partner, perhaps even usurping the power of the Vice President.

Within this scenario, Carter found ways to disempower herself. She claimed that the reason she attended cabinet meetings was to find out why her husband made certain decisions, so that she could explain them to the American public when she traveled and was asked questions.

She also said, “I just sat back as a spectator. I never knew the details of policy, but I did try to have an overall understanding of what was going on” (Weddington 171). Even over a decade later, in a Good Housekeeping article, “Salute America‟s First Ladies,” from April 1992, Carter defended her lack of involvement. She explained, “What people don‟t understand is that secretaries and closer officials sit around the walls of the room while the Cabinet meeting is going on. I just sat in a chair by the door and listened. I never entered into any conversation or discussion” (Johnson Robb 69).

The sentiment that Rosalynn Carter was Jimmy Carter‟s political partner, in theory and in practice, was even promoted, with limitations, by Jimmy Carter himself. He explicitly stated that

Rosalynn was his “political partner” (“Rosalynn‟s Turn at Diplomacy „Family Style‟”) although when challenged, he often tried to make this status seem less powerful than its name would otherwise imply. The qualifiers that he used to follow up “political partner” show that he knew that having his wife serve as such an important part of his administration was controversial and he wasn‟t above disempower her as necessary. When he met backlash for his decision to send

Rosalynn Carter to Latin America he clarified: “Obviously she can‟t go as a negotiator or a spokesman for this country,” instead of reaffirming her partner status (“Rosalynn‟s Turn at 60

Diplomacy 36). He wanted a progressively run administration, but saw that this could not be limitless — the media and public did not hold this same progressive mindset.

Carter often did not give herself credit for her involvement. Jimmy Carter certainly added a host of qualifiers to Rosalynn‟s “political partner” status as public opinion results and angry letters flooded the White House, but Rosalynn was her own best detractor. Whenever prompted by a reporter to talk about her influence on her husband, in the White House or on the country, she lessens her role. For example, when a reporter asks Carter whether she has the most influence on her husband (out of all of the people working in the White House), she replies that she does not know. Instead she says “I think Jimmy does respect my opinions about things, but I can‟t advise him on [Ugandan President] Idi Amin and things that I don‟t know anything about

… But he does come to me for information — for my opinions — about mental health issues, health programs, children, day-care centers and things like that” (“Change Comes to the White

House”). Carter gives herself a certain degree of credit but brackets this within the sphere of traditional women‟s issues, averting the public‟s gaze that she might be intimately involved in serious policy decisions. She stayed on message over a decade later, disempowering herself and reaffirmed that she was only involved in those less-threatening areas in a 1992 article (Johnson

Robb 72). Although Carter attempted to lessen her role (or at least its public visibility), she didn‟t sway the minds of reporters who wanted to put forth the idea that the Carter administration was indeed a co-presidency. Many articles follow Carter‟s disempowering statements up with anonymous quotations from White House insiders who say that Rosalynn Carter does indeed have the most influence. Journalists called her a “one room Kitchen Cabinet,” compared her to

FDR‟s closest advisor and said that “many White House aides go to her when they really want to reach Jimmy” (Beck, Whitmore and Clift 22). 61

While she was disempowered by many prominent social structures, one early area where even Johnson was given the ability to hold power was campaigning. Lady Bird Johnson was

“The first woman in our history to undertake a campaign effort of the magnitude of the „Lady

Bird Special,‟ the whistle-stop train that covered some 1,700 southern miles on behalf on Lyndon

Johnson‟s 1964 presidential run” (Kellerman, “Campaigning Since Kennedy” 246). With her southern background, Johnson said that she “Wanted to try to express to the people what

Lyndon‟s feelings were about the [Civil Rights Act] then pending in Congress” (Weddington

171). However, she also said that she “Was simply an extension, an interpreter,” of her husband‟s messaging when she spoke to a New York Times reporter (Kellerman, “Campaigning

Since Kennedy” 247). She downplayed her role on the tour that she brought to be a success.

This was part of a larger (often unconscious) effort by Lady Bird Johnson to disempower herself.

Even when talking about a topic, like her schooling, where she would have the opportunity to talk about her mettle, her hard work and her accomplishments, Johnson instead discussed being shy at school, boys she had crushes on and the clothes that she wore, perpetuating the normalized idea that being feminine means practicing disempowerment wore (Janeway 65).

A measure of this disempowerment is institutionally based, not an outgrowth of the First

Lady‟s own character. The First Lady is perceived to be apolitical and a majority of Americans wish her to remain this way (“The First Lady”). As such, it would make sense that presidential advisors would ask her to willingly downplay her rhetoric on her political involvement, harkening back to the idea that the President is the final recipient for all positive White House publicity. Robert Watson states, “It is possible that even when the First Lady was involved in a political action, decision or accomplishment, her role in the matter will be minimized or omitted from public mention in an effort to both direct all accolades to the president and avoid criticism 62 about the first lady functioning in an „inappropriate‟ manner” (432). While journalists clearly went to great lengths to scoop the story that Carter “takes a great interest in personnel” and

“urged Carter to fire several White House staffers and Cabinet members, most notably HEW

Secretary Joseph Califano, who opposed the Department of Education—one of her pet causes,” we may never know the true extent that Carter, Clinton or Johnson had. Clinton always advocated “Unlike a lot of my predecessors, I am very up-front about what I believe in,” so it may be the case that we know more of her involvement than we do about Johnson or Carter

(Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 108). Clinton had the correct contextual framework to be more up-front about her involvement, of course, and, with such a media lens so critically trained on the Clinton administration, she would have had a more difficult time concealing her involvement in a manner that past First Ladies could have done. But by asserting herself strongly, Clinton became incredibly vulnerable, opening herself up to fears about things much bigger than herself. Despite a quote from Hillary‟s time that wondered, “„America, in my view is not so backward that an intelligent woman is threatening … I‟m puzzled by this visceral dislike for Hillary,‟” the press, in calling Hillary a “creepy person,” among other things, enacted a backward perspective, whether accurate or not (Pesmen). Clinton‟s involvement, she herself said, was a “„no-win situation … there are going to be people on all sides of it‟” (Bennetts,

“Pinning Down Hillary” 109). Some were threatened or insulted by or just unaccustomed to her nontraditional power. Others were insulted that her power was still so traditional. Although the power undertones of the Clinton administration are most memorable, they were not new for First

Ladies.

Rosalynn Carter, who was the first First Lady to get involved in politics at the day-to-day level (beyond special legislation), was also seen as a threat to the Presidential order, and 63

Americans also worried about her unelected authority. Journalists increased the public‟s fear by depicting how much power Carter apparently had in the White House; the article “Mrs.

President” even cites an anonymous Carter friend who “says privately that Rosalynn is surprised it has taken so long for people to realize how much influence she really has” (Beck, Whitmore and Clift 22). Journalists indulged concerned White House staffers in each instance, staffers recounted that despite what Americans might be hearing officially, Rosalynn Carter was the most influential person in the White House. Staffers also stated their explicit fear of Rosalynn Carter; one staffer said, “„There are very few people in this administration that I fear … And Rosalynn

Carter is at the top of the list‟” (Beck, Whitmore and Clift, 23). This fear of the First Lady, which seems to originate in Rosalynn Carter‟s unabashed wielding of power, becomes, during and after the Carter administration, one of the most limiting constraints First Ladies face.

Concluding Thoughts: Playing with Power, Paradoxical Roles and the Future

Moving to the future, we see that power, one of the most dominant subjects of feminist thought, becomes one of the largest constraints First Ladies face as they try to enact a more developed understanding of their role which moves to bring modern opportunities for women into its sphere. Because of a more limited role, safer choices and the quasi-royalty bubble that protected her, Lady Bird Johnson was immune from the culture of fear surrounding powerful (or at least non-timid) women as First Ladies. It‟s interesting, though, that as the number of men writing about the First Lady increased, so did the number of instances where fear or implied fear undercut the articles, bringing prominence to the idea of media framing‟s subjective undertones.

In this case, framing of the First Lady as power hungry and a threat to power proliferated when the reporting on the field expanded beyond “women‟s work.” When Lady Bird Johnson was

First Lady, her press secretary, Liz Carpenter, remarked her to be “„the greatest invention for 64 newspaperwomen since the typewriter‟” (Munroe). The only people who wrote about Johnson were women, both because they were the society reporters, belonging to the only section where stories about Johnson appeared and because few men took the First Lady seriously enough to write about her. More men wrote about Carter than about Johnson, and exponentially more men wrote about Clinton than about either Carter or Johnson. Fear became an underlying theme of more articles as more men came to write articles about the First Lady. Former DNC political director Ann Lewis explained that with Hillary:

There‟s a set of men whose self-image has been that of political insiders, who are almost enraged at the way politics is changing and women are challenging the rules, which they think they wrote. I‟ve been taken by surprise by the depth and bitterness of the resentment. The flood of bile has come out .. That is the oldest stereotype, that if a woman has power it has to be at the expense of a man (qtd. in Bennetts, “Pinning Down Hillary” 154).

Although Hillary, even if presumably taking power from a man, was only one woman, the threat was still huge because of the First Lady‟s cultural role representing American society and because of the idea that she depicts and influences the typical American woman — the idea of the First Lady as “everywoman,” role model for her gender, public advocate for her husband,

White House extension as spokesperson runs through the “recording” of her artifacts. Goffman‟s idea of colluders working to promote an image once again comes alive here; the media worked to disseminate the messages. First, with Lady Bird Johnson, messages were sent out as they were received from the White House and its personification of dominant societal norms, but as the

First Lady attempted an identity that was more than societal expectations and when the media became a critical force of information, the idea of threat was cultivated, purportedly by the

“political insiders” to which Lewis refers.

This idea of the First Lady as “everywoman” originated during the Johnson administration when Lady Bird Johnson made a concerted effort to be more accessible to the 65

American people. Modern-day First Lady critics sometimes deride Johnson for starting the “pet project” concept. However, more important than the implications for future First Ladies, and more important than the impact of Johnson‟s efforts, was the physical distance from the

American populace which these programs shrunk. Through her pet projects and campaign involvement, Johnson was a distinct reversal of the affect and disinterest that Jacqueline

Kennedy displayed during her time in the White House. Because she was so accessible, Johnson opened the position up substantially, making it possible for the media access given by Carter and

Clinton and making the First Lady an even more viable White House influence maker.

With shrunken public distance, the First Lady is expected to be the American woman, to act as a role model for all women and to both shape — by adding positive personal attributes, and represent — by depicting the “typical” American woman to the outside world, the everywoman in her every move. However, the First Lady acts in a largely fictional role; , the

First Lady has few opportunities to establish a more genuine identity for the public to grasp.

Instead, she must mold to fit the existing expectations, something that is magnified because this is a scenario replicated for all women, more than for all men.

Before Hillary Clinton was described as someone who had to learn to be a woman because “it did not come easily or naturally,” Rosalynn Carter was feared for being an overbearing presence. Her husband was described as “hesitant” and “unthreatened” by his wife‟s power — suggesting that perhaps, he should feel threatened. Counteracting her husband‟s public persona, Rosalynn Carter was called “aggressive” (Sheehy 1, Sidey 1). In the end, though,

Carter‟s femininity was seen as a strong enough counterweight for her power because, after all,

“she does not strike you as powerful” (Henry 203). This lack of prowess — in physical build and presence, partnered with a “controlled” nature that curbed Carter from seeking credit for 66 herself — may have, ultimately, been what allowed her to have such a heavy hand in the White

House backroom decisions. Greer writes, “Any consideration of the First Lady‟s role reveals that the less power she claims, the more power she wields” (27). When the media sensed power, they acted in Goffman‟s role of colluders and set out to expose the societal norms being uprooted. The fear of a powerful First Lady is best understood as an all-around power threat: to the President, to America‟s wellbeing, to every power dynamic where men rein supreme.

Contemporary accounts of Michelle Obama as an “Angry Black Woman” are an example of the undertones of fear that run through journalistic, and even pop culture, discourses of the First

Lady. Tracing this fear backwards, it was at its unfortunate pinnacle as Hillary Clinton embodied it for eight years, but was not absent during the time period of Rosalynn Carter, when fears of a powerful First Lady were just emerging in the public consciousness.

The American President must maintain a façade of power in all that he does. In addition,

Cox Han writes that “Trust, competence, and consistency are all necessary images that a president must maintain publicly in order to achieve rhetorical success” (6). The President‟s image is also the broader image of his administration, of which the First Lady is a crucial part. A politically powerful First Lady brings up questions of an incompetent presidency, which hurts chances for reelection. When presidential image “erode[s] … the president will often focus his rhetorical strategy on protecting his image,” meaning that the First Lady must associate herself more strongly with the goals of the administration and make her public image instrumentally useful for her husband‟s goals. Johnson, Carter and Clinton, despite their varying degrees of personal independence and the varying degrees to which they would consider themselves progressive women, progressive spouses or progressive Americans, all maintained their public images for their husbands more than they did it for themselves. They became defensive where 67 they otherwise would not have needed to and they disempowered themselves with self-imposed limitations on their political involvement and the credit they were due. They tied themselves to archaic, obsolete frames instead of creating new, more accurate ones. They exploited ideas about the female gender to win public favor. They were full partners in one sense, yet still second-class citizens in another, content to derive pride from work that was very much an accomplishment, yet not an accomplishment for themselves.

By utilizing pre-existing societal frames and the media‟s reliance on and perpetuation of these frames, Johnson, Carter and Clinton each revisited the same First Lady traditions. They were, for the most part, unable to accurately represent the personal nuances it would require to alter the First Lady role. They may have accurately portrayed themselves, but when representation is the objective, portrayal often gets lost in mediated discourse. Although each woman changed the role significantly, in a sense, she adhered to the same scripts while doing so.

Activism was safely confined to “feminine” areas; co-presidents acted with co-authority, but inauthentically so; and even when creating new frames, First Ladies maintained the old, adding fragmentation and criticism to a role that with so many functions, grew incoherent. Although the fears purportedly stemmed from political power the First Ladies might wield and in fact stemmed from a fear of gendered power that First Ladies might wield, the result was also a conflict of power. Even when the First Lady made strides forward, the power of societal and gendered norms, media pressures and White House expectations was too great to expect the strides to be momentous. This power, then, was masculine in that it adhered to “values of white, middle-class American men” (Managhan 221). It was operative in its most detrimental sense; it stopped “women from acting in or even recognizing their true interest … it impedes, it blocks, it constrains, it represses, it masks, and it distorts” (Managhan 208). Acting against pure self- 68 interest, First Ladies took up performance to replicate societal norms and to shape the role, as best they could, within the constraints they were given.

The role, though, contains contradictory objectives, at least from perspectives of identity and feminism versus the perspective of political communication. The former stresses true portrayals and achieving accurate representations in order to carry out identity through a preexisting role, not to be dominated by a role shaped by archaic social norms with problematic implications for gender. The politically communicative role of the First Lady, though, dictates that her messaging must support her husband‟s goals. When progressive First Ladies inhabit traditional roles, the conflicts of identity and feminism versus political ends come alive in their daily discourse. She is part of a larger entity and her own identity is encompassed in her husband‟s. They may be “partners,” but they are not true equals; the goal of the partnership is political accomplishment so great that both partners must contribute for the good of one — in this case the male. The rhetorical presidency only amplifies the degree to which the First Lady must be visible and supportive; her instrumentalism and even her continued role as “decoration” become obviously problematic. Only time will tell whether a First Lady will ever have the means to break out of this mold. The need to break away from the scripted nature of the role may, ironically, require someone who is a flawless actor. 69

Appendix: Primary Source Articles used for Analysis

Lady Bird Johnson:

“Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson: What They Say About Love, Marriage and Faith.”

Good Housekeeping 1966: 92-94.

Janeway, Elizabeth. “The First Lady: A Professional at Getting Things Done.” Ladies‟ Home

Journal 1964: 64-65.

Mead, Margaret. “Mrs. Johnson: A New Kind of First Lady?” Redbook July 1965: 12-14, 20.

Montgomery, Ruth. “What Kind of Woman is our New First Lady?” Good Housekeeping 1964:

32, 34, 37, 40.

Munroe, Mary Norris. “Lady Bird and Liz — All‟s Well for the Press.” Editor & Publisher 1963.

“The New First Lady.” Time 29 Nov. 1963: 39. Academic One File. Villanova University,

Falvey Memorial Lib. 21 Jan. 2010.

Rosalynn Carter:

Beck, Melinda, Jane Whitmore, and Eleanor Clift. “Mrs. President.” Newsweek 6 Aug. 1979:

22.

Bennetts, Leslie. “The Wives‟ Campaign: Enormous Effort, Uncertain Impact.” The New York

Times, (Oct. 28, 1980): A30. ProQuest. Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library.

11 Mar. 2010.

“Change Comes to the White House.” U.S. News & World Report 21 Mar. 1977.

Henry, Sherrye. “The Real Rosalynn.” Vogue July 1979: 162-163, 203.

Holt, Don and Jane Whitmore. “Advocate-in-Chief.” Newsweek 4 Sep. 1978: 18. 70

Johnston, David Bird and Laurie Johnston. “Tie for No. 1 in the Most-Admired-Women List.”

The New York Times. 25 Dec. 1980. ProQuest. Villanova University, Falvey Memorial

Library 11 February 2010.

Recer, Paul, Patricia Avery and Sara Fritz. “The Race for First Lady.” U.S. News & World

Report 20 Oct. 1980: 27.

“Rosalynn‟s Turn at Diplomacy Family Style.” U.S. News & World Report 6 June 1977: 36.

Sheehy, Gail. “Rosalynn Carter and the Dual Presidency.” Boston Globe. 28 Mar. 1980: 1.

ProQuest. Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library, 11 Mar. 2010.

Sidey, Hugh. “Rosalynn: She‟s Jimmy‟s Alter Ego.” Boston Globe. 25 Aug. 1980: 1.

ProQuest. Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library. 11 Mar. 2010.

Lady Bird Johnson and Rosalynn Carter:

Johnson Robb, Lynda. “We Salute America‟s First Ladies.” Good Housekeeping Apr. 1992:

68-69, 72, 74, 76-77.

Weddington, Sarah. “Three Former First Ladies Speak Out.” Good Housekeeping Feb. 1988:

112-113, 168-169, 171-172.

Hillary Clinton:

Berkman, Meredith. “Hillary Now.” Ladies‟ Home Journal June 2000: 146148, 198.

Bennetts, Leslie. “Pinning Down Hillary.” Vanity Fair June 1994: 104-109, 154-156, 158-160.

Cooper, Matthew. “„A Mother, a wife, a woman.‟ U.S. News & World Report 11 Oct. 1993: 10-

11.

Fields, Suzanne. “First Lady As Celebrity.” Insight 30 Aug. 1999: 48.

“In Their Own Words.” Good Housekeeping November 1996: 94-95, 166.

Paglia, Camille. “Ice Queen, Drag Queen.” The New Republic 4 March 1996: 24-26. 71

Pesmen, Sandra. “Hillary Clinton is a „Product‟ with an Image Problem, so how do you „Sell‟

the First Lady in ‟96 Re-election Bid?” Advertising Age 3 Apr. 1995: 14.

Sontag, Susan. “Stepford First Wife: Hillary Gets Mommy-Tracked” New York Sep. 9, 1996:

29.

72

Works Cited

Beck, Melinda, Jane Whitmore, and Eleanor Clift. “Mrs. President.” Newsweek 6 Aug. 1979:

22.

Berkman, Meredith. “Hillary Now.” Ladies‟ Home Journal June 2000: 146148, 198.

Bennetts, Leslie. “Pinning Down Hillary.” Vanity Fair June 1994: 104-109, 154-156, 158-160.

Bennetts, Leslie. “The Wives‟ Campaign: Enormous Effort, Uncertain Impact.” The New York

Times, (Oct. 28, 1980): A30. ProQuest. Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library.

11 Mar. 2010.

Black, Allida M. “The Modern First Lady and Public Policy: From Edith Wilson through Hillary

Rodham Clinton.” Magazine of History, 15.3 (Spring 2001): 15-20. JSTOR. Villanova

University, Falvey Memorial Library. 22 Jan. 2010

.

“Change Comes to the White House.” U.S. News & World Report 21 Mar. 1977.

Cooper, Matthew. “„A Mother, a wife, a woman.‟ U.S. News & World Report 11 Oct. 1993: 10-

11.

“Covering Today‟s Woman.” American Journalism Review, 15.4 (May 1993):F1-F7.

Cox Han, Lori. Governing from Center Stage: White House Communication Strategies During

the Television Age of Politics. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc., 2001.

Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln. “The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative

Research.” The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. 3rd edition. Eds. Norman K.

Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005.

Fields, Suzanne. “First Lady As Celebrity.” Insight 30 Aug. 1999: 48.

Goffman, Erving. Interaction Ritual. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1967. 73

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. 1959. New York: Doubleday,

1990.

Greer, Germaine. “Abolish Her.” The New Republic June 26, 1995: 21-28.

Henry, Sherrye. “The Real Rosalynn.” Vogue July 1979: 162-163, 203.

Holt, Don and Jane Whitmore. “Advocate-in-Chief.” Newsweek 4 Sep. 1978: 18.

“In Their Own Words.” Good Housekeeping November 1996: 94-95, 166.

Isgro, Kirsten. “Unsanctioned (Bedroom) Commitments: The 2000 U.S. Census Discourse

around Cohabitation and Single-Motherhood.” Women and Children First: Feminism,

Rhetoric and Public Policy. Eds. Sharon M. Meagher and Patrice DiQuinzio. Albany:

State University of New York, 2005.

“Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson: What They Say About Love, Marriage and Faith.”

Good Housekeeping 1966: 92-94.

Janeway, Elizabeth. “The First Lady: A Professional at Getting Things Done.” Ladies‟ Home

Journal 1964: 64-65.

Johnson Robb, Lynda. “We Salute America‟s First Ladies.” Good Housekeeping Apr. 1992:

68-69, 72, 74, 76-77.

Johnston, David Bird and Laurie Johnston. “Tie for No. 1 in the Most-Admired-Women List.”

The New York Times. 25 Dec. 1980. ProQuest. Villanova University, Falvey Memorial

Library 11 February 2010.

Kellerman, Barbara. “Campaigning Since Kennedy: The Family as „Surrogate.‟” Presidential

Studies Quarterly 10.2 (Spring 1980): 244-253. JSTOR. Villanova University, Falvey

Memorial Library 11 February 2010 . 74

Kellerman, Barbara. “The Political Functions of the Presidential Family.” Presidential Studies

Quarterly 8.3 (Summer 1978): 303-318. JSTOR. Villanova University, Falvey Memorial

Library 11 February 2010 .

Kuypers, Jim A. “The Art of Criticism.” The Art of Rhetorical Criticism. Ed. Jim A. Kuypers.

New York: Pearson (Allyn & Bacon), 2004.

Managhan, Tina. “(M)others, Biopolitics, and the Gulf War.” Women and Children First:

Feminism, Rhetoric, and Public Policy. Eds. Sharon M. Meagher and Patrice DiQuinzio.

Albany: State University of New York, 2005.

Mead, Margaret. “Mrs. Johnson: A New Kind of First Lady?” Redbook July 1965: 12-14, 20.

Meagher, Sharon M. and Patrice DiQuinzio, eds. Women and Children First: Feminism, Rhetoric

and Public Policy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Montgomery, Ruth. “What Kind of Woman is our New First Lady?” Good Housekeeping 1964:

32, 34, 37, 40.

Munroe, Mary Norris. “Lady Bird and Liz — All‟s Well for the Press.” Editor & Publisher 1963.

Nothstine, William L., Carole Blair and Gary A. Copeland. “Invention in Media and Rhetorical

Criticism: A General Orientation.” Critical Questions: Invention, Creativity and the

Criticism of Discourse and Media. Eds. William L. Nothstine, Carole Blair and Gary A.

Copeland. New York: McGraw Hill Custom Publishing, 2003.

Nudd, Donna M. and Kristina L. Schriver. “Feminist Analysis.” The Art of Rhetorical

Criticism. Ed. Jim Kuypers. New York: Pearson (Allyn & Bacon), 2004.

Paglia, Camille. “Ice Queen, Drag Queen.” The New Republic 4 March 1996: 24-26.

Pesmen, Sandra. “Hillary Clinton is a „Product‟ with an Image Problem, so how do you „Sell‟

the First Lady in ‟96 Re-election Bid?” Advertising Age 3 Apr. 1995: 14. 75

Recer, Paul, Patricia Avery and Sara Fritz. “The Race for First Lady.” U.S. News & World

Report 20 Oct. 1980: 27.

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