Woman, Know Thy Strength

Former President Richard Nixon confirmed that women are stronger than men in 1992. He did it with this comment about Presidential candidates wives, "If the wife comes through as being too strong, and too intelligent, it makes the husband look like a wimp." Think of it in this light, if a kitten meows too loudly beside a lion, the lion will be less ferocious. Please! If you walk into a room with both a kitten and a lion, and the kitten is meowing and acting ferocious, you will still keep your eye on that lion. You know where the strength is in that room.

Nixon makes it clear in his statement that (he believes) a man's wife displaying her full strength and intelligence will usurp that of her man. If the lion is a lion, the kitten cannot make him any less a lion. But if he can only be a lion if his partner, the kitten, keeps quiet, then is he really a lion? You get my point.

This whole argument jumped out because the Sunday, August 28, 2007 edition of the NY Times carried an article in its Week in Review section entitled "They Stand by Their Men, Loudly". In it, the author talked about how Elizabeth Edwards and Michelle Obama present themselves in their husbands' campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination. Take a look at the article, it will make you ponder this question.