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I've got a piece up today over at The Daily Beast on why Jenny Sanford's decision to divorce South Carolina Gov. Mark "hiking the Appalachian trail" Sanford doesn't automatically make her a feminist hero:
The heart of feminism is choice—that a woman is the agent in her own decisions, political and otherwise. Being the victim of infidelity, on the other hand, is something few spouses would choose. Yes, Jenny Sanford has now chosen to leave her marriage; she filed for divorce Friday, rejecting the path of so many wronged political wives who came before her, from Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Edwards to Silda Spitzer. Leaving a marriage, however, is not a particularly groundbreaking thing for a woman to do in 2009. The only other woman we’ve cheered this year for finally walking away from her marriage is Betty Draper. And Mad Men, let’s recall, is set in the early 1960s.There are two other things that we should spend far more time thinking about. One is why women who have chosen, as Ann put it, the "stand by her man" routine aren't recognized for their own actual, ahem, careers that do far more to actually promote gender equality. Like, say, Hillary Clinton. But there's also the question of what comes after the end of a marriage. As Dana noted in her review of The Good Wife, political marriages are generally well-financed enough that politician's wives aren't desperate for to re-enter the workforce. But for women who do re-enter after taking years off to focus on family, the pay cut is steep. Still, I do wish Jenny Sanford the best. Skeeter Davis was right: --Phoebe Connelly
