Section:GDN 12 PaGe:4 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 17:30 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian
  4 Thursday 29 August 2019
  Women

How the G7 reduced women to

I t was Donald Tusk on

Instagram that did it. Four wives of

world leaders – Melania Trump,

Brigitte Macron, Małgorzata Tusk

and Akie Abe – dressed in a spectrum

from white to cream, skirts afl ap,

were enjoying the sea views at

Biarritz during the G7 summit. It was

a delineation of the acceptable limits

of women on the world stage : they

look like brides and it is their backs –

their backs! – that are demurely

captured on fi lm. It would have been

just about bearable were it not for

the European council president’s

caption: “Melania, Brigitte, Małgosia

and Akie – the light side of the

Force.” It is a statement that says so

much: these women are the summer

to the winter of us men, the fragility

to our strength, the light side of our

force. It was the fi rst time I wanted

to leave the E U.

Maybe Tusk was having an off

day. Surely, the French president,

World le ad e r s’

wives are still

treated as arm

candy to enhance

their husbands’

standing, rather

than people

with their own

worth, says

Zoe Williams

Obviously. Because he has a wife.

The Theresa and Phi lip May days

are a reminder of the fi nal leg of

this ideological tripod: that only

men belong at these events. This is

why Angela Merkel never takes her

husband on trips: people used to say

Prof Joachim Sauer was “publicity

shy” , or “intensely private”. In fact,

the questions that tableaux would

have raised – what will the professor

do while the ladies are visiting the

female football team? – would have

undermin ed Merkel. If he was out

of place, then it followed that she

was, too.

More depressing is the inexorable

slide into beauty contest: it starts

off subtly, with an admiring

comment on a dress – and why

not add the price tag? It blossoms

into a full ranking system, every

attribute picked over. This is not

limited to wives, but besets female

politicians, too; never forget May

It starts with

an admiring

comment on

a dress and

blossoms into

a full ranking

system, every

attribute

picked over

and Nicola Sturgeon’s meeting in

2017 , which descended into a contest

over who had the best legs, on the

principle that both women had legs

and neither woman was wearing

trousers, so what could be more

natural than to compare the legs? No

one likes overstatement, but when

female political leaders can’t go

anywhere without having their body

parts evaluated to see who, by social

consensus, is more shaggable, then

we are in a catch 22.

But back to the spouses. In 2010,

the spouses did not attend the G8

summit in Ontario. Was it because

of the disconnect between a summit

that concentrated on women’s

empowerment via maternal health

and neonatal outcomes while a line

of women utterly disempowered

by their spousal status was

considered too stark? No , it was

because the summit was in

Huntsville which is apparently

Emmanuel Macron, does not see his

wife, Brigitte, as the “light side of his

force”. Yet the patriarchy has many

tendrils – and a much greater reach

even than Tusk’s Instagram account.

Unavoidably, when wives down

tools to follow their husbands to

world summits, it underscores the

message that women don’t really

have important business of their

own. Sure, ladies, you have a little

job and take it as seriously as you

like, but when there is politics to be

done, your presence, which begins

and ends at decorative, is required.

It is a world view that is slightly

more textured than an assumption

that women are wives fi rst and

independent beings second. There

is the whiff of a heteronormative

code, too: if the wives aren’t going

to do much more than look into the

middle distance, their real purpose

on the trip is to prove that the

husband is a red-blooded fellow.

Donald Tusk’s

Instagram post

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