Spitzer’s record on women’s issues has been solid. This revelation from the married father of three is devastating, not least because it reinforces what we all insist should still be seen as a myth: that progressive, pro-feminist men are incapable of matching their public language with their private lives. (Roll call: Bill Clinton, Gavin Newsom, Antonio Villaraigosa, Henry Cisneros, and so on and so on.) It’s not that only progressive men commit infidelity, and it’s not as if “ordinary” marital infidelity is entirely equivalent to involvement in prostitution. But those who work for justice for women, and do so publicly, connect the cause for which they fight with their own personality and their own behavior. I’ve made the case that private morality does matter, in this post here.
I said in June 2007:
We often wrongly assume that “great men” naturally have great sexual appetites that cannot possibly be met within the confines of a marriage to one woman. Their energy and their commitment to the greater good require that they have a little “down time” in the arms and beds of a variety of young women (or young men). We insist that it’s both unfair and unrealistic to demand that these men honor all of their commitments — as long as they are good servants to the public, it’s none of our business whether or not they are lousy husbands.
Every man, however, who holds a position of power (be he president or professor) is instantly a role model to younger people, especially to younger men. We do take cues, and rightly so, from our leaders about what is acceptable and permissable. A teacher, a youth minister, a cabinet secretary, a monarch, a president — they are watched and studied by the young. The young want to know if those who guide them and provide for them are matching their public language and their private lives. When they see hypocrisy, when they see a profound disconnect, when they see that even the most admired of men cheat — they learn not to expect too much from men, or from themselves.
Involvement in a prostitution ring, of course, is not ordinary infidelity. Given that so much of organized prostitution involves coercion, exploitation, and human trafficking, the habitual patronizing of sex workers is both illegal and profoundly incompatible with feminist principles. An extra-marital affair with an equal is one thing: the routine practice of buying women’s bodies for pleasure is something else altogether. Both are unsavory, but the latter vitiates feminist credibility completely.
I’m praying for the Spitzer family, for all those who worked for and supported the New York governor, and for all of those connected to that dark world from which he chose not to extricate himself. And I’ll say again what I’ve said before, that despite these disappointments, we must remember that all of us — famous or not, male or female — are fully and completely capable of living lives in which our public pronouncements and our private passions cohere. Not only we are capable of doing so, we are called to do so.
It’s just hard to remember that on days like this.
This revelation from the married father of three is devastating, not least because it reinforces what we all insist should still be seen as a myth: that progressive, pro-feminist men are incapable of matching their public language with their private lives.
The most destructively sexist man I’ve ever met was also one of the most vocally progressive, egalitarian ones. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I’m quite sure it’s not particular to (pro-)feminist men, though. There are hypocrites everywhere. If current events are any guide, they are far more plentiful in conservative circles than progressive ones. How many anti-gay conservative leaders have been outed in one way or another lately? I can’t keep track any more.
This is a tragic result of our media-fed cultural inability to distinguish private matters from public ones, though I am bothered somewhat by Spitzer’s decision to participate in the prosecution of two prostitution rings a few years ago. (The Times article cited leaves a number of important questions unanswered about those prosecutions, like whether the prostitutes themselves were incarcerated or just the owners/managers of the enterprise, and the extent to which the prostitutes were able to freely choose their employment there.) “Two” doesn’t sound like a very large number; perhaps he did what he could to reduce the pointless prosecutions of victimless crimes.
As for the incident at hand, I can’t see why anyone other than Spitzer’s family should give a damn about it. I think the notion that this incident “vitiates” his feminist principles is absurd, though I’m sure there will be many heated claims to the contrary. If there’s been a coherent reconciliation of the principle of women’s sexual empowerment with anti-prostitution strictures, I haven’t seen it. (Emphasis on the word, “coherent”.)
I will say this, though: I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were a connection between the Bush administration’s criminal “anti-terrorist” domestic wiretapping and Congressional Democrats’ puppet-like behavior at crucial junctions over the past couple of years. Actually, on second thought, it would be more accurate to say that I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a connection between those two things.
This Washington Monthly post seemed relevant. (h/t “Tominator” over at Firedoglake.)
This is very disappointing to me, as well. This kind of stuff is why I don’t trust anyone. No matter what someone says outwardly, no matter what kind of front they put up, you just can’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.
I guess this is a question of separating the personal and the political (is there a separation?). Even though I believe the way someone lives their life personally has a good deal to do with what they do professionally, a certain level of inconsistency is given as admissible since so few people seem to come close to really living the way they talk, especially politicians. Because of this we often let infidelities or ties or certain business or organization, etc, etc, slide when it comes to politicians. Sometimes, especially faced with “lesser or two evils” choices, we try to choose someone who will lead outwardly as much as possible based on their front, despite their private life. However, I suppose we have decide how much we’re willing to put up with out of politicians with policies we like.
What Hugo says is true about how young people look up to those in power to see how it is acceptable to act. I became a teenager as the Clinton administration ended, and the scandal generated by the Republicans affected my generation’s sexual politics. Since I don’t believe that prostitution is a victimless crime, that it hurts everyone, just like pornography, sending out the message that it is okay to purchase women’s bodies for sex is not progressive. How can we hope to have more progressive citizens on specific issues when their minds are still stuck in patriarchal notions of women as property?
It’s also a bad example for young feminist men, who probably have so few good role models, to see things are business-as-usual with men in power despite someone having a strong record on women’s issues. What good is legislation on women’s issues if the people in the society don’t respect women on a personal level?
I’ve got an anthropology midterm Wednesday and I’ve said too much…
For me, the reason Spitzer must resign is not that he’s the Governor, and not because he hired a prostitute, but because he got to be Governor by being Attorney General and he broke the law. The top law enforcement officer (of a state of of this country) simply must obey the law. There’s no excuse. You’re the head prosecutor, you have to obey the laws that you’re enforcing on others.
Interesting comments…
“Tragic, media-fed cultural inability to distinguish private matters from public ones”? And, really, are you blaming Bush for this as well?
The Clinton scandal “generated by the Republicans”?
Am I missing something here? Could not both Spitzer and Clinton chosen to keep it in their pants. Poor decision-making on their behalf is what led to this, not the media or the Republicans.
This issue seems pretty simple. Cheating on your spouse within marriage is wrong. When you do so as a public figure, you do so with increased peril as the likelihood of getting caught and having it become a public debacle exists (unlike with your garden variety cheating husbands).
Blaming the press or others for doing their job seems to overlook the fact that the issue could have been easily avoided by doing the right thing in the first place.
From the personal perspective of Mr. Spitzer’s friends and admirers, this situation may seem profoundly sad, but from where I stand, it looks like another instance of the world revealing itself to us. The Mr. Spitzer we thought we knew didn’t exist, not the way we hoped. That doesn’t mean we can’t find plenty of good men and women ready to take on the work.
If, as most of us expect, and I believe a number of us hope, Mr. Spitzer resigns, his lieutenant governor, a man who appears to have overcome a significant disability, will take on the job and have an opportunity to show us what he can do. I wish him and the people of New York all the best.
Well, if the Washington Monthly post detailing the selective prosecution of Democrats doesn’t convince you, Married Tom, maybe this post describing how Spitzer was a key impediment to Bush channeling $200 billion of the country’s money to the subprime mortgage pushers might carry more weight. (h/t Wolfrum at Shakesville)
Personally, I don’t give a damn whose hands Spitzer allowed into his pants, as long as he was working to keep greedheads’ hands out of the public’s trousers. YMMV.