The pair are said to live quite separate lives – few in the party would even recognize O’Leary outside of the ‘Greenwich Mafia’, their local Tory scene. An unnamed source from Truss’ office said they had to give him access to her work log or he would never know where she is or when she will be back. Nor is a first man expected to look any particular way. He can be sloppy or smart, thin or fat, he can cut any way that suits most men, except in the case of Markus Räikkönen, the husband of the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, whose Instagram feed is like a scream for help: “People! I know it’s not fashionable to pay attention to my looks, but seriously, you’re going to look at me, I’m too good-looking for venture capital, I’m too good-looking for eco-startups.” First ladies, despite the unwanted scrutiny, judgment, and stupid cookie recipe requests they receive, are not just accepted but essential to the political landscape. But first the men tend to slip into an uncomfortable space where all the bigotry that can’t be said out loud about the female lead is mediated (mostly boiled down to: “What’s she doing there, really? Surely that’s unnatural”) through the subtle fading of her husband. If he is not a complete man, it follows that she is not a complete woman, and therefore the universe is at least partially back on its axis. Vice President Kamala Harris and second Mr. Douglas Emhoff. Photo: Alex G Perez/UPI/REX/Shutterstock Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, an attorney and visiting professor at Georgetown Law Center, is known as the first Second Gentleman, who in three words distills the innovation and deviance of the role and the archaic standards used to judge it. . He is the “first”, because the vice president has never been a woman – it is as if he has been awarded the first prize in a race that should never have been fought. He’s “second” because he’s second (to the president), but he’s also second to her, so he’s like second squared. and he is her “master” because she would have been his mistress, had she not decided to be ambitious. The story doesn’t say whether this bothers him or not, partly because it’s much worse on Reddit threads – there, he’s the “biggest jerk in America right now.” Either way, he’s a pretty serious character who keeps his attention on more important things, like social justice. This is a very useful route for a first type, first formulated by the quantum chemist and professor Joachim Sauer, the second husband of Angela Merkel. Dagmar Seeland, UK correspondent for the German magazine Stern, recalled: “Sauer managed this incredible feat of staying in the background for 25 years, which was interesting given that he was such an eminent, famous scientist in his own right. It’s partly because people like this are publicity averse. They have complex minds. They see the world in a much more complex way.” O’Leary, who is chief financial officer at Affinity Global Real Estate, doesn’t have the “serious-minded, above-the-battle” option available to him – say what you like about global real estate, it’s certainly not above politics . But there are other ways for the first guys to stay behind the scene without losing their identity, such as: being rich (Philip May, Dennis Thatcher, Cindre Finns, husband of former Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg) or being lovable slacker (Dennis and Clark Gayford again, New Zealander Jacinda Ardern’s fiance); New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her partner Clarke Gayford. Photo: David Rowland/EPA You also need an origin story for the relationship. That’s just bald sexism, I’m afraid. A male leader doesn’t need a politically relevant meet-cute, because he would understandably seek reflexes for action wherever he goes. Male leaders do in fact often meet their wives in a political context (Gordon Brown met Sarah on the way to a Scottish Labor conference; Norma met John Major on the GLC election campaign in 1970), but no one continues. Female leaders, by contrast, are implicitly expected to have met their spouse in an area that is both German (how can she be a serious politician if she’s not always in politics?) and makes her sound fun (how can she be trusted if doesn’t it have a human side?). Consequently, it always seems to congregate somewhere like a conservative party disco (the Mays) or a party cocktail party (Truss and O’Leary), although if you’ve ever been near such an event, you’ll know that’s impossible . It’s hell. They smell like hell. However, if you met through politics, it turns out that you, the man, are also passionate, politically. The problem of relative ambition and success arises: the first guy must slip effortlessly into the background, even if the fact that he wanted to be a politician in his own right is a matter of public history. O’Leary regularly represents the local council in Greenwich, always loses horribly, keeps looking. I think he’s just having his own political failure, here, in a kind of crash and burn: “I’m going to go on for these very lowly roles where I’m more or less guaranteed to fail, to show that I’m not fighting with my wife, since everyone we know who would win.” And this is one way to do it. It’s easier for Tory kids to slip into the background because they just fall into finance and make their fortunes there. It’s basically the same career with more money, as the old saying goes: The Conservatives are always in power, they’re only in power sometimes. Katie Perrior, May’s communications director, remembers Philip very fondly – ”amazing temperament, great guy” – and says part of what kept their relationship going is that he never lost his passion for partying, even though he was stationed his own ambitions within it. “He was at the phone banks all night handing out leaflets. He didn’t invite cameras – it wasn’t for show. At one point, as a couple, it was decided that he would stand behind Theresa, but he is just as political and just as committed to the Conservative party that succeeds.’ Margaret Beckett’s late Labor husband Leo is known to have pushed her to stand for Lincoln in the first place (in 1974) because he predicted defeat in the Labor constituency and wanted someone to keep the seat warm for when the party had better prospects and he himself would become a candidate. It is quite impressive how he came back after seeing his own ambitions completely thwarted to become a lifelong assistant in her brilliant political career. It should not be problematic for one member of a couple to be more successful than the other in an area that both find attractive. However, society still abhors a more powerful woman, and enforces this through the mass media. If it sounds archaic, it is actually slightly worse. Professor Susan Doran, author of Monarchy and Matrimony: the Courtships of Elizabeth I, says: “I think the British are more gender-sensitive now, so when we look at the past, we tend to interpret it through gender. In Elizabethan times, they had a theory of the two bodies of the king, which separated the body of the monarch from the political institution. The double thought was this [had Elizabeth taken a spouse] as the wife of the monarch, she would be a subject, and therefore show respect, but in domestic affairs, she would be his wife, and normal relations would be expected.” Perhaps we have lost some of that subtlety of mind. Margaret Thatcher and her husband Dennis are on holiday in Cornwall. Photo: PA/PA Archive/PA Photos Perhaps most difficult, as a first person, is that female leads, in addition to being chosen for their looks, are relentlessly sexualized, their character traits expressed through physical objectification, their weaknesses foregrounded as visible on the body. God help them if they’re really attractive, because then all their social behaviors turn into sexual provocations. François Mitterrand famously said of Thatcher that she had “the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe”, which is rubbish on its own terms – her mouth only resembles Monroe’s in so far as it’s a mouth – but it stuck because put her in her place: she was no longer a tough negotiator but a tough seductress. President Sarkozy took a different tack with Chancellor Merkel – “She says she’s on a diet, then helps herself to a second helping of cheese” – but the underlying effect is the same: strength is recast as weakness through the pervasive but elemental shortcomings of womanhood. form. Arguably, Finland’s Prime Minister Marin has it worse, with coordinated far-right leaks and witch-hunts, aided by the mainstream tabloid media, turning everything she does into a quasi-sexual offense. He has never been photographed dancing, always “running” or “dancing intimately with glamorous models”. There is an expectation that the first guy will be relentless, characterless, almost invisible – or failing that, slightly transgressive, in the Prince Philip mode: a child – rather than a man – of…
