To Submit, or Not to Submit? That Was the Right Question – But Was It Sexist?

by Jo Freeman

Sometimes conservatives do the right thing. During the August 11 Republican debate conservative columnist Byron York asked candidate Michele Bachmann: “As president, would you be submissive to your husband?”

Bachmann evaded the question, saying that submissive really meant respect, and that both she and her husband respected each other. The audience’s negative reaction wasn’t to her evasion, but to York’s temerity in asking that question.

As a feminist, I felt someone needed to ask Michele Bachmann that question and I’m glad that York had the balls to do it. It was not sexist. It was a question about her religious beliefs, and how they would affect her actions if she became President. When someone professes a particular belief — religious or otherwise — it is perfectly legitimate to ask how it would affect their actions if elected to a public office, especially the Presidency.

In Bachmann’s case, she had already said that she got a degree in tax law only because her husband wanted her to — implying that it wasn’t because she wanted to. She submitted to her husband’s wishes, as her particular version of Christianity commanded her to do.

John F. Kennedy was asked a similar question when he ran for President in 1960, though it was phrased a little less bluntly. At the time many wondered whether his Roman Catholic faith would require him to follow the dictates of his church — not just its values but its hierarchy. If the Pope told him what to do, would he submit?

Kennedy responded by giving a major address on the “religious issue” to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960. He said in no uncertain terms that  “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act.”

Bachmann needs to give a similar speech, in which she addresses the “religious issue.” How can she believe, as she told congregants at her church in 2006, that “The Lord says: Be submissive, wives. You are to be submissive to your husbands,” and ask the people of the United States to elect her President?

If her husband told her to bomb Iran, or anything else, would she do so? 

It’s disingenuous to claim that “submissive” is a synonym for respect. While being submissive is a way to show respect, there are many other ways. Bachmann said that she and her husband respect each other, but she didn’t quote the Bible as commanding that husbands should obey their wives. 

Michele Bachmann is running for President, not Marcus Bachmann. No one should run for office who believes she should “submit” to the dictates of someone who isn’t elected. If Michele Bachmann wants people to take her candidacy seriously, she should give a thorough answer to Byron York’s question.

©2011 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com

Credit for  Bachmann’s picture at the Time 100 dinner: David Shankbone, Wikimedia