Living with female fame

Press, 4 March 1988, Page 16

Living with female fame

Washington men whose wives have higherprofile jobs than their own have formed a slightly serious support group, reports DUO writer, VICTORIA McKEE. (

No photograph of Denis Thatcher adorns ,the desk of Charles E. ; Horner, founder of the Denis Thatcher Society in Washington D.C.

"We've never met him and we don’t know much about him. We’d like to believe that he plays a very important role behind the scenes, but actually we doubt it,” Horner laughs. The society does not go in for hero-worship. It was started, not so; much out of admiration for Denis Thatcher as in empathy with him, by Horner and several other Washington husbands who have one thing in common: they all ' have spouses more prominent, or more powerful, than themselves.

An associate director of the United States Information Agency, he seems an unlikely candidate for such a role but his wife — Constance J. Homer — is head of the United States Office of Personnel Management and one of the most powerful women in Washington.

He vividly remembers the moment the society first took shape. “It was when I received a letter

addressed to Mr and Mrs Constance Hornier.” He realised tliat his was not an isolated phenomenon, and the enthusiasm and messages of support he has had since evolving the concept of the Denis i Thatcher Society have convinced him, he says, straightfaced, that ) he 1 is “responding to some deep primeval fear" in men.

“What is not clear is what enhances the status of the male. Do they like to say, when they’re having lunch at one of those clubs that exclude women, and they’re asked ‘And what does your wife do?’ ‘She doesn’t do anything, she’s at home’.” I : He minces these words, oozing sarcasm. (“Or do they like to say, ‘Well, she’s a partner in ...’? Most sensible men would encourage that because they understand that deep down it enhances their own status.” ;

Horner and his wife have two children, sons aged 18 and 13; ask whose was4he shoulder the boys

most often : cried on, and he becomes surprisingly serious — and angry. “None of this presupposes that husbands are supposed to step into the void. That's, an absurd and recent conceit.

“Do you) value this in your mate) that he appears brandishing a wooden spoon and saying, ‘Let me just whip up this souffle?’ No, deep down you would; have nothing for contempt for such a fellow!

“The point of all this is that it ought to be possible for women to do what they do without these silly alterations in the traditional male role. The stronger the male figure is the better it works out.

“There’s a fundamental error here,” he continues, “when people think that successful women have to come out of this stupid left-wing I pseudo-political culture. It’s not true. None of the strong women I know believe in it.” The real test of the power-shift relationship, Horner says, will Jbme

when the children of) such marriages grow up. , “Will they .(want Their kids to have i ‘real mothers’ who stay at home? Or will they feel they have tbi marry a graduate of the Yale Law School? I mean, if) your mother’s a farhous lawyer, can you take [home (a girl who says, ‘I just want to bake cookies tor my children’? What’s) the ) situation if you’re Margaret Thatcher’s (daughter-in-law?” I: i

Diane Burgdorf, we agree, looks ;as if; she'd rather bake cookies than jump into the political frying pan. ; For the moment the society has (no headed notepaper, no newsletter and no official meetings. “By definition we; could not admit women, so our club would jbe de' facto discriminatoriy and people might sue us,” its! president says cautiously. Neither are there any immediate plans to' invite Britain’s (under-illumi-nated husbands into the fold. But he concedes: “We might like to i hold a meeting in London some time — in (a pub somewhere near! 10 Downing Street.” Denis Thatcher would, of eburse,! be invited. J