Hillary Clinton's Game-Changing Approach to the First Lady Role Eventually Became Her 'Undoing'

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It isn’t easy being the first lady of the United States because it is an unelected, unpaid role. Many of the spouses who come into the White House are highly educated and have their own powerful careers, but the first lady role is largely ceremonial. Yet Hillary Clinton did her best to change that notion during her husband, Bill Clinton’s first four years. 

Hillary was already a star in legal circles when Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election. The couple tried to sell a “two-for-one” idea that they would both be heavily involved in policy-making decisions, and she would lead the task force on National Health Care Reform to replicate the success she had in Arkansas with education reform. However, the American public wasn’t ready for a first lady to take such an active political role at the White House. It’s what journalist Kate Andersen Brower, author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, described to SheKnows as “her undoing.”

“It’s sad to say, but it was the thing that meant she could never be president because she stuck her neck out and got involved in politics and people didn’t want to see an unelected spouse with an office in the West Wing. They weren’t ready for it,” Brower explains. She believes that Hillary “always regretted having that office in the West Wing because it was so symbolic of [people thinking], ‘What does she think she’s doing?'” Brower speculates that voters with long memories of Hillary’s time during Bill Clinton’s administration were also not “ready for a woman president.”

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In recent years, both Dr. Jill Biden and Melania Trump have shaped the first lady role in game-changing ways. Jill is the holding a teaching job outside of her White House position and Melania chose to do very little with the first lady role, even though much more was expected of her by the public. They are very different approaches, but they are both involve some rather contemporary thinking on what it means to be a first lady. Brower empathizes with anyone who has to step into the position because “there’s so much baggage that comes with being a woman, and that’s why being first lady is such is such a double-edged sword — you can never win.” Hillary knows that all too well.

Before you go, click here to see presidential families over the years.