Who You Callin' Beautiful?

Act #283:  Acknowledge more than her beauty.

I was at a public event yesterday and like most events I attend, there were a number of male speakers who each made some form of mention of their wives.  Three to be exact.  And yesterday every single one of them used this adjective when describing her: "beautiful".   So at first glance, that's kind of endearing, right?  Aww...a distinguished dignitary getting on stage in front of all those people and publicly declaring his affection and attraction towards the love of his life.  Not quite.  At least not for me.  Call me a raging feminist, but to me, it all seems so.....patronizing.  There I said it.  See if my husband ever publicly acknowledges me again.  The whole public nature of this felt very staged, political, like each of these men just casually wrote this into their speech as an afterthought:  must throw in one-word compliment of wife so people believe I'm a nice guy.  If you are going to take time to mention your wife in that forum, it might be nice to give it a tad more thought, show a bit more complexity, maybe describe her in a way that is different than the other two dudes on stage?  Ever hear female politicians or speakers get up there and talk about their "handsome" husbands?  of course not.  They are always "my husband, the doctor" or "my  wonderful husband", or my "supportive husband".  Never something as shallow as "the guy who looks hot in a suit".... even if he does.  If a spouse has nothing to do with the topic at hand, why mention her at all?  Because when you do in that cursory way, it seems obligatory.  And let me tell you, there's nothing worse than treating the love of your life like an obligation.  Trust me, it doesn't help raise our self-esteem when you get up on stage and compliment us.  In fact, it's kind of embarrassing.  If you are going to give us a 2-second shout-out during your forum, try something with a little more dimension, more depth.  Call us extraordinary, world-changing, passionate, brilliant, innovative, savvy, insane.  Call us anything more original than "beautiful"?  Or better yet, just hand the mic over, handsome.