January 20th, 2021, Washington, D.C. Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.

Next to him, of course, course is his wife Jill Biden. But alongside

Vice President Kamala Harris, our nation's first female VP, is our nation's first

second gentleman, her husband Doug.

For that matter, Jill Biden is something new herself.

She is the first first lady to hold a job outside of the White House

as she continues her career as a teacher, pursuing her own life and agenda alongside her husbands.

The First Lady has been an ever-evolving role in our presidential politics,

one that's reflected the personality of the woman who

has occupied the office and the personality of the nation who has elected her spouse.

It's been this way all the way back to Martha Washington in 1789.

And it'll be this way when the First Lady finally becomes

First Gentlemen, no doubt sooner than we think. Hi everyone welcome to the podcast I'm Don Wildman. It's great that you could listen.

First Lady is a title I'm Don Wildman. It's great that you could listen.

First Lady is a title that comes loaded with responsibilities and expectations that exist in no manual or rulebook and certainly not in our US Constitution. The role is a fact of life for

the spouse of any US president, whichever he or she we elect every four years. Yet its reality

is it's a contradiction within itself. The

First Lady has always been required to play two roles, inward and

outward, public and private. Demanding from the title holder, those women down the ages of American history, a kind of behavior that would tie any normal human being into knots.

It's a challenge and an enormous factor in the day-to-day life of any administration.

And these stories have been told in a great book called First Women,

The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies, published in 2016 by our guest today. Kate Anderson Brower.

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