"Stand by your man." Country singer Tammy Wynette crooned those words ages ago-- forty years, to be exact. Feminists scorned the words, but Wynette said she meant that women overlook their husband's shortcomings in the name of love. Well, of course! That goes without saying. Meanwhile a generation of women softly sang those words against the shoulders of young men, and no doubt felt them soak into their tender hearts as they danced in a darkened high school gymnasium. Surely Silda Spitzer sang those words years ago. Today she's living them-- or acting them, anyway-- standing beside her husband, New York's governor Eliot Spitzer, as he apologizes for his involvement with prostitutes. She looks like an automaton, eyes vacant, and not nearly deep enough to contain the hurt. Women see it. Women feel it. And women think: no way would I stand beside the podium while my husband issued his apology. Why should I? Why should I act supportive when I feel nothing of the sort?...
Life is a series of snapshots meant to be recorded in words. A writer and photographer shares hers.