His Female Companion
 

NPR has focused on Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank lately - but all those scandals aside, I'm intrigued that the term "his female companion" keeps coming up in reference to Shaha Ali Riza, a woman he is romantically linked to - not girlfriend, mistress, partner - but consistently, "his female companion."

Thinking perhaps this is a new form of NPR politically correct speech, I plugged the term into Google and returned many more articles on Paul Wolfowitz - and a link to a wikipedia page on "beards" - are they implying he's gay - I wondered?

Anyway, I continue to be intrigued by the term and what it implies about their relationship and status. Is it becasue Shaha Ali Riza is too respected a person in the World Bank to diminish her as a "girlfriend" (i.e. defined only by her relationship to the man) - If so, is this term a symbol of arriving at professional success as an unmarried woman? or is it just becasue she's an older woman and "girlfriend" or "mistress" imply a sexual relationship which we'd rather not think about older people having?

I had a friend on LJ rant against the outlets using the world "girlfriend" saying it only applies to young people. I had never heard this and I responded saying "companion" seemed the stupidest of the options.

As for its general use, it is because that is generally the rules laid out in the major newspaper styleguides to not use girlfriend. Slate had an article about it a couple days ago.

Or perhaps a relationship we presume they are too old to be able to have.

Have you seen Wolfowitz? Could be that nobody wants to admit that he may actually be having sex. It would not be something you would want to get out there.

Press: "And who are you?"
Woman: "I'm his gir----uh, I am his faithful female companion. Sort of like Tonto. We fight crime together."

Wolfowitz is almost a year younger than my better half yet the thought of Wolfowitz involved with anyone makes me cringe. It's not his age for me, obviously. Wolfowitz is off the graph ooky-wise because he's a Republican war monger who licks his comb to comb his hair

Yeah, the comb licking.






How about "ladyfriend?"

How about "Wolfowitz's old lady." And he should revise his testimony accordingly: "Yeah, I hooked the old lady up with a job so she would quit her bitchin' about my hours."

I think he could pull it off.

If she really got her job just because she's (ew) sleeping with Wolfowitz (ew, ew, ew), then she's une grande horizontale (with either incredibly bad taste or the sexual discernment of a goat).

That's what is so horrible about this "scandal." She didn't. She was very well established as a major player in middle east development and an advocate for women's rights in the Middle East.

She was very much the reasonably high ranking professional at the World Bank before her significant other (a relationship begun after Wolfowitz and his first wife separated) happened to be appointed to run the place.

As soon as he was nominated Wolfowitz disclosed the relationship and recused himself from any involvement in personnel decisions related to her. It was the World Bank ethics committee that decided propriety required that she be trasnferred (against her will) to the State Deparment, given a raise, and a promotion (since she was being harmed through no fault of her own).

The ethics committee then instructed Wolfowitz to do it, despite his attempt to recuse himself.

The World Bank board of directors and ethics committee has already investigated this twice without finding any impropriety. This whole scandal is like some weird form of bureaucratic entrapment. The ethics committee requires Wolfowitz to give his girlfriend a raise and then he get slammed for it.

I despise Wolfowitz's policy views but it is really hard to see what he did wrong in this case.

But I feel really bad for Riza. She's a respected professional and since most people don't pay the slightest bit of attention to these stories beyond the headlines most everybody is going to assume she was a secreatary without typing skills, some kind of Fawn Hall.


(That said, there are some very valid, so far unexplained questions about possible influence at the DoD prior to Wolfowitz's departing the administration.)

Which is why I wondered if the subtext of the "his female companion" was somehow meant to imply "not a Bimbo"