In the News

By Anthony Man

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston says her husband is a model of a man who is comfortable with a high-profile spouse and society would be better off if boys were raised with similar attitudes.

She made her remarks near the end of a discussion she convened last week among national and South Florida business leaders at the Fort Lauderdale Woman’s Club. The discussion centered on equal pay, workplace flexibility, teleworking, paid leave, financial security, and other issues.

It came on Equal Pay Day, marking the gap between men’s and women’s wages.

The issue was covered by my colleague Donna Gehrke-White, and I stopped as the event was wrapping up to ask the congresswoman about other topics.

Near the end of the event, she praised her husband Steve Schultz, something she’s done before, including during interviews leading up to her taking over the demanding job as President Barack Obama’s person leading the Democratic Party.

Wasserman Schultz said her husband “deserves the lion’s share of the credit” for her being able to manage a demanding career with lots of travel while they raise their three children. (Two daughters and a son.)

“He completely understands that our parenting is equal. Even before we had kids he was completely comfortable with me being much more high profile and having ambitious goals for my career and he was sort of a more low key person. That’s just the way our marriage is and our life is,” she said.

“We have to socialize boys. We have to find a way to culturally socialize boys to grow up and think like my husband…. It’s so important that we have more boys that get it,” she said.

“We need to start with boys when they’re young so they grow up and understand that they need to make sure that the way they enter into permanent relationships with whoever it is they have those relationships with is balanced so that each person can be successful and believe they have it all.”