The response to Second Lady Lynne Cheney provides the latest revelation of double standards among feminists and liberals. While Hillary Clinton was applauded for running a senate campaign while serving as First Lady, Lynne Cheney is being criticized for having a life of her own.

While supportive of her husband’s recent career move, she will keep her three posts in various private organizations, as Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and board member of both Reader’s Digest and AXP Mutual, a subsidiary of American Express. Since she has been a professional for almost all of their married life, the reaction to her decision is surprising.

Several news outlets, including the venerable Larry King, have questioned this decision, citing concerns about the ethics of the situation. As the analysis goes, keeping a private career while simultaneously facing the expectation that she perform duties as a public servant, in the style of Tipper Gore, might provide conflicts of interest.

While there are no specific rules for her as Second Lady, the major point of controversy resides in the rules for spouses of other high-level government officials. As the wife of a senator-the Vice-President is president of the Senate, after all-certain rules apply to her conduct. These rules dictate that a senator must declare and itemize all of a spouse’s income over $1000, but beyond that there is much room for discretion. The ethics manual even declares that there is no restriction on the employment of a member’s spouse. It only cautions against circumstances that involve the peddling of influence.

Some take issue with Mrs. Cheney’s positions in fields regulated by government, which make such influence peddling possible. But it is quite difficult these days to find a professional career that is not in a heavily regulated field. Further, there is not the slightest indication that the Cheneys have ever committed such acts when they found themselves in similar positions. Both Cheneys have held high-level government posts and private sector jobs throughout most of their married life without causing anything more controversial than ideological disagreements.

Though defending her further would be quite easy, she defends herself best: “It would seem as if I were turning into someone who was not me if I were to take another path.” She adds, “I will continue to be a responsible scholar and a responsible spokesman and a responsible board member and to keep my life separate from my husband’s.”

In short, she is quite confident in her ability to keep her business affairs apart from any governmental role implicit in her relationship with her husband. Questions about her ability to do so were, quite frankly, insulting. A separate identity and career from one’s husband, it should be noted, were original goals of feminism, which now seems stuck in contradictions.

When someone argues that a woman should not work, or implies that an independent woman will corrupt her husband, feminists usually respond with loud protest. But criticism of Lynne Cheney for the crime of having her own career has brought only silence.

Feminists say they want equality but are now so fond of standards that they have two of them. When we have a President who approves of her husband’s career, she likely won’t be of that persuasion.

Joelle Cowan is a public-policy fellow at the California-based Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Enterprise and Opportunity. She can be reached via email at jcowan@pacificresearch.org.