"As the wife of the most powerful politician in the country, Elena Ceaușescu wanted to portray herself as a role model, worthy of being next to the ‘great political leader,’ her husband. She wouldn’t hear of having just any job. As communism prized science as a force for industrial production, and being an intellectual had also been valued when she had been younger, a job as a scientist would work well with being the first [female] comrade of the country."