On wives, mothers, and porn stars

All the tropes of womanhood are on display at the Democratic National Convention.

Photo: Nils Huenerfuerst

On Monday, Rep. Jasmine Crockett took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to compare the records of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. “She became a career prosecutor, while he became a career criminal, with 34 felonies, two impeachments, and one porn star to prove it,” she said. The crowd went wild with roars, laughter, and applause. That last alliterative clause was clutch. One porn star to prove it.

Of course, Stormy Daniels is that porn star and the entire Democratic Party should be bowing down at her feet. She sat on that witness stand for hours—detailing an encounter with Trump that left her reeling and full of self-blame—to help score those 34 felony convictions. And yet, here, she was used as a punchline and a mic drop in proving Trump’s disgrace opposite Harris’ honor.

This is part of the official playbook. On Monday, a new campaign video in the style of a Law & Order spoof premiered at the DNC. “He sexually abuses women,” says the narrator. “He cheated on his wife with a porn star and paid her off so the American people wouldn't find out during an election.” In this case, the porn star bit carries less weight: it’s accompanied by an emphasis on Trump’s cheating, scheming, and attempt to deceive voters. Still, the invocation of the p-word is no accident.

It carries extremely useful rhetorical weight. It taps into the wife/whore dichotomy. It stains Trump with the shame associated with sex work and bad womanhood. As though the man does not carry enough stain of his own.

I find this “porn star” tactic maddening and outrageous. I also wonder what behind-the-scenes calculations are being made around the need to defend Harris against racist attacks on her goodness and respectability, given the way Black women are so often cast by default in the roles of “bad” womanhood.

But it’s not just the archetype of the “whore” that has made an appearance at the DNC this week—all the key tropes of womanhood have shown up.

On Tuesday, Michelle Obama gave a barn-burner of a speech filled with unforgettable quotes and phrases—most of all, the concept of “the affirmative action of generational wealth”(!!!) and her reference to the role of president as a “Black job.” Throughout her speech, alongside these meme-able moments, she also built a strong and emotional narrative around mothers.

Obama spoke of the recent loss of her own mom, whom she described as “the woman who showed me the meaning of hard work and humility and decency, the woman who set my moral compass high and showed me the power of my own voice.” Her mother “volunteered at the local school” and “always looked out for the other kids on the block.” She “was glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation.”

Her mother taught her “the belief that if you do unto others, if you love thy neighbor, if you work and scrape and sacrifice, it will pay off.”

I mean, eek, do I have thoughts on that belief as it relates to American politics and capitalism, but in the interest of staying on track here, I’ll just say: Obama spoke to her inheritance of her mother’s moral sense before drawing a connection to the “foundational values” that Harris’ mother instilled in her. Specifically, the values of “justice,” lifting others up, and giving “more than we take.” She called Harris “a tribute to her mother, to my mother and to your mother, too.”

These parts pulled on the heartstrings, for sure. I thought of my mom, who died over a decade ago, and whom I similarly used to think of as my moral compass. It was only after I dried my tears and went to review the transcript of the speech that I went: Hmm. Hmmmmmm. Are we at risk of romanticizing the “thankless” and “unglamorous” work of motherhood?

It is often mothers volunteering at the local school, and that is not necessarily a reflection of individual women’s moral goodness so much as how much we’ve all been fucked by the system, and how much mothers specifically have been called upon to fill in the cracks of that fucked system.

I also thought of the 19th century “cult of domesticity” that saw women as their children’s moral teachers. As Catharine Beecher wrote in 1871: “Woman's great mission is to train immature, weak, and ignorant creatures to obey the laws of God... first in the family, then in the school, then in the neighborhood, then in the nation, then in the world.” It was a dubious and sexist honor, a compromised authority limited within the walls of the home.¹

The moral authority of mothers—specifically white mothers—was based in large part on their piety and sexual purity. They were expected to be virgins until marriage, after which they became “angels of the house” and were entrusted with instilling “foundational values” in future citizens. The respectability of the wife/mother/angel was built on the disrepute of the fallen woman, the whore. How could I not then think of the aforementioned “porn star”?

Of course, Obama wasn’t trying to revive or even reference the “cult of domesticity,” and she certainly wasn’t positioning herself or Harris opposite Daniels. It’s just that these tropes of womanhood are baked right into our cultural ideas and values around motherhood. On the other hand, I do believe that Crockett’s speech and the brand-new campaign ad are using these dichotomies as political ammo, and with a savvy degree of plausible deniability.

There were plenty more maternal and wifely references in Doug Emhoff’s speech. He self-deprecatingly retold the story of his first date with Harris and gushingly professed his love for her. Then he told the story of recently observing Harris on an important-seeming phone call and wondering if she was tending to a vital domestic or foreign issue, maybe something critical with the campaign. Turns out she was on the phone with their daughter Ella. He invoked a classic scene of maternal care and advice. “She’s always been there for our children,” he said, “and I know she’ll always be there for yours, too.”

He proceeded to draw a parallel between the choice facing voters in November and his choice to marry Harris, making her his wife and the stepmom to his kids. (Is Biden our ex-wife in this metaphor?) “You have to choose who to trust with your family’s future,” he said. “I trusted Kamala with our family’s future. It was the best decision I ever made.” He went on to say: “Kamala Harris was exactly the right person for me at an important moment in my life. And in this moment in our nation’s history she is exactly the right president.”

It’s like Harris is to become our mommy and our wife, you know? Emhoff was careful, though, to balance the family-friendly stuff with power. He portrayed her empathy as her “greatest strength” and called her a “joyful warrior,” before adding, “Here’s the thing about joyful warriors, they’re still warriors.”

Emhoff stayed far away from any terrible retro-isms, and it is generally the case that spouses are called on to show the personal side of the candidate. Harris is his wife and the stepmother to his children. What other story was he going to tell? But there’s a very intentional line being drawn between mommy, wife, and president.

How is this similar to the way previous presidential candidates have been sold to us as good, strong, loving, protector daddies, and how is it different? That’s something I know I’ll be thinking about a lot across the next few weeks. There are careful political calculations happening here that require a temperature-taking of the national mood around women, power, and family. Those calculations are happening opposite a pair of Republican candidates who are prone to sexist and racist rhetoric that castigates “cat ladies,” questions Harris’ race, and dismisses her as not a “real” mom.

What we’ve seen so far on the DNC stage suggests that in this historic effort to elect our first Black woman president, the usual tropes of womanhood are being trotted out at the same time that they’re being subtly remade.

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1. In reviewing the text of Michelle Obama’s speech, I was also reminded of this line from Lyz Lenz’s This American Ex-Wife:

I don’t want to be the arbiter of someone’s morality. I think of my father saying about my mother how she was so good, the best one out of the two of them. … I do not want this. I do not want a life so rigid and righteous that it has no room for my own failings and humanity. What I wanted was to be as fully human as these men are. Not to push the stone of moral goodness up a hill day after day.