Modeling the Perfect MAGA Woman

 

“Katie Elizabeth Britt (née Boyd; born February 2, 1982 [in green above]) is an American politician and attorney [a graduate of the University of Alabama School of Law] who is the junior United States senator from Alabama since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Britt is the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama and the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the Senate.” Wikipedia. A dynamic, articulate woman who was carefully coached to present herself as a “good wife,” espousing the values of women a la the 1950s (the era MAGA holds “great”), in the official GOP rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union speech. In her kitchen!

Facing the MAGA cameras, she was softspoken and consistent with a “Stepford Wives” tone, very much the opposite of most American women today… and hardly reflective of her own education or station in life. To a significant majority of women polled, it was a disastrous presentation, a de facto putdown of modern American women, most of whom work to support the household. The overriding message of her rebuttal was as subservient homemaker, reinforcing MAGA’s obvious program against independent women who can and should control their own lives.

So, what are “women” in America actually like? First of all, according to a Pew survey announced on February 7th, “Women have overtaken men and now account for more than half (50.7%) of the college-educated labor force in the United States, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. The change occurred in the fourth quarter of 2019 and remains the case today…”

Over 60% of those enrolled in US undergraduate, professional and graduate schools are women. While the “Father Knows Best” (a popular TV series of the 1950s and 60s) showed what most believed to be the perfect American family: Like many TV series of the era, it was about the father-patriarch, the sole breadwinner and the true head of the family. But women have been necessary co-breadwinners for decades. Computers and machinery have long since equalized the place of women in the skilled work world. An average American family today requires two breadwinners, and there are plenty of women, married and single, who aspire to success in their careers.

With the recent visit of Viktor Orban (Hungary’s autocratic prime minister) to his admirer’s home in Mar-a-Lago, we are reminded of the model society Trump has pledged to his constituents; it is the America he has promised to restore, a 1950s place where Blacks and Hispanics knew their place, where women were primarily mothers and homemakers, where abortion was a crime, families routinely attended Sunday church services and white Christian men made virtually all the decisions. Properly coached and set in the right venue, Katie Britt was a perfect foil for Biden… or so the MAGA GOP thought. The subservient woman, sitting in her kitchen, deferential towards senior men, is an undercurrent not only in the United States but in every conservative nationalist/populist nation on Earth, even some that you might believe otherwise.

The murder of women seeking a strong voice, free from sexual horrors and “honor” killings, is something you expect to find in countries like India and Saudi Arabia. Even where crimes against women are clearly listed in the books, authorities and juries (where there are juries) often look the other way or impose little more than slaps on the wrist to clear murderers. You wouldn’t expect that in modern European nations, especially those where the head of state is actually a woman. Think again. At the core of conservative nationalism/populism is the need to keep women in their place, making them operatives in maintaining a patriarchal hierarchy.

Women are not permitted to control their bodies, are forced to bear children no matter what and to remain the old-world double standard as bastions of sexual purity, while boys will be boys (and “you can grab them by the pussy…”). Italy recently elected a woman prime minister, Giorgia Meloni (at a bank of microphones above), a well-respected conservative who knows how to walk the line in a nation, which CNN (March 8th) calls a country with a “patriarchal history as femicide cases shock the nation.” Indeed, “More than 100 women were killed [in Italy] in 2023. The term ‘femicide’ – which is typically when a woman is killed by a current or former partner - became so topical an Italian encyclopedia named it as its word of the year in 2023.

“Italy might have a female prime minister, but she makes a point of not identifying herself as a feminist… The country only criminalized crimes of passion in 1981, and the judicial system still often gives lighter sentences to male killers if their wives were unfaithful… While Italy does not have Europe’s highest rate of domestic violence, it is among the lowest ranked in Europe when it comes to gender equality.” CNN.

A clear Roman Catholic nation, Italy only legally recognized divorce in 1970 and abortion rights in 1978. But since abortion is legal in Italy, that country is clearly way ahead of the United States in protecting a woman’s right to control her own body. Nevertheless, the new prime minister is a throwback to rural post-WWII rightwing values. “In Italy, the feminist movement was largely driven by the left, which meant that those who supported right-leaning parties, including current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have distanced themselves from feminism entirely.

“[Activist, educator and documentary filmmaker Lorella Zanardo notes:] that Meloni has even chosen to use the masculine article in front of the Italian word ‘prime minister’ rather than embracing the fact that Italy has one of the world’s few female leaders…. ‘She pretends to be called ‘il’ prime minister like a man and I think that a woman like her could be an activist also in language by showing to younger generations that leaders can be women,’” CNN.

While Meloni has acted like a true head of state in international matters, she has faithfully toed the conservative line on gender politics. These policies seem to follow conservative leaders the world over. Under these rigid mandates, women, even heads of state, are still limited to a subservient role controlled by old men. For example, Trump’s MAGA movement desires a clear autocracy where women return to being a second-rate political voice, an unequal minority, with vastly fewer rights than American women had in this country half a century ago.

I’m Peter Dekom, and is there an epidemic among MAGA women of self-loathing that actually justifies voting for Trump and his MAGA cronies in November?