TEA WITH MOTHER TEA WITH MOTHER SARAH PALIN AND THE DISCOURSE OF MOTHERHOOD AS A POLITICAL IDEAL
JANET MCCABE, BIRKBECK, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Seldom has someone emerged so Très peu d’individus ont fait une unexpectedly and sensationally on apparition aussi inattendue et to the American political scene as spectaculaire que celle de Sarah Palin Sarah Palin. With Palin came what sur la scène politique américaine. Avec had rarely, if ever, been seen before elle ont surgi des traits inédits dans on a presidential trail: hockey moms, une campagnes présidentielle : ceux Caribou-hunting, pitbulls in lipstick de la hockey mom, de la chasse au parcelled as political weaponry. And let’s caribou, de la femme pugnace mais not forget those five children, including fardée utilisés comme des arguments Track 19, set to deploy to Iraq, Bristol, partisans. Cela sans oublier les enfants and her unplanned pregnancy at 17, Palin mis à contribution : Track, 19 and Trig, a six-month-old infant with ans, attendant son affectation militaire Down’s syndrome. Never before had en Irak, Bristol, fille-mère à 17 ans, et motherhood been so finely balanced Trig, un bébé trisomique de six mois. with US presidential politics. Biological Une image si orientée de la maternité vigour translated into political energy, n’avait jamais auparavant été impliquée motherhood transformed into an dans une campagne politique aux intoxicating political ideal. This article États-Unis. La vigueur génétique s’y est focuses on Sarah Palin and how her vue transformée en énergie politique, brand of “rugged Alaskan motherhood” et la maternité en un idéal politique (PunditMom 2008) became central to intoxicant. Cet article se concentre sur her media image, as well as what this la façon dont l’image d’une « rugged representation has to tell us about the Alaskan motherhood » (PunditMon relationship between mothering as 2008) est devenue si cruciale dans la a political ideal, US politics, and the personnalité médiatique de Sarah Palin, media. et sur ce qu’une telle image peut nous apprendre quant aux relations entre la maternité comme idéal, la politique américaine, et les média.
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Rarely has anyone emerged so As a Christian, social conservative, unexpectedly and sensationally on to the anti-abortionist, and patriot preparing American political scene as Sarah Palin. to see her eldest son deployed to Iraq It is August 2008, and the Republican (on September 11, 2008, no less), this nominee John McCain, the moderate “middle youth” mother from America’s senator from Arizona, took his most last frontier seemed a shrewd (if audacious campaign gamble when he unexpected) choice to shore up the vote named the 44-year-old mother-of-five among the party’s staunchly right-wing governor of Alaska as his running mate. evangelical base. Still, it was the more Everything about her looked different. subtle tangled ways in which Sarah “She’s not—she’s not from these parts Palin politicised mothering and her and she’s not from Washington, but role as a mother that ignited passions when you get to know her, you’re going across the political spectrum—and had to be as impressed as I am,” McCain feminists like me (McCabe, “States of told Republicans assembled in Dayton, Confusion”; “In the Feminine Ideal”) Ohio, shortly before Palin strode onto tied in theoretical knots. Palin translated the political platform with husband the postfeminist “have it all” culture Todd, a native Yup’ik who worked for into potent, if uneasy, political currency, BP, and four of her five children with making history as the first woman on the uncommon names including Bristol, Republican ticket and only the second in unmarried and pregnant at 17, and Trig US presidential history to become a vice- Paxson Van, a six-month-old infant with Down’s syndrome. Fig. 1
71 • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • IMAGINATIONS TEA WITH MOTHER presidential nominee. What interests me turning] maternity into a war weapon,” however, and the subject of this article, the vice-presidential nominee “is is how the discourse of motherhood, pretending to be all women at once, turned into a political ideal, was made and yet perfectly mundane.” useful—qualified and disqualified— and linked to an intensification of the Never before had motherhood feminine body. Palin’s well crafted been so finely paraded as political image was imbued, through and accomplishment. Biological vigour through, with tactical function and translated into constitutional ambition, political calculation. It is discourse of and mothering transformed into an the Mother and mothering, imagined intoxicating political ideal. As she in and through her image, which cradled Trig in her arms, a “living transmits and produces a formidable [testament] to herself as the model pro- power; it reinforces a moral, social, life mother” (Raban), she wowed the and economic order, but it also reveals party faithful and secured her political fragilities and the limits of that power, celebrity almost overnight. Palin was particularly centred on sex, sexuality, everywhere. Her ubiquitous image was and the biological female body. featured in magazines and newspapers the length and breadth of America and With Palin came what had rarely if ever beyond: “A Mother’s Painful Choice” been seen before in politics, let alone ran the poignant OK! headline, but the a presidential trail. Hockey moms, glossy media image of her cradling Trig mama grizzlies in killer heels, and told another, more compelling story of pitbulls in lipstick parcelled as political maternal pride, domestic bliss, and pro- weaponry. Such a staged spectacle of life principles. We may know that the female agency and power led Lacanian political image is highly choreographed psychoanalyst and writer Jacques- (in which both the media and politicians Alain Miller to conclude, “Sarah Palin are inextricably entangled), however on puts forward no lack: she fears nothing, seeing Palin holding her handicapped churns out children all [the] while baby son on stage at the GOP national holding a shotgun … [and] presents convention, few could have failed herself as an unstoppable force.” This not to be affected by the sight as a apparent defiance of easy definition groundbreaking moment for women— and absolute refusal to sacrifice neither or as Nancy Gibb saw it, “you felt the career nor children saw the disorienting shattered glass raining gently down.” collapse of what Nina Power calls the “old female dichotomies—mother/ politician, attractive/successful, passive/ go-getting.” Everything about Palin appeared limitless and omnipotent, argues Power: “Both fiercely maternal and politically aggressive, … [and
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partner,” McCain identified Palin (unnamed and un-gendered at this point) as someone able to challenge power and willing to dispute privilege, before saying “proudly” that in the week “we celebrate the anniversary of female suffrage” his running mate is “a devoted wife and mother of five.” Her legitimacy to rule is vouched for by reference to the commonweal (matrimonial allegiance, parental obligations), and her role as presidential helpmate is authenticated by these traditional forms of alliance that Palin seemed obliged to endlessly pronounce about herself. But at the same time, the mother is also playing the role of adversary to power. It did in fact seem, at first glance at least, that her candidacy represented the triumph of the personal over the political.
Palin wasted no time in acknowledging this historic moment for women. As an ordinary working mother, she was the legacy of feminism in America—a country that emphasized equal voting rights and individual women empowering themselves (rather than through collective activism). Standing Fig. 2 on the political stage in 2008, Palin made sense of that neoliberal feminist Nowhere is the paradox presented by ideal, namely: women had made Palin more self evident than in how unprecedented gains. her image represents so seductively the personal is political. Michel Foucault To serve as vice president beside alerts us to how dominant norms such a man would be the privilege (institutions, culture) are perpetually of a lifetime. And it’s fitting that being resisted and reconstituted by this trust has been given to me 88 knowledge that has developed and years almost to the day after the gained momentum from elsewhere women of America first gained the “in the power network” (95). Almost right to vote. … I think—I think immediately, in introducing “the right as well today of two other women
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who came before me in national women and bringing that constituency elections. I can’t begin this great into the political conversation. effort without honoring the achievements of Geraldine Ferraro Feminism had arrived in the American in 1984 ... and of course Senator heartland. Even so, this pro-woman Hillary Clinton, who showed such tableau painted by Palin was rife determination and grace in her with deep ambivalence and profound presidential campaign ... It was contradiction. Clinton may have put 18 rightly noted in Denver this week million cracks into the glass ceiling, but that Hillary left 18 million cracks did the last push really mean shattering in the highest, hardest glass ceiling that which protected Roe vs. Wade in America ... but it turns out the as well? Furthermore, what did it say women of America aren’t finished about women in power when the first to yet and we can shatter that glass potentially occupy the vice presidency ceiling once and for all. (Palin, in the history of the United States “Transcript McCain”) was a self-declared “average hockey mom” who “never really set out to be No doubt these words were designed involved in public affairs, much less to to win over the disaffected Hillary run for this office” (Palin, “Transcript Rodham Clinton supporters, as if McCain”)? Palin is saturated in the biology was all that mattered. Initially, political meanings of her personal life. Palin did what was expected of her, She makes visible the “Feminists for and opinion polls suggested that her Life” mantra with her resolute refusal candidacy appealed to a large section to choose between women and children. of female (mostly white) voters the She mangles the vocabularies of social Obama camp had either disregarded or conservatism (anti-abortion, abstinence simply assumed would shift allegiance education) with feminism (equal rights, once Clinton dropped out of the balancing parenting with an ambitious Democrat race (Goldenberg, “McCain career). She combines aspects of Forced into Supporting Role” 20). “power feminism” (Wolf), where Palin also rejuvenated McCain’s sliding women are in control of their destiny, political fortunes, with one wavering with what Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Republican female voter saying: terms “family feminist,” which involves “She has brought youth, the female women able to set their own agendas factor, the younger generation, she has based on personal concerns rather than brought, most importantly to me, a elitist ideology and communal logic. lot of women who were sitting on the Palin is an example of the postfeminist fence” (qtd. in Goldenberg, “McCain “have it all” rationale defined by self- Forced into Supporting Role” 20 ). determinism and enterprise (linked to Her candidacy was about visibility, of free market economics), a legacy of making representation on behalf of the Reagan era; she is someone who
IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • 74 MCCABE grew up “feeling” empowered and as “about propelling oneself forward in internalizing the message of women’s stiletto heels” (124). progress (“Standing on the shoulders of women who had won hard-fought But in this feminist paradox a crucial battles for things like equal pay and point has gone awry. Never mind how equal access” [Palin, “Transcript Palin raids feminism for its rhetoric and McCain” 28]), but disconnected from semiotics of empowerment, her image the political philosophies which had operates inside meticulous codes— created those opportunities in the first of marriage sanctified by church and place. “I didn’t subscribe to all the State, of motherhood integral to the radical mantras of that early feminist bourgeois order, and of family extolled era,” Palin has said (“Transcript by popular media and political rhetoric. McCain” 28), a movement she regards It is a lesson in unseen power whereby as irrelevant at best and suspiciously biological fecundity translates into socialist at worst. Feminism is about political leverage. Power comes not self-reliance and personal responsibility from partisan politics (as such), but from rather than collective agendas and legal “that [which] we no longer perceive … edicts, “a matter not of ideology but as the effect of power that constrains of simple fairness” (Palin, “Transcript us” (Foucault 60). No wonder we McCain” 28). cannot help but become entranced and exasperated by her in equal Her representation, “living comfortably measure. “She is a fresh voice” with a with paradox” (Siegel 141), in many “new vocabulary” declared veteran ways enters into dialogue with Republican Pat Buchanan (“A Post- contemporary feminism and its politics Mortem of the Debate Post-Mortem”), of ambiguity—only to stoke the flames but she is speaking in and through a of disagreement over how exactly to representation (the fertile mother, the define our terms and push us to the faithful wife, the [re]productive female limits of language when we talk about body) beset by intricate rules and women and power. Here then lies one of intrinsic to the mechanisms of social the most complex, if unnerving ironies power and control. So imbibed are of Palin. She may rhetorically imitate we in this vital image of the feminine feminism, but distorts, resists, even represented by Palin that to critique this reverses its logic, as she translates it into script is almost impossible. Disclosing a populist conversation about equality what should not be said, to denounce and a refusal to compromise. Social that ideal of American motherhood problems are no longer communal which discourse (institutions, culture, requiring collective action, but personal politics, society, the media) works so ones demanding individual solutions. It hard to promote and, as Foucault put is an (ironically) apolitical postfeminist it, “enforce[s] the norm” (3; emphasis brand, described by Deborah L. Siegel mine), cannot be done.
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Family, faith, and flag define her baby,’ I whispered to Piper, as I have political celebrity. Palin has always every year since she smiled for the made considerable capital of her role picture as an infant. She popped another as a mother. She has, in fact, politicised cloud of cotton candy in her mouth motherhood as never before, not only and looked nonchalant” (Going Rouge translating mothering into a political 2). This moment of almost breathless, creed, but also using it to legitimatise intimate sentimentality inspires her her identify and affirm herself. “On political ambition. “It reminded me of April 20, 1989,” Palin declares in her the preciousness of life,” recalls Palin. bestselling political memoir, Going “It also reminded me of how impatient Rogue: An American Life, “my life I am with politics” (Going Rogue 2). truly began. I became a mom. … The Her encounter with “the gracious ladies world went away, and in a crystallizing who put up with the jeers of those instant, I knew my purpose” (51, 53). who always protested the display” Her credo is clear: In becoming a mother typified for her “the difference between her subjectivity is defined and qualified. principles and politics” (Going Rogue It is the way in which she conceives of 3). In this briefest of sketches—bucolic power—the feminine body, the socio- small-town American life (“I breathed political body, “by virtue of a biologico- in an autumn bouquet that combined moral responsibility” (Foucault 104). everything small-town America with Akin to an evangelical conversion, “her” rugged splashes of the Last Frontier” tone also authenticates what Stephanie [Going Rogue 1]), independent ladies Coontz describes as “a sentimental, (not women) and principled-centred almost sacred, domestic sphere whose grassroots activism, privately-held long-term commitments and nurturing faith-based ethics versus East Coast balanced the pursuit of self interest in elite government, and politics-as- the public arena” (43). usual—the Palin folklore about family, motherhood, and patriotism is founded. Presented as a “mom’s-eye view of Not for the first time in that mythology high-stakes national politics” (or, do her children remind Palin of her so the book jacket tells us), Palin’s articles of faith, of who she is, in fact. It memoir begins by telling us of a visit is, of course, at this precise moment of to the Right to Life (RTL) booth at the political epiphany that her BlackBerry 2008 Alaska State Fair “where a poster vibrates. “Just this one last call, baby,” caught [her] eye, taking [her] breath she tells Piper. It’s John McCain, “asking away” (Going Rogue 2). “[Swathed] if I wanted to help him change history” in pink, pretend angel wings fastened (Going Rogue 6). to her soft shoulders” as described by Palin, “the pro-life poster child at the Or, so the story goes. State Fair” (Going Rogue 2; emphasis in the original turns out to be her Personal narratives have long played youngest daughter Piper. “‘That’s you, a crucial role in announcing political
IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • 76 MCCABE ambition. There is no doubt that a a substitute for such responsibility” good deal of Palin’s appeal relies on (97, 98). Palin’s conservative strand of her biography and its packaging. She feminism can thus be traced at least as looks like exactly what she says she is: far back as the “turn toward home” not the usual politico, but a small-town of the mid-nineteenth century (Coontz hockey mom, who became involved 96-106). Glenda Riley describes this in politics by running for city council accordingly: “As defenders of home via the parent-teacher association and hearth, women would protect (PTA). Raising babies, nurturing a traditional values, but they should not young frontier town—Palin initially interfere in any essential way with the campaigned “door-to-door asking for developments that were catapulting people’s votes, pulling the kids through America toward prosperity and power” the snow on a sled” (Going Rogue (3). 64). In 2008 she told Republicans the following: Fast-forward a century and a half and Palin re-imagines this socially [Todd and I were] busy raising our conservative, free-market message in the kids. I was serving as the team mom age of austerity. Our latter day frontier’s and coaching some basketball on mom may buy her couture from a the side. I got involved in the PTA consignment store in Anchorage and and then was elected to the city keep the “home’s freezer stocked with council, and then elected mayor of the wild seafood we caught ourselves” my hometown, where my agenda (Palin, Going Rogue 133), but the idea was to stop wasteful spending, of woman as an evangelical moral and cut property taxes, and put saviour of American capitalism and its the people first. (Palin, “Transcript values holds as strong as it did when first McCain”) identified in the late-nineteenth century by the likes of Catharine Beecher. True or not, it does not matter. It is how her political brand, run from the kitchen Core to the Palin message is fiscal policy. table surrounded by toddlers, taps into an older “domestic” or “sentimental” In Juneau, the one thing that’s doctrine of the “feminine” rooted in required during the session is American frontier mythologies (Riley passing a budget, and that one task 3). The sentimentalization of family life is the subject of endless hours of proposed after the American Civil War discussion, deliberation, bartering, (1861-65) saw, claims Coontz, “the and whining. Again I was thankful triumph of the nuclear family ideal for my training grounds as a mom and the spread of private morality … [sic]. (Palin, Going Rogue 148) [in which] family relations became less a preparation ground or supporting The economy is an uncomplicated structure for civic responsibility than macrocosm of the family accounts. As
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Jonathan Rabin put it, “What is good how the “devoted” and “enthusiastic” for the family is good for the nation, crowds (almost all white) saw Palin and vice versa; and the idea that the as “St. Sarah of American Capitalism” family should spend its way out of (2009 32) with her message of fiscal recession is an affront to common conservatism. It is a discourse on family, sense, conservative or otherwise.” Palin modern capitalism, and the social trades heavily on her experience as a order that “holds up well, owning no busy working mom trying to make the doubt to how easy it is to uphold. family budget stretch as far as it can. It A solemn historical and political is an aspect of her “ordinary celebrity” guarantee protects it” (Foucault 5). (Ouellette 189) that reinvents the Palin has neither formulated anything way in which postfeminist popular new to say about the financial crisis culture extols female independence and nor invented any new fiscal solutions; women’s powers expressed through it is about practical commonsense consumption practices. In step with and hard graft. It is about liberating the financial downturn and age of women through entrepreneurship. Her asceticism, there is a revision in thinking, “intimate” staged performances may sit whereby female empowerment is about uncomfortably within the conventional taking control of the economic well political structure, but how her political being of the family. Thrift and prudence celebrity deploys systems of alliance are central to the Palin image of self- (parental and matrimonial) firmly reliance and enterprise. “My family is linked to the economy “engenders a frugal,” she writes. “We clip coupons. continual extension of areas and forms We shop at Costco. We buy diapers in of control” (Foucault 106). In a word, bulk and generic peanut butter. We don’t how the Palin (maternal) body produces have full-time nannies or housekeepers and consumes makes visible a socio- or drivers” (Going Rogue 315). These economic body, which has, in turn, the remarks were made in response to a function of nurturing and perpetuating. headline story that the Republican National Committee (RNC) had spent Palin reanimates the spectre of $150,000 “to clothe and accessorize nineteenth-century womanhood as the vice presidential candidate and her “guardian of morality and virtue” (Riley family” (Cummings). Palin was quick 3) in her run for public office—with anti- to set the records straight in order “to abortion, pro-guns, creationism, and defend my ethics and my family,” as she anti-gay marriage stances defining the put it (Going Rogue 317). It is through new “moral prowess” (Riley 5). Mid- these subtle relays between familial nineteenth-century women’s activism alliances and the social body, that one championed equal voting rights and arguably sees Palin at her boldest. economic freedoms, but temperance and Late in 2009, covering her three-week religious faith were also central to the book tour of 14 states in the American ideas of Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) heartland, Paul Harris reports on and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-
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1902). The campaigning of these early of modern power relations. No longer feminists reveals that it was not about are private and public spheres separate, refuting the nuclear family, but shifting with rigid divisions of gendered labour, power within it. Being a wife and mother but rather, they are deeply entangled, equipped women with a superior sense where power is exercised through “a of morality and this echo is heard in plurality of resistances” (Foucault 96) Palin. In describing how she navigated in the interplay of alliances between the the squabbles and machinations of two—private/public; domestic/office; the Republican primary, she wrote, “It mother/public official. wasn’t the last time I’d find that there’s no better training ground for politics Making motherhood an explicit part than motherhood” (Going Rogue 115). of her appeal, however, inspired less solidarity than genuine confusion, Such philosophy is further witnessed in impassioned dispute, and partisan how Palin weaves seamlessly the duty snipping. It was a debate conducted of family with the obligations of high less between the sexes, than one that political office, as if her responsibility divided women. Websites like Mommy to one defines her relation to the other: Tracked (“managing the chaos of modern motherhood,” reads its tagline) Just before I left the hotel room to hit and MOMocrats, tried desperately the convention stage, on the evening to draw lessons from this historic of September 3, I noticed that Trig moment. Almost immediately the needed changing. I also noticed that debate turned away from foreign and we had run out of diapers. After a domestic policy and into a referendum frantic, hotel-wide search, someone on working mothers. On the one hand found a stack, and the last thing I there was a palpable sense of relief that did before heading down to give the at long last here was a new type of biggest speech of my life [accepting woman in politics, neither the “coiffed the vice-president nomination] was to demure stay-at-home wi[fe]” (read: change the baby. Laura Bush), nor the “angry, conflicted wom[a]n” (read: Hillary Rodham It’s the kind of thing that keeps you Clinton) (MommyTracked). “Sarah grounded. Palin’s uncontrollable brood, her zest for (Palin, Going Rogue 24) work, and her feisty tone resonate with working moms who rely on moxie to get Such an autobiography of individual through each and every rockin’ roller ambition combined with domestic coaster day of working motherhood” routine and parental responsibility not (read: you and me) (MommyTracked). only filters the moral dilemma of a highly Stories of her balancing family, work, competitive, self-serving run for high and the campaign trial became central office, but also represents a technique to any conversation about Palin. Here
79 • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • IMAGINATIONS TEA WITH MOTHER finally was “a working mom like us a flat refusal to see women as “victims” who juggles the messy chaos of ‘having needing systematic protection. The it all’” (MommyTracked). flipside of not wanting to recognise women as victims, however, is a failure to understand structural causes of There was, however, a nagging suspicion disadvantage as well as the collective that Palin made motherhood look far nature of discrimination. Motherhood too easy. She apparently returned to functions as the norm. Nothing more is work the day after giving birth to her required of it than to define its social daughter, Piper (“I took her by work value. In short, motherhood constitutes when I checked in on City Hall,” [Palin, a discourse that is morally useful, Going Rogue 76]). She signed legislation socially (re)productive, and politically into law at the kitchen table with a conservative. child in her lap. She worked 24/7 while somehow juggling childcare and with a Still, even Palin seems more than aware husband often away from home (Todd of the limits between the qualified and Palin worked for BP in the North Scope disqualified maternal body in politics. oil fields). With Trig in a sling she sat As reported on more than one occasion, through meetings, even breastfeeding she went “to extraordinary lengths unseen during conference calls. to ensure [the arrival of Trig] would MommyTracked sensed Republican not compromise her work” (Kantor, subterfuge at work: Zernike and Einhorn 2008). Few people knew that she was expecting her fifth I can almost hear the new Republican child until the third trimester. There retort to the building blocks of is always the political to consider, as working motherhood: more plentiful, Palin told People magazine, “I didn’t afford quality childcare; healthcare want Alaskans to fear I would not reimbursement for birth control; be able to fulfill my duties” (qtd, In more generous FMLA [Family and Kantor, Zernike and Einhorn 2008). Medical Leave Act] regulations; and Unfair sexism or fair game—there is no incentives for companies to offer getting away from the spectacle of the extended leaves, part-time positions, maternal body distracting the political. and flexible work schedules. What is The heavily pregnant body is saturated the big deal, ladies? If Sarah Palin can with sexuality, which Palin hid “with go without those frills, then can’t all winter clothes and a few cleverly draped of you? (MommyTracked) scarves” (Palin, Going Rogue 191). “[No] one saw my girth or suspected Palin lives the Republican message: A I was pregnant,” she recalls (Going woman can make whatever life choices Rogue 191). When she finally decided she wants because she has civil and to announce the pregnancy to the legal equality under the law and is in Anchorage press, there was an uneasy no need of preferential treatment. It is slippage between the female body and social one. IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • 80 MCCABE
“Hey guys,” I said with a grin, “I This intensification on Palin and the wanted to let you know that the First (re)productive female body as an Family is expanding.” object of knowledge and element in They all just looked at me. Dead power relations exploded further once silence her candidacy was announced. Forget Okay … let me try something else. John McCain. As soon as Palin climbed “Remember when I promised to on stage with her wholesome, hard- ‘deliver’ for Alaska?” working family the media became all Nothing … about Sarah. Figures produced by the Finally, I gave up on the jokes and Pew Research Center (2008) claim went direct: “Guys, I’m pregnant. I’m that Palin effectively squeezed out the having a baby in two months!” other stories and dominated US news Three mouths fell open, and three reports. She featured in 60 per cent of pairs of eyes dropped straight to my the campaign stories and received far stomach. (Palin, Going Rogue 192) more media attention than McCain. In keeping with Erika Falk’s findings True or not, the story highlights (and on the media bias toward women bearing in mind it is told in a political in presidential campaigns, much of memoir) a perceived shift in alliances that coverage focused on feminine from the public sphere to the private traits associated with “mothering, familial space. “Delivering” for Alaska reproduction, and emotion (the private is not only about fishery policies and sphere)” (Falk 53). Mother of five and economic growth, but also about a married to her high school sweetheart female body and its fecundity. Silence (who worked on the Alaskan oilfield, shrouds it and speaks of the lingering commercially fishes, and is the four- suspicion that the pregnant woman has time champion of the Iron Dog, a cross- no place in public political life. Eyes are country snow machine race), her fertility no longer focused on the politics, but and legitimate marriage were endlessly fall silently on the swelling abdomen. reiterated and recycled whenever No wonder Palin kept “mum” about Palin got a mention, as if nothing else leaking amniotic fluids during a keynote mattered. Her sexuality took shape, address at an oil and gas conference conceived of as a technology of power in Dallas (Palin, Going Rogue 193), that was firmly located in familial but more than willing months later to alliances. This is where she (her body, tell her story of the premature birth her fecundity) comes to have value, not and three-days of maternity leave to only in regulating her sexuality, but reporters while installing a travel crib also through making it useful as a new on the campaign bus. The political myth tactic of power on the campaign trail. embodied in the maternal ideal has more value than the corporeal reality of A central feature of the press coverage bodily discomfort and the difficulties of focused less on what Palin said (verbal the flesh. gaffs notwithstanding), but what she
81 • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • IMAGINATIONS TEA WITH MOTHER looked like. This constant surveillance Such intense focus meant that quite and policing of her image—what soon Palin became subject to another she wore, how her hair was styled— kind of objectification, translating her, corroborates Falk’s research. Stories as Kira Cochrane astutely observes, into (and always accompanied by pictures) something of a porn star. Images ranged interminably rehearsed how she had from “sexy Sarah Palin” Halloween entered a local beauty pageant in her costumes to a blow-up doll and the small Alaskan town of Wasilla and now famed doctored picture of Palin won it, including Miss Congeniality. in a stars-and-strips bikini toting a rifle The Miss Wasilla Scholarship paid her (which went viral almost instantly after college tuition, and in the following year her nomination). This kind of sexism she was crowned runner-up in the Miss underlined, for Cochrane at least, “the Alaska contest, plus Miss Congeniality. fact that any woman entering public Political campaigns are to a large degree life runs the risk of being reduced to a high-stakes image game, but even so: the most basic female stereotype that the Palin image holds up remarkably springs to mind” (17). Developing well on the front covers that sell this line of enquiry further still, the images of what Rebecca Walker calls fetishistic and mischievously tampered- “impossible contrivance[s] of perfect with images of Palin also represent womanhood” (xxxiii). It is where her what often fails to be entirely controlled looks can be dissected in infinitesimal in relation to the female body and sex. detail, her fashions endlessly discussed In the way in which her body became and critiqued. In a previous article I “thoroughly saturated with sexuality” observed the following: (Foucault 104)—beauty contestant, five pregnancies—her sex became at Intoxicatingly presented, persuasively one level detached from its systems offered as saying something important of familial alliance and jurisdiction. about female accomplishment, her Instead it passed into the public [objectification] is embedded in and sphere, which codified her flesh and through dominant norms defining pathologised her body as fantasy and the feminine self, her body (slender, erotic desire. Opened up unreservedly to athletic, attractive, youthful—and endless and unremitting media scrutiny not forgetting that trademark smile), turned her body-as-image into trivial her lifestyle choices (wife, “hockey titillation and taboo. The pornification mom”, working mother). Never mind of Palin, and in particular ‘her’ wearing the lurid headlines, or that she cannot an American flag bikini brandishing help but polarise the US electorate weaponry, reveals how aspects of the with her political beliefs, she looked Palin image (particularly centered on perfect. (McCabe, “In the Feminine class and region) escape the alliances Ideal”). which empower her. As Patrick Kinsman wrote: “The Photoshopped Palin image is not about feminism or equality, but
IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • 82 MCCABE sex objects with weapons—whether it a son that was really her grandson. is critique or not.” This ironic image However, it was not long before another, aimed to parody Palin’s “abstinence- more prurient media story took its only stance and her support of the Iraq place. In the era of 24-hour cable news war” (Kinsman), but with its purpose and social networking nothing remains no longer given over exclusively to secret for long. Only days after Palin (re)production and familial alliance, was nominated as the Republican vice- her body is deprived of its privilege. It presidential choice, news broke that her becomes perverse and disqualifies her unwed 17-year-old daughter was five- in the process. months pregnant by her high-school boyfriend, Levi Johnson, 18. “Who Few however came to her defense: wants to talk about boring policy when neither Republicans nor Democrats. we can talk about teens and sex and Columnist Nick Cohen voiced his pregnancy?” lamented Rebecca Traister surprise about how liberal journalists (“Palin”). The Republicans immediately almost unflinchingly and immediately turned the unplanned teen pregnancy turned her family into “an object of into a living testament of Palin’s anti- sexual disgust: inbred rednecks who abortion, pro-life stance. But in the had stumbled out of Deliverance” (34). heartland of America where puritanical Not even feminists could quite muster values are the norm and unwed mothers enough indignation about the misogyny unpopular, the Republican message aimed at Palin. She indeed proves a sallied forth that the young couple were difficult woman to defend. From the in love, committed to having the baby, story of how she as governor supported and would soon marry. News of the law enforcement agencies charging for pregnancy registered widely with the rape kits to her pro-life values, Palin’s public according to the Pew Research views stand at an alarming distance Center (2008), which reported that from any discernible women’s rights 69 per cent knew about it, therefore agenda. As Jessica Valenti put it, “Palin is making it one of the top campaign alleging sexism … while simultaneously stories—and further drowning out relying on sexist notions of women in the other political messages. It did in politics.” fact appear, as Traister rued, that this history-making moment for women “A race that began as The West Wing had become hijacked by the “uterine now looks alarmingly like Desperate activity” (“Palin”) of the Palin clan. Housewives,” declared Jonathan An image of this Alaskan family as a Freedland in the Guardian. Rarely “hotbed of constant sexual incitement” has a politician provoked such an (Foucault 109) thus emerged. It avalanche of media and followed became an object of intense media so swiftly by scandal and Internet obsession and (pleasurable) attraction, rumour. Speculation quickly gathered a site of “discovered” sexual secrets, momentum of a fake pregnancy and whereby this family had to open itself
83 • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • IMAGINATIONS TEA WITH MOTHER unreservedly to endless outside scrutiny. the socially conservative agenda of the In so doing, this process called Palin’s strong evangelical base. mothering into question in the analysis it made of her. No critique of Palin is possible without understanding the culture wars raging Such headlines have the potential to in the United States. Throughout the torpedo any political campaign. If presidential campaign (and beyond), anything, however, the news that Bristol she remained a highly visible public was expecting her first child initially figure with those social conservative helped her mother’s campaign. When Republican values perceptibly the pregnancy was first announced it inscribed across her maternal body— contributed to a 4 per cent Republican her handicapped son testimony to her lead in the polls. Palin may not have pro-life convictions. She is, in fact, personally approved the officialher pro-family, pro-life, anti-abortion message (according to her memoir), but convictions. So powerful is that nonetheless later wrote: “Todd and I maternal image that nothing more needs were proud of Bristol’s selfless decision to be said. Some time ago I wrote about to have her baby and her determination Palin and how her media image almost to deal with difficult circumstances by mesmerizingly represents a “feminine taking responsibility for her actions” ideal, which is compelling enough (Going Rogue 234; emphasis mine). to psychically entangle us and from Young motherhood thus emerges as which we are not entirely able to free a responsible social decision that is ourselves” (McCabe, “In the Feminine preferable to abortion. It is presented as Ideal”). When we talk of Sarah Palin, a wholesome alterative to termination, we cannot seem to stop talking about an ethical choice that speaks of kinship her gender—her procreative abilities, and familial values rather than family her pro-life choices and anti-abortion breakdown. What did emerge with stance, her balancing motherhood the Bristol pregnancy, however, was with politics. It is for these reasons a broader cultural attack on women’s that she so seductively embodies, rights from both sides of the political what Rebecca Traister describes as, “a spectrum. On the liberal left, the issue form of feminine power that is utterly was used to highlight the value of a digestible” (“Zombie Feminists”). This woman’s right to choose, but also power is not merely about partisan party stressed the need for proper access to politics (and rarely does it translate birth control and sex education, budgets into something real), but nonetheless for which had been drastically reduced remains profoundly political. It is because of the Bush administration “utterly digestible” because what she policy of funding abstinence-only represents exacts a keen normalising programmes. On the right, the teen hold over us, shaped and “inscribed” pregnancy was exploited to promote as it is with the imprint of prevailing
IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • 84 MCCABE historical and political forms of discursive power that manage and animate our perception and experience of what that might mean.
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service than mothering” (Going Rogue Between 2008 and the following 342). Palin may stand as an outsider, a presidential cycle in 2012 one could lone voice on the edges of her political not open a newspaper or switch on the party, but she is always “inside” power. television without seeing the many faces Her interchange of sexuality and of Sarah Palin—politician, celebrity, TV familial alliance, charged with parental pundit, reality TV star. and conjugal obligations, speaks Laurie Ouellette observes the following: directly to a moral and socio-economic consciousness. Her performance of More than any political figure to date, mothering and motherhood forms “a Palin translates the traditional voter- political ordering of life” (Foucault 123) political relationship into the logic while affirming the importance of that of fandom and branding. She invites self in maintaining it. It is a discourse her rightwing political constituents to that transmits and is an effect of power, track and consume her appearances but it is also limited, making it possible and products across print, electronic, to thwart what she represents as a and digital media, and she thus directly consequence. profits from their participation in convergence culture. (190) When I started writing this paper following the symposium “Media and Palin looks comfortable sitting alongside Mothers Matters” at the University of her two daughters chatting with Oprah Winchester in October 2011 Palin had Winfrey, or touring the American yet to announce whether or not she heartlands in a bus with her family, was going to run for the presidency. signing copies of her book in places Soon after Palin declared that she like Grand Rapids, Michigan, as she would not and another woman was tests the waters for a presidential run. electrifying the radical right of the She even had her own reality TV show, Republican Party. Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin’s Alaska (TLC, 2010-11), who announced her run for the White in which fish, family, and faith figured House in June 2011, eclipsed Palin as prominently. We may know that the the new darling of the Tea Party. She Tea Party refers to the 1773 events in was an evangelical, whose husband ran Boston when colonists defied the British a controversial Christian counselling over tea taxation, with their direct service. Like Palin, Bachmann also action (dumping tea into the harbour) made enormous political capital from effectively igniting the American her role as mother to a large brood: Revolution. But, with our postmodern five biological children and more than historical amnesia we might somehow 20 foster children. However, Bachmann be fooled. Tea Party gatherings look never embodied the feminine ideal in more like family picnics than political quite the same way as Palin and she rallies, and it is where Palin reminds soon dropped out of the race—along her eager audience “there is no greater with her nonsensical ideas (such as
IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • 86 MCCABE blaming President Barack Obama for theguardian.com/politics/blog/2009/ swine flu). sep/03/mckinsey-nhs-sarah-palin
Traditional boundaries between political Fig.2. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/ campaign, media event, and celebrity Reuters, Sarah Palin hugs her son Trig, become blurred with Sarah Palin; or, as who has Down’s syndrome, after her she would put it: “You betcha.” Since address to the 2008 Republican National her surprise nomination in 2008 Palin Convention, 2008. http://www. has consistently confounded pundits dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125458/ and set perceived political wisdom on Clare-Short-facing-criticism-use-word- its head. Yet her particular austerity mongol-Radio-4-interview-children- brand of post feminism does not unite Downs-syndrome.html voters and her choice to combine motherhood with a demanding job Fig. 3. Photograph: Anonymous user failed to win the White House. It is a “am0n.” The Girl and The Gun— question of the politics of the body, Sarah Palin photoshopped. http:// subject to reproductive function, but www.flickr.com/photos/97897149@ also an entire machinery that both N00/2818816914 qualifies and disqualifies the female body dependent on its uses. She may Fig. 4. USA Weekend, Cover story: look like her socially fiscal conservative Sarah Palin and Family, May 6, agenda, but that does not translate into 2010. http://www.usaweekend.com/ her looking like a leader. Carol Moseley article/20100507/HOME/100507001/ Braun, who ran for president in 2004 but was knocked out in the first round, Works Cited said it best when she stated: “The script hasn’t been written yet. The visual don’t Beecher, Catharine. The American exist for a woman in leadership” (qtd. Woman’s Home; or Principles of In Goldenberg 43). In looking at how Domestic Science. New York: J.B. Ford, Palin politicized mothering and the 1870. mother as an ideal in political life, this article has offered insight into why we Cochrane, Kira. “Fair Game?” are still waiting. Guardian 24 Oct. 2008: G2, 16-17. 20 Sept. 2013
87 • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • IMAGINATIONS TEA WITH MOTHER uselections2008.republicans2008>. ______“McCain Forced into Supporting Role on Tour as Republican Crowds Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never Flock to Palin.” Guardian 11 Sept. Were: American Families and the 2008: 20. 3 Dec. 2011 <(http://www. Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic, 1992. guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/11/ uselections2008.johnmccain>. Cummings, Jeanne. “RNC Shells Out Harris, Paul. The Return of St. Sarah.” $150K for Palin Fashion.” Politico 21 The Guardian, 20 Nov, 2009, 32 Oct. 2008. 20 Sept. 2013
Palin in Dayton, Ohio.” New York Times 2008. 20 Sept. 2013 89 • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • IMAGINATIONS TEA WITH MOTHER co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/ nov/19/hockey-mom-or-president- palin>. Walker, Rebecca. “Being Real: An Introduction,” To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism. Ed. Rebecca Walker. New York: Doubleday, 1995, xxix-xl Wolf, Noami. Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century. New York: Random, 1993. Bio Janet McCabe is Lecturer in Film, Janet McCabe est lecturer en études des Television and Creative Industries at films, de la télévision, et des industries Birkbeck, University of London. She de la création à l’Université Birkbeck edits Critical Studies in Television and de Londres. Elle est éditrice de Critical has written widely on feminism, cultural Studies in Television et a écrit sur le memory / politics and television. She féminisme, la mémoire culturelle et co-edited several collections, including politique de la télévision. Elle a coédité Quality TV: Contemporary American plusieurs ouvrages collectifs, dont TV and Beyond (2007) and Reading Sex Quality TV: Contemporary American and the City (2004), and her latest works TV and Beyond (2007) et Reading Sex include The West Wing (2012) and TV’s and the City (2004). Ses plus récents Betty Goes Global: From Telenovela to travaux sont The West Wing (2012) International Brand (2012; co-edited et TV’s Betty Goes Global: From with Kim Akass). j.mccabe@bbk. Telenovela to International Brand ac.uk IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 4 - 2, 2013 • 90