Gender Schemas and the Public/Private Paradoxes Surrounding the Bristol Palin Pregnancy Story Erin Schmidt

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2009 Impregnating Politics: Gender Schemas and the Public/Private Paradoxes Surrounding the Bristol Palin Pregnancy Story Erin Schmidt

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION

IMPREGNATING POLITICS: GENDER SCHEMAS AND THE PUBLIC/PRIVATE

PARADOXES SURROUNDING THE BRISTOL PALIN PREGNANCY STORY

ERIN SCHMIDT

A Thesis submitted to the College of Communication and Information in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Degree awarded: Summer Semester, 2009

The members of the committee approve the thesis of Erin Schmidt defended on July 7, 2009.

______Donna Nudd Professor Directing Thesis

______Davis Houck Committee Member

______Jeanette Castillo Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express the deepest appreciation to Dr. Donna Marie Nudd, who has served not only as a dedicated committee chair but also as a respected mentor and friend during my time at Florida State University. Without her support and guidance this work would not be possible.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to my committee members: Dr. Davis Houck, who made me a better scholar by asking the tough questions and believing in my capabilities; and Dr. Jeanette Castillo, whose expertise in the area of netizen discourse and enthusiasm for the project kept me focused and energized.

I am grateful for the support of faculty, staff, and colleagues I have worked with in the Department of Communication at Florida State University. From the staff, I would like to extend special thanks to Ms. Hinson-Turner for her care and attention.

I would be remiss to forget the person who started me on this journey: my undergraduate mentor, Dr. Sook-Young Lee. Thank you for sparking my curiosity and building a solid foundation for successful graduate study.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Harry and Linda, for helping their first- generation college student aspire to greater heights. Their unfaltering love, patience, and support convince me that I am the luckiest daughter alive.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... v

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1.1 Review of Literature ...... 3 1.1.1 Situating Teen Pregnancy within a Discourse of Reproductive Control ...... 3 1.1.2 Historical Trends in the Discourse on Teen Pregnancy ...... 5 1.1.3 The “Epidemic” of Teen Pregnancy ...... 5 1.1.4 The “Moral Majority” ...... 6 1.1.5 Contemporary Cultural Discourse on Teen Pregnancy ...... 7 1.2 Questions for Research ...... 9 1.3 Theoretical Considerations ...... 9 1.3.1 Feminist Theory and the Public and Private Spheres ...... 10 1.3.2 Gender Schemas...... 11 1.4 Methodology ...... 12

2. WOMEN’S WORK: SARAH PALIN, MOTHERHOOD, AND STATESMANSHIP ...... 15

2.1 The Good Mother ...... 16 2.2 Mothering a Nation ...... 20 2.3 Mother Knows Best ...... 23

3. BRISTOL PALIN, TEEN PREGNANCY, AND THE PUBLIC/PRIVATE DICHOTOMY ...... 26

3.1 Private Lives ...... 26 3.1.1 “Not Another Welfare Mom” ...... 30 3.1.2 Morality Cops ...... 31 3.1.3 What’s the Deal with “Baby Daddy”? ...... 34 3.1.4 White Trash Tragedy ...... 35 3.2 Situating the Pregnancy in the Public Sphere ...... 37

4. CONCLUSION ...... 43

REFERENCES ...... 47

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 51

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was fourfold: first, to analyze reader evaluations of Sarah Palin’s role in the pregnancy as mother and statesperson; second, to identify and examine the major rhetorical strategies used to position Bristol Palin as either a private or public subject; third, to identify the schemas, or stereotypes, employed in discussions about Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy and how these schemas were reinforced, negotiated, and/or rejected through reader discourse; and fourth, to understand how these rhetorical themes implicate and influence the metadiscourse surrounding teen pregnancy in the United States. To investigate these questions, a feminist rhetorical analysis was performed on reader responses to the news of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy from a sample consisting of conservative, liberal, and popular internet news sites.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

When a statement released by the McCain campaign headquarters on September 1, 2008 announced that the seventeen-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was pregnant, it sparked media frenzy on a national scale. The story provoked commentary from diverse segments of the population – from liberal feminists to Christian coalitions; entertainment media to political pundits. Within a matter of hours, “Bristol” became a household name. From a feminist perspective, one of the most fascinating and troubling aspects of the Bristol Palin story is the unmistakable tension it created between the public and private sphere. Since the 1960s, the topic of teen pregnancy has secured a firm, if precarious, foothold in public policy debates. For many citizens, news of Palin’s daughter’s unplanned pregnancy was an appropriate catalyst for a renewed examination of current policy debates regarding topics such as sex education curricula and the availability of contraceptives to minors. It seemed especially relevant in light of Governor Palin’s support of initiatives such as abstinence-only sex education and her influential involvement in the pro-life women’s rights group Feminists for America (Emerling, 2008). Furthermore, many cited Palin’s willingness to thrust her daughter into the public spotlight as ample justification for public commentary. While for many the topic of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy seemed a legitimate platform for public policy debate and a closer examination of Palin’s ethos as a public servant, many others argued that protecting the teenager’s privacy should trump all other concerns. Spokespeople from both McCain and Obama camps called for a “hands-off” media approach to the sordid affair. Obama “warned the media to ‘back off’ any criticism of Bristol's pregnancy and told reporters that families – especially children – should be off limits during the presidential campaign” (Emerling, 2008, p. A1). A spokesperson for McCain told the Los Angeles Times that, "It's a private family matter. Life happens in families. If people try to politicize this, the American people will be appalled by it" (Barabak, 2008, p. A1).

However, such calls for decorum and civility did nothing to quell the heated debate and commentary that ensued. In a Washington Post editorial, Ruth Marcus observes, “It's naive to imagine, in the anything-goes Internet era, that Palin's daughter's pregnancy would go unremarked upon…Like it or not, Bristol Palin's pregnancy is intertwined with an important public policy debate about which the two parties differ and on which Sarah Palin has been outspoken” (2008, p. A15). The rhetorical implications of the Bristol Palin story are not limited solely to questions of how it influenced public policy discourse regarding teen pregnancy. As CNN contributor Roland Martin points out, it “didn’t stop some folks from trying to score political points” (2008). Indeed, the story presented an interesting dilemma for both political parties. Could (and should) the Bristol Palin story be used as political fodder? How would the McCain campaign frame the story to maintain support among conservative Christians (one of its key constituencies)? How should the left respond? Beyond the challenges and opportunities the story presented in terms of political maneuverings and party rhetoric, the story compelled many ordinary citizens to voice their opinions about various aspects of the affair, including Sarah Palin’s decision to accept the vice presidential nomination, consequently exposing her daughter to public scrutiny both nationally and internationally. This commentary also converged with constructions of Bristol Palin in a broader popular culture context. Bristol Palin became quickly conflated with other “pregnant teen celebs,” fictitious or otherwise. Suddenly, it seemed that talk of teen pregnancy became talk about three leading ladies in the national spotlight: Jamie Lynn Spears, teen celebrity; Juno, cinematic heroine; and Bristol Palin, the politician’s daughter. Due to the questions it raised about the ephemeral line between the public and private sphere, the political implications and maneuverings it presented, and the rise of Bristol Palin to teen pregnancy celebrity status, the Bristol Palin pregnancy story makes for an interesting and relevant case study on the rhetorical politics of teen pregnancy in contemporary culture.

1.1 Review of Literature

Adolescent sexuality – especially teen pregnancy – is a heavily politicized phenomenon in the United States. As a microcosm of a larger debate on sexuality, the topic of teen pregnancy has also become political grounds for battling ideologies. These conflicting ideologies have fought for strongholds in policy initiatives and reforms in areas such as welfare, sex education curricula and parental consent laws regarding contraception and abortion rights. As Luker (2006) comments, “Sex, which is usually tightly controlled by cultural norms, often provides the ideal arena where contesting groups can fight out their differences in what social scientists call “symbolic politics” (p. 216). The pregnant teen body is a complex site wherein issues of morality, sexuality, reproductive control, public policy and social welfare simultaneously converge and overlap. Because cultural values regarding teenage pregnancy and motherhood are inextricably tied to the political aims and dominant discourses of state institutions (Holgate and Evans, 2006), a discussion of the discourse surrounding teen pregnancy requires a cross-sectional examination of how the phenomenon is situated within various institutional discourses.

1.1.1. Situating Teen Pregnancy Within A Discourse of Reproductive Control The history of reproductive control in the United States reveals one fascinating pattern across time: the attempt among policymakers to encourage childbearing among the “fit” segments of society and curtail reproduction among those segments deemed to be “unfit” (Luker, 1996). From nineteenth century sterilization laws targeting African and Native Americans, the poor, and the mentally disabled (Reilly, 1991) to legislation such as the Comstock Act (1873) that effectively halted the trade of contraceptive supplies in an effort to stop affluent white women from “selfishly evading their womanly duties” (Luker, 1996, p. 45), issues of gender, race and class have proven to be powerful determinants in the state’s conference of the “right” to reproduce in society. Issues of class have also historically been conflated with issues of morality where sexual reproduction is concerned. In the 1800s, higher fertility rates among the poor were pointed to as proof of sexual recklessness and inferior social values, reinforcing the ideology that sexual

control is linked to economic success (Rosenberg, 1973; Luker, 1996). As Rosenberg (1973) writes, “public health advocates assumed that sexual license was characteristic of slum life and, like drink, one of those traits which kept the poor poor. The rich too were, consolingly, seen in these mythic categories as victims of sensuality, of a chronic moral decay” (p. 144). Interestingly, this perceived marriage between moral virtue and economic prosperity continues to be legitimated in modern society. It is perhaps most clearly evidenced by the religious right’s legacy of the “moral majority” in contemporary politics, wherein “sexual control and purity are associated with ‘good morals’ and economic success in a newer version of an older, Victorian sexual ideology” (Doan and Williams, 2008, p. 70). With the increase in technology and availability of contraceptive devices, reproductive discourse has undergone a transformation from a discourse of institutional control to one of perceived self control: “Now that pregnancy has become a ‘choice,’ many middle-class women, most politicians, and others define the good choice maker as the woman who has earned the right to exercise choice properly by having enough money to be a legitimate and proper mother…as middle-class women have claimed reproductive privacy for themselves…they have too frequently allowed the fertile bodies of women without private resources to be assessed and condemned in the public sphere” (Solinger, 2005, p. 217).

This emphasis on self-control puts the burden on the individual woman to control her own reproduction. Ruhl (2002) describes it as a kind of social contract, wherein women must “uphold their end of the bargain of reproductive freedom: contraception in exchange for a guarantee to act “responsibly” where reproductive decision are concerned” (p. 656). This presents an interesting dilemma where teen pregnancy in concerned, for many teens are situated in a space where they do not yet have the privilege of full autonomy. Because accessibility to contraceptives and abortion is limited for many sexually active young women, they are denied the agency to act responsibly, yet condemned when they “fail” to exhibit reproductive control. The discourse of reproductive control in the United States is important to an understanding of the institutionalized discourse of teen pregnancy, as the two often intertwine and overlap in public policy debates regarding adolescent motherhood.

1.1.2 Historical Trends in the Discourse on Teen Pregnancy In the midst of a civil rights movement, a sexual revolution and a deeply unpopular foreign war that provoked the largest youth countercultural response in United States history, politicians and policymakers were waging another kind of war on the home front. In his 1965 Howard University commencement speech, President Lyndon Johnson laid the groundwork for the legislative reforms that would eventually be known as the “War on Poverty.” Citing the breakdown of the African American family as the primary cause of black poverty, Johnson called for income assistance programs, increased employment opportunities and home subsidies to curb the “circle of despair and deprivation” (Bensonsmith, 2005) entrenching African American communities. Earlier that year, the controversial Moynihan Report (1965) commissioned by the Johnson administration identified the deterioration of the black family – characterized by conditions such as matriarchal households and illegitimate pregnancies – as the primary source of black poverty and crime (Bensonsmith, 2005). While seemingly beneficent in purpose, the public policy discourse surrounding the expansion of the welfare state created lasting negative repercussions where issues of race and gender were concerned. The most residual image of this discourse was the invention of the “welfare queen:” "…in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty came a new construction of welfare and its recipients. Although statistically untrue, welfare became viewed largely as a black program. In national discourse the dominant, promiscuous, and lazy black woman replaced the innocent white widow as the primary stereotype of the average welfare recipient" (Bensonsmith, 2005, p. 256).

With increased sexual activity among teenagers and demographic data showing that out-of- wedlock births were on the rise (Luker, 1996), teenagers were also beginning to receive consideration as a segment of the population who were at risk of unwanted fertility and cyclical poverty. Eventually, the image of the welfare queen converged with the image of the pregnant teen: “Public perceptions that more and more children were being born out of wedlock, particularly to urban African American women, and the reality that early marriages were quite fragile led people to worry about how young women would support themselves and their children” (Luker, 1996, p. 63).

1.1.3 The “Epidemic” of Teen Pregnancy In 1978, Senator Edward Kennedy introduced legislation that not only constituted the first official recognition of teen pregnancy as a social problem, but also set parameters for the

issue that would influence debate and policy for the next two decades (Luker, 1996). The Adolescent Health, Services, and Pregnancy Prevention and Care Act, which proposed government funding for family planning and educational services to reduce the incidence of pregnancy among adolescent females, received considerable support from both sides of the aisle. During the hearings for the bill, the discourse consistently situated teen pregnancy as a growing national problem, a fundamental cause of poverty and an indication of grim prospects for both mother and child. Democratic Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey summed up the tone of the hearings well when he stated, “The young mother…faces a bleak future – limited employment prospects, poor chances of developing a meaningful career, and lifelong difficulties in providing financial support for herself and her child” (Hearings on S.2910, 1978, p. 1). However, the initiative proved inefficient in solving the teen pregnancy problem. Though members on both sides of the political spectrum seemed to be in agreement that teen pregnancy was a national epidemic and advocated for increased contraception and sexual education programs, teen pregnancy rates continued to rise throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s (Luker, 1996). As conservative ideology began to gain momentum in Washington, a new discourse began to unfold in the teen pregnancy debates.

1.1.4 “The Moral Majority” The landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling was a pivotal turning point in political rhetoric surrounding abortion in the United States. While the liberal left celebrated over the seemingly victorious blow to the religious and political right, pro-choice politicians and activists underestimated the conservative right’s intentions to fight back (Thomas and Beckel, 2007). After a decade of lackluster leadership in the White House, religious conservatives saw possibility in the GOP’s nomination of Reagan for president in the 1980 election. Jerry Falwell, a young fundamentalist pastor from Virginia, led the movement to align the fundamentalist and conservative churches in America with conservative politicians in the Republican Party. When Paul Weyrich, a Roman Catholic and president of the conservative Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, suggested that there was a “moral majority out there in the country,” Falwell responded, “That’s it. We’ll call it ‘The Moral Majority’” (Thomas and Beckel, 2007, p. 107). Armed with a new rhetorical focus, the conservative right began to wage a new stage in the war on reproductive rights.

The “moral majority” that took hold in the governing bodies of the United States in the early eighties spawned a family values movement that drastically changed the discourse surrounding teen pregnancy in the United States. Abstinence-only sex education programs were heavy with moral undertones. Children across American were taught that sex before marriage was morally wrong, that chastity and self-discipline were the only way to safeguard oneself against unwanted pregnancy and disease, and that sexual activity posed serious dangers to a teenager’s overall health (Rose, 2005). In addition to a shifting of discourse on teen pregnancy toward issues of morality, the link between morality and economics as far as sex was concerned was reinvented in the 1980s: “Economic conservatives wishing to dismantle the New Deal safety net and moral conservatives offended by government subsidies of nonmarital sex transformed the issue into a referendum on teen pregnancy, single motherhood, and ‘welfare queens,’ all the while implying that the problem was one of immorality and irresponsibility among people of color…[T]he charge of sexual impropriety shaped a policy debate in a way that statistical evidence could not” (D’Emilio & Freedman, 1997, 375–376).

1.1.5 Contemporary Cultural Discourse on Teen Pregnancy Several discursive legacies remain from these historical and political shifts in cultural talk about teen pregnancy. Cherrington and Breheny (2005) summarize contemporary discourse on teen pregnancy well when they note that, “presently the constitution of the subject – and therefore the experience – is through a dominant theme of failure (individual and/or cultural) and/or deviancy” (p.106). On an individual level, this failure has been characterized most sharply in the image of the pregnant teen as morally and sexually deviant. In what often symbolizes a “gross and public departure from ‘good’ woman status” (Vance, 1984, p. 4), the pregnant teenage woman is a visual embodiment of deviant behavior. As Kelly (1999) states, “For people concerned about changing family structures, gender relations, and sexual ‘permissiveness,’ teen mothers represent adolescent female sexuality out of control” (p. 52). The failure has also been positioned as the inability of the teen mother to properly care for her child. The popularity of phrases such as “children having children” and “babies having babies” to describe adolescent mothers (Luker, 1996; Cocca, 2002) reflects and reinstates the cultural notion that teenage girls are ill-equipped to face the responsibilities of being a mother. Generally regarded as socially and emotionally immature and economically disadvantaged, teen

mothers constitute a segment of the reproductive population who “fail to meet normative expectations of the role of mothering” and are inevitably “positioned as the deviant ‘other’ and considered to be unfit to parent” (Huntington and Wilson, 2005, p. 61). A degree of paternalism is also evident in this discourse, for as Luker (1996) writes, “‘Babies’ who had babies were themselves victims; they needed protection from their own ungovernable impulses” (p. 85). On an institutional and cultural level, there is now widespread agreement that teen pregnancy is an outcome of, or a strong correlate of, poverty, disadvantage and/or a lack of opportunities (Geronimus, 1991; Furstenberg, 1991; Fergusson and Woodward, 2000; Smithbattle, 2000). As a result of this connection between teen pregnancy and deprivation, the majority of textual talk about pregnancy in ‘developed’ countries identifies teen pregnancies as undesirable and consistently favors a shifting of social norms to older childbearing (Singh and Darroch, 2000; Woodward, Horwood and Fergusson, 2001). Analysis of contemporary political discourse on teen pregnancy has shown that liberal and conservative ideologies differ in how cultural and institutional failures are constructed. Vlaicu (2002) comments that, “what for liberals is a public health problem, resolved through prevention and education, for conservatives reflects adolescents losing their faith and ‘moral sense’” (p. 85). Many within the “pro-family” movement see this decline in morals as indicative of a wider societal decay; thus, the problem exists on an institutional level and can be remedied with the introduction of a new moral order to be carried out by state institutions and the family (Cocca, 2002). Still, the diverging discourses do meet at a firm crossroad: the overwhelming agreement that teen pregnancy is a problem. Geronimus’s (1997) observation that concern about teenage motherhood is shared by individuals from both ends of the political spectrum suggests a common underlying factor. The privileging of Western values such as economic prosperity and social status explains, on the one hand, conservative backlash against the economic strain teen motherhood imposes on the state and on the other, the concern among liberals for increased sex education and pregnancy prevention programs. With these historical trends in teen pregnancy discourse and the unique circumstances surrounding Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy in mind, the following research questions were posed:

1.2 Questions for Research

1. What gender schemas were reinforced, negotiated, or rejected in reader evaluations of Sarah Palin’s dual roles as mother and public figure following the news of her daughter’s pregnancy? 2. What rhetorical strategies were used to situate Bristol Palin as either a private or political subject? 3. What schemas, or stereotypes, about teen pregnancy were reinforced, negotiated, or rejected through citizen discourse? 4. How do these rhetorical themes reflect, redefine or challenge dominant cultural discourse surrounding teen pregnancy and motherhood in the United States?

1.3 Theoretical Considerations

Several theoretical considerations informed the analysis of cultural discourse surrounding Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. In The Symbolic Uses of Politics, Edelman (1985) suggests that, “transitory political acts or events in the news commonly mean different things to different groups of spectators, dividing men [sic] rather than uniting them. Every event comes to be see as part of a pattern, though groups with conflicting political interests see the patterns differently” (p. 12). At the core of this assumption is the notion that individuals or groups will draw upon the pre-existing vocabulary of their own value systems when developing opinions about an isolated political event or story. It is important to keep this assumption in mind, because the Bristol Palin story does, after all, constitute an isolated political event in contemporary culture. From this assumption, it follows that if one can identify the vocabularies used by various groups when engaging in discourse about a particular event and examine how these vocabularies function rhetorically, one is able to achieve greater insight into the value systems that shape those vocabularies. This is in keeping with Condit’s (1990) observation that within the realm of public discourse, rhetors “advance claims on ‘the nation’ couched in terms of major values” and that to be successful, the process of convincing requires that “a given vocabulary (or set of understandings) be integrated into the public repertoire” (p. 6). Thus, while cultural texts reflect and reinforce established vocabularies, they also have the potential to introduce new vocabularies or negotiate existing ones.

1.3.1 Feminist Theory and the Public and Private Spheres The debate on teen pregnancy is an ideological battlefield; to preserve or defend their own value systems, rhetors advance claims using a range of rhetorical arsenal. One type of ammunition is the rhetoric of the personal and the political. Many facets of the teen pregnancy debate – issues of reproductive choice, sex and reproductive health education, parental notification laws, and funding for family planning and access to birth control – highlight the gray areas that exist between the personal and the political and exacerbate the ongoing discursive struggles to define the spaces of “private” and “public”. Higgins (2000) identifies two distinct meanings associated with feminist theory on the private/public dichotomy. The first is “decisional privacy,” a concept related to individual autonomy and personal choice. The second, “spatial privacy,” refers to the sanctity of the domestic sphere and the protection of family and home against government intervention or regulation (p. 848). As explored in the following analysis, issues related to both decisional and spatial privacy were pushed to the foreground in the Bristol Palin pregnancy debate. The distinction between private and public has long been a source of contention for feminist theorists, many of whom see the demarcation as problematic and antithetical to the struggle for female autonomy and agency. The phrase “the personal is political” highlights this critique. Feminist critiques of spatial privacy argue that a constitutionally-protected private sphere, impenetrable by state regulation, results in a domain in which women are physically vulnerable and subject to patriarchal insubordination. For many feminists, the domestic sphere is the heart of a thriving patriarchal power structure; to allow for unfettered patriarchal control of the domestic sphere would only result in further entrenching women in the structure. With regards to decisional privacy, feminists who see this distinction as problematic emphasize that this right of privacy “undervalues private inequality and overstates individual autonomy” (p. 851). The right to decisional privacy suggests that all persons enjoy autonomy within the private sphere and are free agents of choice. Hence, relationships and roles that are, in fact, often involuntary within the private sphere (i.e. a woman’s role as mother or caretaker) are assumed to be adopted voluntarily under this framework. As Higgins notes, these critiques suggest that feminists have very little use for the notion that the private sphere is deserving of protection from state regulation. However, recent feminist critiques on the private/public dichotomy have begun to reconsider and reconfigure the notions

of decisional and spatial privacy in ways that recognize the shortcomings as well as the potential benefits of a woman’s right to privacy. For example, Fineman (1995) has called for a restructuring of the notion of “family” as a private entity. Fineman argues that traditional constructions have situated the family as a private entity either on the grounds that it is the site of relational intimacy or that it is a voluntary union of autonomous individuals. In the context of the modern family, both of these constructions can be harmful and/or disempowering for women. Fineman therefore rejects a definition of privacy that shields domestic violence from the scrutiny of the state. However, Fineman also sees the usefulness of the right of privacy where matters of the family are concerned, especially in the cases of nontraditional family structures (such as single motherhood and gay partnerships) that have not enjoyed the same protections from government regulation as traditional nuclear family structures. Therefore, Fineman suggests that the notion of family privacy be reconfigured to allow for the protection of individuals who have become increasingly vulnerable to state regulation in many aspects of their lives. An analysis of the public/private debate regarding Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy necessitates an exploration of some of these core tensions between personal autonomy, the notion of family as a private entity, and the role of the government in regulating the private.

1.3.2 Gender Schemas Valian’s theory of gender schemas (1999) will also be employed to inform the analysis of Governor Palin’s aptitude in the private and political sphere as well as the rhetorical constructions of Bristol Palin, the pregnant teen. Valian describes gender schemas as the “set of implicit, or nonconscious, hypotheses about sex differences” that “may contain primarily positive characteristics, mostly negative ones, only neutral ones, or some combination of all three” (p. 2). Furthermore, these implicit ideas about men and women as a whole condition our reaction to men and women as individuals. A core tenant of Valian’s theory is that gender schemas are often unarticulated, usually unconsciously applied, and may even be disavowed by those who employ them. Recognizing these latent perceptions requires active effort. It should also be noted that schemas differ from stereotypes. As Valian notes, the latter implies that there is something fundamentally wrong with having such concepts. But schemas are a natural and essential byproduct of human interaction; they help humans to organize meaning and make sense of the world. It is the errors that

“inadvertently creep into the formation, maintenance, and application of schemas” that merit critical attention (p. 3). The notion of schemas will also be extended beyond issues of gender to include those schemas that implicate issues of race and class, as the existing literature on teen pregnancy suggests that dominant discourse surrounding teen pregnancy is implicated by both of these dynamics. Schemas provide a useful conceptual framework for an analysis of the evaluation of Governor Palin and the assumptions used to construct Bristol Palin as either a private or public subject.

1.4 Method

To research the various political and social implications of citizen discourse surrounding Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy, the researcher chose to analyze reader responses to major online news sites covering the story. Why is the vernacular discourse of online citizens important to analyze? Ono and Sloop (2002) offer several legitimate reasons. First, it provides an opportunity to access and analyze “outlaw” voices, those voices that are often left out of mainstream mediated discussions. It is the outlaw voices, Sloop and Ono contend, that present the most promising opportunities for social change. Analyzing the ways in which outlaw voices interact with the dominant discourse surrounding a particular issue also illustrates how easily these rogue voices can be usurped or mitigated by the prevailing discourse. Additionally, vernacular discourse offers new insight into how a political event or action is shaped, both rhetorically and communicatively, by the populace. The Internet has created new opportunities to analyze vernacular discourse. Online communities provide unique spaces for citizens to construct political identities (Mouffe, 2000, p. 43) and to establish rhetorical communities with other online citizens. Zhou and Moy (2000) describe these communities as sites where “netizens” continually reshape and define citizen discourse, providing a continuously evolving barometer of public opinion. Because of the political nature of the story, it was important that the sample represent a cross-section of political ideologies. However, because the study is more concerned with the broader cultural discourse surrounding the pregnancy, it was also important that the sample represent the dialogue of citizens who did not use online political platforms to voice their responses to the pregnancy. To ensure that the sample represented a cross-section of both

popular and political platforms, data collection was broken down into three categories: liberal, conservative, and popular news and blog sites. One blog website, one magazine website, and one broadcast news website were chosen for each category. Liberal sites selected were The Huffington Post (blog), The Nation (magazine), and MSNBC.com (broadcast news). Conservative sites included Hot Air (blog), Townhall (magazine), and FOXNews.com (broadcast news). The popular sites selected for the study were Perez Hilton (celebrity blog), Us Weekly (magazine), and E! News Online (broadcast news). Several criteria helped to shape text selection: 1) The site must have a “comments” feature that allows readers to respond to the stories and/or blog posts; 2) The site must have equivalents in the other two categories (for example, MSNBC.com, FOXNews.com and E! News Online are all web-based versions of a nationally broadcast cable news site); 3) the site must either self-identify or be generally recognized as a liberal, conservative, or popular (entertainment) news site. To narrow the scope of data, the researcher chose to analyze only two stories covered by these sites: the breaking story of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy on September 1nd, 2008, and the announcement of the birth of her son on December 29th, 2008. Analysis of reader responses was limited to the first 100 responses to each story on each site. In some cases, news sites ran coverage of both stories, but reader comments were only available for one of the stories. In these instances, the researcher was limited to analyzing only one story from the site (that which included reader comments). To identify which stories were chosen from each site and to help contextualize the story content, a list of the story titles chosen from each site follows. From the Huffington Post, reader comments were analyzed from the story announcing the pregnancy (“Palin’s Daughter Pregnant, Campaign Announces”) and the story announcing the birth of the baby (“Bristol Palin Baby Son Tripp Born”). From MSNBC.com, reader comments were only available for the story announcing the pregnancy (“Bristol Palin Pregnant – Right Now”). This was also the scenario for The Nation (“Palin Addresses 17-year-old Daughter’s Pregnancy”). From Hot Air, reader comments were available for both stories (“Oy: Palin’s daughter is pregnant” and “Awww: Palin’s a Grandma”). This was also the case for Fox News online (“Breaking News: Gov. Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter is pregnant” and “New Member in the Family”) and Townhall (“Bristol Palin is Pregnant” and “Palin’s daughter gives birth to son named Tripp”). Perez

Hilton’s blog also included reader comments for both stories (“Sarah Palin’s Teen Daughter Pregnant!!!” and “Bristol Pops!”), as did E! News Online (“Morning Piss: War of the Wombs” and “Sarah Palin’s Daughter Delivers”). US Magazine only allowed reader comments for the story announcing the birth of Bristol Palin’s son (“Bristol Gives Birth to Baby Boy!”). It is also important to note that the analysis represents a cross-sectional, rather than comparative, study of reader responses in these categories. While it would be interesting to compare and contrast the rhetorical themes emerging from each category, the purpose of this study is to find common themes in cultural discourse regardless of political affiliation. This decision was made for several reasons. Although data collection was broken down into the categories of liberal, conservative, and popular news sites, the reader responses within each category are not mutually exclusive. For example, it is common for self-identified liberal readers to “lurk” and post comments on conservative news sites (and vice versa). Therefore, it would be a highly subjective task to discern which responses represented “conservative,” “liberal,” and “popular” discourse, respectively. Furthermore, such differentiations would be unproductive to the goal of the study, which is to identify common themes emerging out of various spheres of cultural discourse surrounding Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy. With these theoretical and methodological considerations in mind, the first analysis chapter, entitled “Women’s Work: Sarah Palin, Motherhood, and Statesmanship” concerns itself with the implicit gender schemas used to situate and evaluate the role Sarah Palin played, both privately and publicly, in her daughter’s teenage pregnancy. The second analysis chapter, entitled “Bristol Palin, Teen Pregnancy, and the Public/Private Dichotomy” analyzes the rhetorical strategies used to situate the pregnancy as either a private or public affair as well as the race, class and gender schemas employed to characterize the pregnant teen. The final chapter summarizes the findings and implications of the study, discusses the strengths and limitations of the study, and offers suggestions for future research.

CHAPTER 2 WOMEN’S WORK: SARAH PALIN, MOTHERHOOD, AND STATESMANSHIP

“If [Palin] really is a family values type she should be at home caring for her family and not globe trotting the campaign trail for political expediency…if she cannot even manage her own household affairs, how will she ever manage our nation?”1

Very early in the analysis, it became clear that while many readers were vocal in their praise or condemnation of the pregnant teen, readers were equally vigorous in their assessments of her mother. Certainly, some of the more venomous responses directed at Governor Palin need to be understood within the broader context of the political climate at the time. The residual disenchantment, distrust, and anger that many voters expressed toward the Bush administration’s legacy (and the Republican party in general) undoubtedly impacted the rhetorical context of reader commentary toward Palin, whom many voters saw as similar to Bush in terms of her personal and political values. Predictably, too, a number of the responses focusing on Governor Palin dealt with concerns over how the news of Bristol’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy would affect the McCain campaign. More fascinating (and certainly more prevalent), however, was the overwhelming number of responses evaluating Palin’s aptitude as a mother. As such, this chapter focuses on the implicit gender schemas used by readers to both define the parameters of Governor Palin’s roles in the private and public spheres and to evaluate her abilities as mother and statesperson. Two dominant themes were found across conservative, liberal, and popular news sites regarding the use of gender schemas in defining and evaluating Palin’s roles in the private and public spheres. The first was the notion that Palin’s primary role in the private sphere was that of mother and caretaker. From this premise, many readers concluded that Bristol’s unplanned pregnancy was the direct result of Palin’s failures as a mother. In this way, Palin’s abilities as a mother became the defining feature of her role in the private sphere. Often embedded in this

1 Posted by PublicAdvocate on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin- my-daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html

theme was the contention that Palin’s poor mothering skills were a direct consequence of her pursuit of an ambitious career. In other words, Palin’s over-involvement in the public sphere resulted in an inability to fulfill her role in the private sphere. Second, many readers drew conclusions about Palin’s abilities in the public sphere from her perceived failures or successes in the private sphere. This was apparent in the overwhelming number of responses asserting that Palin’s abilities as a mother were indicative of her abilities as a leader. In such instances, Palin’s role as mother took precedence over her role as statesperson.

2.1 The Good Mother Biologically and historically, the distinguishing feature of womanhood has been the womb. In both contexts, woman is demarcated from man by her ability to bring life into the world. As a result, Western notions of femininity are often informed by woman’s “preordained” role as mother. Brownmiller (1984) notes that to be good women, society requires women to be good mothers: “Evidence of a maternal nature, of a certain innate competence…becomes a requirement of gender” (p. 214). The widespread acceptance of this gender schema in turn shapes cultural understanding of woman’s place in both the private and public sphere by defining her primary role as that of mother and caretaker. By reinforcing the assumption that a “good” woman is a “good” mother, this schema invites public surveillance of woman’s work in the private sphere as a basis for assessing her ethos in both private and public life. The good woman/good mother schema was prevalent in reader responses evaluating Palin following the news of her daughter’s pregnancy. Unsurprisingly, an overwhelming majority of responses evaluating Palin’s aptitude as a mother were negative in tone. Several topics served as basis for the general assessment that Palin was a “bad mom.” The first was the notion that Palin’s home life was unstable and chaotic, a situation framed as the direct result of Palin’s perceived absence from her children’s lives. In a response to a Fox News blog, one reader responded that Palin’s “family is in shambles” and that Palin was “never there to provide guidance”.2 Nowhere was this rhetoric of negligence more profound than in responses faulting Palin for her daughter’s teen pregnancy. One Perez Hilton reader retorted, “Seventeen year olds

2 Posted by Maurice on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking- news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/

make mistakes? Her mom can’t control how often her daughter has sex?”3 Another Huffington Post reader asked, “Where was she when her daughter got pregnant? Snowmobiling? Championing Alaska?”4 Regardless of where readers stood on the issue of sex education, conservatives and liberals alike lambasted Palin for failing to guide her daughter down an appropriate sexual path. For some, the failure was her inability to restrain her daughter’s sexual impulses and keep her from having premarital sex in the first place: “Is Mrs. Palin unable to teach her daughter the sanctity of love and marriage – WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE DOES THIS SEND TO TEENS?...I am a life long Republican that because of this will certainly not be voting for McCain…”5

For readers like Jane_PA above, Palin’s failure was seen as the inability to instill in her own home the moral code that many “family values” conservatives expected their leaders to uphold. For others, Palin’s fault lay in the misguided, abstinence-only approach to sex education that she publicly supported so vehemently and presumably also taught in her own home: “This is what happens when you teach abstinence and creationism. Your 17 year old daughter pays for it. Now on top of taking care of your own newborn and fifth child, you will have to teach your daughter how to be a mother when still a child. Good time to put your family on the back burner to pursue your own career ambition.”6

In addition to marking a sharp departure from dominant teen pregnancy discourse, which tends to target and vilify the young girl rather than critique the parenting skills of her parents, the resounding outcry of “how could she let this happen in her own home?” blatantly and unapologetically identified Palin’s primary role as that of mother and caretaker. Her daughter’s pregnancy was construed as a gross oversight and a lack of proper attention to domestic concerns – neglected obligations that were time and again linked to Palin’s absence from the home. In this way, many reader responses also positioned Palin’s failures in the private sphere as symptomatic of an imbalance between her primary duties as mother and her ambitions in the public sphere. Consider this response from one Town Hall reader:

3 Message 50, posted by Flyyhustler on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://perezhilton.com/2008-09-01-palins- teenaged-daughter-the-whore-is-pregnant/ 4 Posted by FFRacer on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html 5 Posted by Jane_PA on September 1, 2008. Accessed at http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking- news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 6 Posted by Darlene Callahan on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/

“Maybe Sarah should stay at home, take care of her kids and teach them about the birds, bees and birth control so no more shenanigans like this happen. Obviously the family-work balance was thrown off-keel somewhere along the line”7 (Dori, TH, 9/1/2008, 3:29PM).

This notion of balance is a recurring theme in posts that criticize Palin for failing to carry out her maternal duties. Readers tended to position Palin’s situation as an “either-or” scenario – rather than staying home to provide adequate care for her family, she chose instead to focus on her career, disrupting the precious balance women must strike between work and the home. One exchange in particular highlights this tensions between competing spheres. In a Huffington Post response denouncing the anti-feminist sentiment that Palin belonged at home, Maddie0001 wrote, “Feminists used to always say, ‘women can have it all.’ Palin is the personification of this theory, but Sally Quinn and liberals say she should stay home with kids.”8 In response, another Huffington Post reader fired back, “women can have it all, just not at the same time. Even conservative women get that.”9 Readers who blamed Palin’s distracting and demanding career life for her daughter’s pregnancy often spoke of Palin’s insatiable ego and selfish ambitions: “Perhaps mom[m]a should remain at home teaching her children to make wise choices instead of running amok in her own ego,” responded one reader.10 Attacks on Palin’s perceived ego were most prevalent in posts condemning Palin for bringing her daughter into the national spotlight by accepting the Vice Presidential nomination. One reader, reflecting on how Palin could “kick this kid to the curb in her eagerness for the VEEP spot” argued that the governor surely knew the media was going to “broil her daughter,” and concluded that, “some ambition is so all-consuming, it eats its own young.”11 In posts such as these, Palin’s actions are seen not only as self-serving, but also as inflicting direct harm on her children. Drawing parallels between Palin and Lynn Spears (mother of Jamie Lynn Spears, the teen celebrity who also drew national media attention for her out-of-

7 Posted by Dori on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866 8 Posted on September 4, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my-daughter-is- preg_n_122947.html 9 Posted by ccpostman on September 4, 2008. 10 Posted by James on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866 11 Posted by BitchKitty on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html

wedlock pregnancy), one Huffington Post reader likened the two mothers’ actions to those of a pimp: “Sarah Palin is no better of a mother than Lynn Spears. She too put her daughter in the national spotlight, exploiting her daughter’s pregnancy for PERSONAL GAIN. The difference, Lynn pimped her daughter to US Weekly, Sarah Palin is pimping hers to the religious right.”12

Arguing that Palin was trying to rally votes from social conservatives by positioning her daughter as an exemplar of pro-life morality and responsibility, the reader positions both mothers as the responsible parties for the national scrutiny their daughters faced. Furthermore, the reader argues that the mothers actively sought out these media opportunities (hence, “pimping” them to the media) to achieve self-serving ends. As one Townhall reader inquired, “What kind of a mother would do this to her daughter, solely to further her own political ambitions?”13 Throughout these posts, strong imagery detailing the mother-daughter relationship is evoked – certainly the metaphor of a mother pimping her daughter or devouring her own young implicitly suggest that Palin was in gross violation of the natural, maternal role she was expected to assume to protect her daughter from harm. However, the criticism did not stop with Palin’s relationship to her daughter. Some respondents to the Bristol Palin pregnancy story even went so far as to criticize Palin for her own reproductive choices with her youngest son, Trigg, who was born with Downs Syndrome. Tying her son’s condition to Palin’s irresponsible and selfish career moves, one E! news reader wondered if Trigg would have been born “developmentally damaged” had Palin not endured the “massive stress load she carried due to her work.” The reader hedged the comment by conceding that she was sure Palin was “a good hearted woman, as I am” but added a clear difference between Palin’s choices and her own: “I don’t see myself as vice presidential material. Not when I have babies that need me.” She concluded that Palin was “failing at the one job God intended her for: motherhood.”14 Positioning Palin as the antithesis to the “good mother” invited another problematic gender schema – that of the career woman who ruthlessly pursues her own ambitions at the

12 Posted by ccpostman on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html 13 Posted by Bob Munck on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57- a8c3-b35394d81866 14 Posted by Alicia on September 2, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b26771_morning_piss_war_of_wombs.html

expense of her family. Such condemnations might be viewed as a cultural warning to women everywhere: don’t let your ambitions preempt your duties to the home, or your children may suffer dire consequences. Identifying family struggles as an immediate and direct consequence of a mother’s negligence carries profound implications regarding a woman’s place in society. A clear causal relationship was drawn regarding the balance between work and home and the wellbeing of the family – a relationship that was constructed as solely the mother’s obligation to keep in good order.

2.2 Mothering a Nation A final theme permeating posts focusing on Palin’ failed maternal duties was the implication that Palin’s abilities as a mother were indicative of her abilities as a political leader. Most responses making this inferential leap were negative in tone; many readers equated a perceived lack of control over the domestic sphere with an inability to manage affairs of the state. The more subtle critiques expressed the concern that Palin simply had too much on her domestic plate. “With all of the distractions in her life,” one reader wrote, “I am concerned about how this woman would run our country” (Daniel, FOX, 9/1/2008, 1:40pm).15 Such distractions included “a newborn special needs baby” and “a seventeen year old about to marry,” all of which “spells a demanding household” according to another reader.16 Other readers were more direct: “How can we realistically expect this woman to serve our country as VP with all her previous obligations to her family [?]” wrote one skeptical reader.17 “Can Palin govern as a mother?” another reader inquired. “For pete’s sake, it’s not just about FIVE kids, she’s BREAST FEEDING AN INFANT. It’s not like the Obama’s [sic] whose children are school age and normal.”18 Again, the issue of balance between work and home was pushed to the fore, although this time the cause-effect relationship was inverted. With all of Palin’s unique circumstances at

15 Posted by Daniel on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking- news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 16 Posted by Slg on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/01/1318541.aspx 17 Posted by Lynn on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news- sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 18 Posted by neveralone on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html

home, would she be able to strike a balance between her obligations to her family and her duties to the country? Many readers remained skeptical of Palin’s abilities to effectively hold one of the highest offices in the land with the newly heightened demands of her home life. Other readers used Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as a litmus test for the kind of character and judgment Palin might show in office. The prognosis was, on the whole, bleak. As one Huffington Post reader very succinctly stated, “A pregnant teenage daughter is a clear indication that Palin has failed as a parent and definitely not someone fit for V[ice] P[resident].”19 In addition to placing responsibility for Bristol’s pregnancy in her mother’s hands, Palin’s domestic performance was given antecedence over her performance in the public sphere. One reader puts this theory in more concrete terms: “If Palin could not do the simple job of managing her daughter’s upbringing and teaching her the important lesson of respecting her body and the disadvantages of getting pregnant early…how can she manage a nation?”20 Such a comment not only underscores the continued undervaluation of domestic labor (such as the “simple” job of raising a child), but also suggests that Palin should be judged first and foremost by her effectiveness as a mother and her ability to perform traditionally feminine types of labor. Quite simply, the argument goes, if she fails carry out her domestic duties, she has no business entering into the public sphere. If this argument sounds antiquated, it’s probably because it can be traced back to the authors of the New Testament, as one Huffington Post reader noted: “…Even the most casual church-goer knows the basic Biblical principle expounded in the epistle of Titus: a potential leader must first demonstrate effective leadership over his or her own household before he or she can be entrusted with leadership over a larger domain. This biblical principle effectively disqualifies Governor Palin as a VP pick.”21

(It should also be noted that the reader exhibited a degree of editorial license in this paraphrase; the actual Epistle to Titus makes no such attempts at gender equality where matters of household governance and public rule are concerned, as the potential leader in the context of the Bible is unequivocally male.) The prerequisite of domestic competence was also established in posts that identified specific qualities Palin possessed or lacked as a mother and how such qualities would translate to

19 Posted by Omar Spence on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin- my-daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html 20 Posted by Redneck3 on September 2, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b26771_morning_piss_war_of_wombs.html 21 Posted by Fleurdelys on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html

office. Arguing the importance of bringing Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy into the public discourse, one E! News reader explained that it was “not about vilifying a kid, but it is definitely about Palin’s management and decision-making skills.”22 Another reader said it was important to know “what kind of mother the VP is, whether she has her head in the sand and can’t see what’s happening in her own family,” because “this is the real issue - whether Palin is a woman who can accurately gauge the consequences of her action or inaction” (Agnim, HP, 9/3/2008, 3:00PM).23 Through such commentary, Palin’s decision-making skills as a mother were repeatedly conflated with her job qualifications. Some readers even extended the critiques to question McCain’s leadership abilities, arguing that Palin’s poor choices as a mom were simply another manifestation of McCain’s hasty and imprudent decisions: “Palin’s judgment to take an 8hr plane ride from Dallas to Alaska after breaking her water, especially carrying a high risk pregnancy is the highest level of irresponsibility from a mother. It’s reckless, just like her boss.”24

Construing Palin’s deteriorating home life as a blight on McCain’s ethos, readers blurred the lines between private and public, making the particulars of Palin’s parenting choices the primary basis for an evaluation of not only Palin as a running mate, but also of the Republican ticket as a whole: ‘“Shotgun Decisions’ and ‘Shotgun Weddings,’ what a fine example of a leader John McCain is showing himself to be. First he makes a ‘calculated’ choice of a female running mate with ‘conservative values’ and the ‘bona fides’ of Erin Brockovich. Then she turns out to be too busy playing Governor to keep track of what her minor kids are up to” (emphasis added).25

Statements such as the one above are a particularly damaging reinforcement of gender schemas. A surface reading of the Erin Brockovich comparison suggests that Palin lacks the experience and qualifications to serve as McCain’s running mate (the ‘bona fides’ of Erin Brocovich refers to Brockovich’s lack of formal legal education despite her involvement in high-profile anti- pollution lawsuits). Much like Palin, media portrayals of Brockovich consistently juxtaposed elements of her personal life (such as her status as an unemployed single mother and her former

22 Posted by Redneck3 on September 2, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b26771_morning_piss_war_of_wombs.html 23 Posted by Agnim on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html 24 Posted by FebM on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/01/1318541.aspx 25 Posted by BigAndy on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/352173

life as a beauty pageant queen) against her professional successes, which in turn was often used to either undermine or legitimate her participation in the legal process and her professional career. The response above is not the first to draw parallels between Palin and Brockovich; a September 2, 2008 Bloomberg article described Palin as “cross between two archetypes: frontierwoman Annie Oakley and muckraker Erin Brockovich” (Carlson, 2008). Situating Palin amongst other “rogue” female archetypes carries implications beyond Palin’s political persona. As already noted, Erin Brockovich’s gender and class shaped the cultural narrative of her professional successes. In a similar way, Annie Oakley’s rogue status was not predicated solely on her ability to shoot a gun – she was a woman who could outshoot any man with a gun; a tomboy who stepped out of her assumed role and defied gender conventions of the time (she couldn’t even bake a pie, as anyone who has seen a production of Annie Get Your Gun will confirm). On one level, the female-as-rogue gender schema works simply to demarcate women who exhibit characteristics that are deemed outside the norm of conventional feminine behavior. On another level, the schema can also be implemented as a means of disciplining the feminine. In the case of the reader response above, the latter scenario is apparent in the reader’s accusation that Palin was “too busy playing governor” to monitor her children’s actions. The notion of a woman “playing governor,” much as a child would “play doctor,” is reminiscent of the kind of backlash women have historically encountered when attempting to infiltrate male-dominated professions. Ultimately, however, it is the causal link drawn between Palin’s ambitions and her perceived failure as a mother that makes the rogue female gender schema a particularly potent means of regulating the feminine.

2.3 Mother Knows Best

While many readers were unforgiving in their assessments of Palin, a handful of readers responded positively to Palin’s parenting skills and the way she handled her daughter’s teen pregnancy. Consider the following comment from a Fox News reader:

“What a MOM! Just the way a parent should react when her own daughter comes to her with news of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and who may be scared. Grace, humility, love. What a heart of gold…This woman has her head SO screwed on right.”26

Though the tone of such messages represent a sharp departure from the biting posts denouncing Palin as a mother, readers who expressed positive sentiments about Palin’s reaction to the pregnancy had one thing in common with those who condemned her: both sets of readers argued that her maternal disposition was somehow indicative of her professional aptitude. One reader expressed his approval of the Vice Presidential pick by stating that he was “gratified to see how she reacts under difficult family pressure…she has my vote of confidence” (Avraham Ben Zev, FOX, 9/1/2008, 2:45PM).27 Other responses had a decidedly cultural feminist bent, heralding the unique and difficult challenges of motherhood and Palin’s ability to meet such challenges as only a woman can. Consider the following response from a Fox News reader: “Stuff happens even in the best of families…this will only prove Sarah will be a fantastic multi-tasker…campaign trail until November, planning a wedding, BEING ELECTED VICE PRESIDENT in November, planning the finishing touches of a wedding in December, inaugural in January, etc…show me a guy (Romney, Lieberman, etc.) who could successfully get through that ‘laundry’ list of multiple tasks and keep it together…”28

The ability to multi-task has long been a trademark of the competent domestic woman. In this commentary, the “laundry list” juxtaposes domestic and professional duties, overlapping them in a way that suggests they are easily interchangeable. The reader makes a clear gender distinction by claiming that a man in a similar position would never be able to accomplish the “laundry list” (another reference to domestic competence) and still “keep it together.” The statement holds profound implications for working mothers. In its gendered assumption that women are natural multi-taskers, it reinforces the expectation that mothers with demanding careers continue to shoulder the burden of domestic obligations willingly and adeptly. Again, the discourse muddies the line between private and public and centralizes Palin’s role as mother in assessing her competencies as a statesperson.

26 Posted by Tom on September 1, 2008. Accessed at http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news- sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 27 Posted by Avraham Ben Zev on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 28 Posted by Jill Chandler on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/

Analysis of reader responses to the news of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy revealed several problematic discursive patterns regarding a woman’s place in the public and private spheres. Clearly, sexist schemas about “a woman’s place” in society that were once the target of liberal feminist critiques in the latter half of the twentieth century are still alive and prosperous in the new millennium. One such manifestation was the litany of abuses targeting Palin’s poor mothering skills as a major factor contributing to her daughter’s illegitimate pregnancy. Through the use of the good mother schema, reader responses reinforced the notion that a woman’s primary, natural, and expected role exists within the private sphere as a mother and caretaker. By characterizing Palin as a deviant to the good mother schema, readers also reinforced the negative schemas surrounding woman who enjoy success in the public sphere. Depicting Palin as a coldhearted and egotistical career woman further entrenches the notion that it is impossible for a woman to achieve success and satisfaction in both the private and public spheres. Although one can only speculate how responses might have differed had the parent/politician been male, linking Bristol’s pregnancy to Palin’s chronic absence from the home suggests a powerful cultural backlash to the increasing number of women shunning traditional gender roles, holding positions of leadership in high-powered fields, and becoming the main source of income for the family. The concept of the rogue female (one who defies or resists gender conventions) can be seen as one manifestation of attempts to temper such progress. Finally, the continual juxtaposition of Palin’s role as mother with her role as politician as a means of evaluating her competencies in the public sphere serves to reinforce the notion that a woman’s primary identity and source of social value lies in her capacities as a mother and caretaker.

CHAPTER 3 BRISTOL PALIN, TEEN PREGNANCY, AND THE PUBLIC/PRIVATE DICHOTOMY

The previous chapter highlighted the tension between the competing spheres of private/personal and public/political, arguing that evaluations of Governor Palin following the news of her daughter’s pregnancy were ultimately shaped by the discursive privileging of Palin’s domestic role as mother. This chapter continues to explore the precarious relationship between public and private, focusing more specifically on the implicit assumptions, or schemas, employed to position Bristol Palin as either a private or political subject. The analysis revealed several problematic trends and implications for the complex matrix of values, evaluations, and truth statements about the nature of teen pregnancy and highlights the complex dynamics of race and class in cultural discourse surrounding teen pregnancy in the United States.

3.1 Private Lives Reader responses characterizing the pregnancy as a private affair cited the emotional and economic resilience of the family and the moral fortitude of the pregnant teen as justification for keeping the affair out of public discourse. In doing so, readers also outlined what constitutes an acceptable teen pregnancy scenario. Much of the argument for keeping the pregnancy out of public discourse focused on the role of the family in providing adequate support for the pregnant teen and her child. This perceived familial support existed on both an emotional and economic level. To bolster the claim that the pregnancy ought to remain a private affair, many readers positioned the family as a willing and competent support structure for the pregnant teen and her unborn child. One reader, commending the family for their support, gave the Palins “a five star rating for taking a possibly bad situation and defining it as a challenge for the whole family!”29 The perceived support of the

29 Posted by Avraham Ben Zev on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/

family was then extrapolated to argue for a bright and positive future for both mother and child. As one reader declared, “the baby will be fine and decent women will respect the family for closing ranks to raise the baby.”30 The assumption that “the baby will be fine” suggests that the welfare of the unborn child hinges on the support of the family (in this case, the willingness of the family unit to “close ranks”). Another reader asserted that the public ought to be “joyful about the birth of this precious baby boy,” since he would be “loved very much,”31 further illustrating the attitude that teen pregnancy is acceptable (joyous, even) as long as it occurs in the context of a loving family. The notion of family was also used rhetorically to situate the pregnancy as a prototypical narrative of familial struggle and perseverance. From this premise, readers concluded that rather than condemning the teen and her family, the public should sympathize, because “it could happen to anyone.” Many readers drew parallels between Bristol’s situation and the plights of other “American families,” concluding that her situation was unequivocally American: “Many families in the United States understand what Gov. Palin, Bristol, and the entire Palin family is going through right now. I hope every American, Democrat or Republican, takes a look at him/herself before they judge so quickly.”32

Another reader stated that teen pregnancy “happens all across the country to many families.” The reader then implored, “who doesn’t know someone with a family member that this has happened to?”33 By framing of the pregnancy as a prototypical narrative of American families, readers positioned the pregnancy as a private affair. Many readers echoed one Townhall reader’s demand that the public “leave personal matters out of this” because the situation “can happen in ANY American family ANYWHERE!”34 Legitimizing the pregnancy through the image of the supportive family ultimately reinforces the legitimacy of the family as a private institution. To explore the implications of this phenomenon, we must return to the concepts of spatial and decisional privacy. With regards to

30 Posted by sven10077 on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/01/oy-palins- daughter-is-pregnant/ 31 Posted by youngpalinfan on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 32 Posted by Dee Ann Doom on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 33 Posted by ordi on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/01/oy-palins-daughter-is- pregnant/ 34 Posted by Melissa on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866

spatial privacy, positioning the family as a symbol of strength and competence justifies its right to an autonomous existence within the realm of the private. Feminist literature on spatial privacy contends that one of the consequences of legitimizing the family’s right to spatial privacy is the safeguarding of the family from government intervention and regulation. In the case of Bristol Palin, readers also employed the notion of spatial privacy to shield the family from public commentary. One reader implored the nation to “grow up” and stop commenting on “side issues like this.” As evidence for keeping the pregnancy out of public discourse, the reader contended that, “the Palins have a situation that they seem to be handling beautifully,”35 again framing the pregnancy as a private matter to be handled by the competent, supportive family unit. Or, as another reader noted, “It’s none of your business anyway. It’s between her, her family, and God.”36 From a feminist perspective, one of the inherent dangers of legitimizing the family’s right to spatial privacy in such a way is the degree of power and paternalism conferred on the family. This is where the relationship between spatial and decisional privacy becomes evident. The attempts to characterize teen pregnancy as a “family issue” often privileges the family’s right to spatial privacy, which then often trumps the decisional privacy of the pregnant teen. As a result of conjoining Bristol Palin to the larger family unit, the pregnant teen’s agency and autonomy were often compromised. For example, in the responses above, the ultimate decision-making power is taken from the individual (the pregnant teen) and transferred to and/or mediated by an institutionalized structure (family; religion). The implicit assumption in such a statement is that the family unit will make the decision that is best for the pregnant teen and her unborn baby. Often, this paternalism was rationalized as protectionism. The “babies having babies” mentality resonated in responses that portrayed the pregnant teen as emotionally vulnerable and immature: “Teen pregnancy isn’t “okay” for anyone. It’s complicated, heart-wrenching, agonizing and “messy” for any caring family….what’s chilling to me is that some believe it’s “okay” to allow a young girl to weigh the options and make that agonizing decision

35 Posted by Dottie on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866 36 Anonymous post, December 29, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.usmagazine.com/news/bristol-palin-gives-birth- to-baby

without guidance from anyone who loves her and cares what happens to her, both physically and emotionally.”37

Juxtaposing the tumultuous physical and emotional state of the pregnant teen against the stability of the family, the response attempts to justify the abdication of the teen’s right to decisional privacy by portraying her as unfit to make her own decisions regarding her body and future. In this way, the pregnant teen’s right to decisional privacy is ultimately mitigated by the family unit, upon which ultimate decision-making power is conferred. This paternalistic attitude might be seen as one consequence of a widely accepted schema projected onto the pregnant teen. Many readers seemed to share the belief that teen pregnancy was an unfortunate but unavoidable scenario given the irrational nature of young people. In these instances, readers characterized Bristol’s pregnancy as a mistake to be chalked up to the limitations of youth. Identifying the pregnant teen as a victim of circumstance, one reader remarked, “If God wanted teenagers to not have babies, he wouldn’t have made them horny, lacking judgment, and fertile.”38 Others admitted that “youth and not-so-smart go hand in hand,”39 implying that young people are naturally inclined to do foolish things. One reader even went so far as to assert that teen pregnancy is nothing more than a matter of chance or happenstance: “All of you are having sex young. You were just lucky not to get pregnant.”40 This schema is problematic on several levels. First, it is highly counterproductive to a discussion on prevention. Characterizing teens as incapable of making rational, mature decisions about their sexual activity results in a self-fulfilling prophecy for irresponsibility. Furthermore, the cavalier acceptance of teen pregnancy as an unavoidable consequence of youth conveniently accepts the status quo without acknowledging the social and economic complexities and consequences of teen pregnancy in our current cultural climate. This brings us to a discussion of the second strategy used to privilege the spatial privacy of the family as a means of positioning Bristol Palin as a private subject. As the literature

37 Posted by TrueRedHead on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57- a8c3-b35394d81866

38 Posted by Righteous Man on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 39 Posted by Cheryl on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866 40 Anonymous post, December 29, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.usmagazine.com/news/bristol-palin-gives-birth- to-baby

suggests, a recurring theme in cultural discourse surrounding teen pregnancy is the generally accepted notion that teen pregnancy exacts an economic toll on society by perpetuating cycles of poverty and deprivation. To counter this attitude, readers attempting to frame the pregnancy in a positive light positioned the family as a pillar of economic support. To alleviate concerns over the economic consequences of the pregnancy, many responses embraced the notion that good families breed good citizens. Consider this comment from one Townhall reader: “As far as I am concerned…Sarah Palin has my vote. There are many good kids from good families that end up as parents at a very early age…that does not mean Bristol and her boyfriend will not be successful, productive adults.”41

Here, the operative trope is that good families raise good children, who grow up to become good citizens. Drawing a causal link between a “good” or desirable family structure and one’s ability to become a contributing, productive member of society, the argument institutionalizes the family as a determinant of socio-economic success.

3.1.1 “Not Another Welfare Mom” The same rhetoric of the family was also often used to demarcate Bristol Palin from the “stereotypical” teen pregnancy in the United States. Used in conjunction with references to the state, the rhetoric of the family was employed to define what Bristol was not – namely, a welfare queen. In these contexts, grotesque images of the deviant, dependent welfare mother were contrasted with images of the stable, self-sufficient family unit to position Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as an anomaly to the undesirable teen pregnancy – i.e., one that contributes to the “epidemic” of teen pregnancy in the United States and exists within the realm of the public. As discussed in Chapter I, the image of the “welfare queen” emerged in the 1960s alongside a wave of government assistance programs designed to mitigate the effects of the breakdown of the African American family. During the same time period, the issue of teen pregnancy was formally introduced to public policy debates for the first time in American history. Eventually, the image of the pregnant teen became conflated with the image of the stereotypical welfare recipient. Consequently, dominant teen pregnancy discourse in the United

41 Posted by Cheryl on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866

States conjured the ready-made image of the “welfare queen.” The construction of the welfare queen is inherently race- and class-biased: black and poor, she is typically portrayed as sexually promiscuous, irresponsible, and lazy. This caricature was frequently employed to distinguish Bristol Palin from the “typical” teen pregnancy scenario in the United States. Furthermore, this distinction provided the grounds for keeping the pregnancy out of the public sphere. One reader, asserting that Bristol Palin would not be one of “those welfare mothers,” proclaimed that it was not “our business, since they are not expecting us to pay for Bristol’s nor the baby’s support.”42 Another reader commented, “At least we won’t be paying for it [the mother] to buy cigarettes and liquor with food stamps, like the democrats.”43 Clearly, issues of class resonated in attempts to distinguish Bristol from the classic schema of the welfare mom and move her pregnancy out of the realm of the public. (A more in- depth discussion of the racial implications of this schema is addressed later in the chapter). The use of this schema highlights the socio-economic implications of the private/public debate on teen pregnancy by suggesting that as long as the mother and the mother’s family are able to provide for the baby, teen pregnancy need not be a concern of the citizenry. Reliance on the state forms the crux of the issue: as long as the teen mother’s family is able to provide financially for the baby, the pregnancy is accepted and made a private affair. Once government assistance becomes a necessary reality, however, the entire framing mechanism shifts and the matter is thrust into the realm of the public.

3.1.2 Morality Cops Along with the characterization of a loving and financially supportive family structure, the teen’s moral responsibility and maturity were also cited as justification for keeping the pregnancy out of the realm of the public. Many readers argued that Bristol Palin’s demonstrated moral fortitude and good decision-making in light of the circumstances was reason to silence public commentary. Some reader responses implored the American public to excuse the “mistake” by citing the mature and admirable way the teen was handling the situation:

42 Posted by Dottie on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866 43 Posted by Ironcross31 on December 29, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b76871_sarah_palins_daughter_delivers.html

“We all make mistakes. It isn’t whether or not Bristol made a mistake, but how she responds to it. Keeping the kid and getting married? +1 to me. The Palins seem just like many other American families.”44 Arguments such as these tended to gloss over the actual act and instead focused on the actions that were being taken to address the situation. For such readers, the common themes of “acceptable” responses to the situation were the decisions to keep the baby and marry the father: “Bristol has apparently decided to commit to the child and to the child’s father. While [out-of-wedlock pregnancy] is not the recommended course, nor the easy one, it shows that the Palin family ‘walk the walk.’”45

Here, Bristol’s decision to become a wife and mother functions as a badge of honor and redemption. Instead of ignoring the difficulties and hardships the teen may face as a result of her choices, readers magnified these challenges to illustrate the strength of the teen’s moral fiber and the sacrifices made to rectify the situation. Bristol’s morality was consistently juxtaposed against her “mistakes” as a means of absolving the teen from her “crime”: “Congrats on making the right CHOICE! Did you guys make a mistake? Only you guys know what’s in your heart. Am I gonna play ‘MORALITY COP’ like some on this thread? No.” 46

Here, the reader has judged the teen’s choices to keep the baby and marry the father to be morally “right.” Paradoxically, the reader then condemns negative responses to the teen pregnancy as the work of “morality cops.” Thus, the reader defines the parameters of acceptable evaluations of the pregnant teen. From this perspective, the penance absolves the crime, for as the Greek chorus of readers resoundingly concluded, “it isn’t the mistakes you make that matter in the end, it’s what you do about them that counts.”47 This “facing the music” rhetoric functions as a way of privatizing the pregnancy and normalizing a particular value set. To argue that an event need not be brought into public

44 Posted by rbj on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/01/oy-palins-daughter-is- pregnant/

45 Posted by Betty Ann on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking- news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 46 Posted by peacefrog on December 30, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/news/us/2008/12/30/palins_daughter_gives_birth_to_son_named_tripp/ 47 Posted by Bennet on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/01/oy-palins-daughter- is-pregnant/

discourse because it was resolved in the “right” way is to argue for a particular ideology. This positive moral assessment of the teen ultimately reinforced the pro-life, family values agenda through continual attempts to shield the event from public commentary. One reader’s pointed response illustrates this dynamic well: “Yes she is pregnant; yes she is going to have the baby; and yes they plan to marry. SO BUTT OUT.”48 Implicit in this argument is the claim that if Bristol had chosen a different course of action (i.e. abortion, single parenthood, adoption, etc.) one or all of these alternatives might be cause for public surveillance. Characterizing her decisions as repentant and noble makes the alternatives, by comparison, reprehensible. The sexual and moral deviance of the typical pregnant teen was also constructed through such commentary. One Fox News reader claimed, “I don’t expect to see the baby being raised on welfare money…or Bristol appearing on Maury’s show wondering who her baby’s daddy is…what they do does not affect me.”49 In this instance, the schema of the promiscuous welfare mom was employed to demarcate Bristol Palin from the immoral actions of typical teen moms. It is not surprising that references to the Maury Povich show should appear in responses that utilize the welfare mom schema in such a way. Indeed, the “tabloid talk show” format has long been assailed by cultural and media studies critics who see it as a sensationalist, spectacle-driven display; a place “where human deviance is enhanced, dressed, coiffed, and propped up for the entertainment of a paying audience” (Dennettt, 1996, p. 325). Reproductive deviance is clearly on display in this burlesque depiction of teen pregnancy; the reproductive irresponsibility of the “welfare mommies,” who have “kid after kid after kid,” was often juxtaposed against Bristol Palin, who “will never be on welfare to raise a child.”50 An adequate discussion of the racial dynamics embedded in these statements necessitates an understanding of the symbolic significance of the term “baby daddy.”

48 Posted by Nancy Husch on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 49 Posted by Rachel on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking- news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 50 Posted by Lori on December 29, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.usmagazine.com/news/bristol-palin-gives-birth- to-baby

3.1.3 What’s the Deal with “Baby Daddy”? The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines “baby daddy” as "the father of a woman's child, who is not her husband or her current or exclusive partner." The OED also lists the term as a “colloquial, chiefly African American” variant of the Jamaican Creole term “baby-father.” The emergence of the term “baby daddy” in American pop culture is typically attributed to the lyrics of reggae, hip-hop, and rap songs, in which the term usually signifies a deadbeat father or ex- partner who has little to no involvement in his child’s life (Turner, 2006). Some argue that the emergence of the term “baby daddy” and its gender counterpart, “baby mamma,” into mainstream culture has stripped the terms of their racial connotations and the stigma that once surrounded the use of such terms (Turner, 2006). For others, such as Brooklyn author and journalist Maryann Reid, the term continues to reinforce the breakdown of the African American family and high out-of-wedlock birth rates within the community. As a form of community activism, Reid sponsored the highly-publicized “Marry Your Baby Daddy Day,” a contest that provided all-expense paid weddings to ten black couples with children in an attempt to strengthen the bonds within black families and encourage committed relationships (Harris, 2005). In the case of Bristol Palin, the terms “baby daddy” and “welfare mom” clearly function as schemas of the “Other.” As reader responses illustrate, the “Other” sucks greedily from government programs, makes no attempts to control her own reproduction, is sexually promiscuous, and unable to form committed relationships with the father(s) of her children. As the literature and the lingo suggest, these subjects are also typically African American. In the instances cited above, the “Other” was used to demarcate Bristol Palin’s white, middle-class pregnancy from the type of reproduction considered undesirable: that of the black, poor, jobless, and single welfare mother. In attempts to privatize the pregnancy by demarcating Bristol Palin from the type of teen pregnancy situation that would be considered unacceptable, many of these readers also employed burlesque to dissociate Bristol Palin from the “Other,” the image of the welfare mom. This class distinction is not only racially charged, but also indicative of a cultural lethargy wherein social concerns are only public concerns when they become a burden to taxpayers. Instead of looking at systematic reasons why young girls are engaging in premarital sex without practicing birth control, it becomes easier to target and vilify the individual – the “Other.”

In the above instances, Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was positioned as an exemplar of the desirable teen pregnancy scenario. Readers positioned Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as an acceptable situation given the circumstances out of which the pregnancy arose. The framing of Bristol Palin as an exemplar of teen pregnancy in the United States attempts to normalize Bristol Palin’s experience by pointing to the strength of the family unit and the parallels between Bristol’s pregnancy and other young women from “good families” who face similar situations. Both of these framing devices positioned the pregnancy as a private, family affair.

3.1.4 White Trash Tragedy Some readers reworked the welfare mom schema to position Bristol Palin as the exemplar of the “Other.” In these instances, the “Other” was white, uneducated, and lower class. Derogatory terms such as “white trash,” “trailer trash,” “backwards,” and “hick” were used to characterize the pregnant teen. Readers lamented the damage the pregnancy would inflict on the image of the Republican party and the nation as a whole. One reader commented that the Republican Party was becoming “the party of the Trailer Park” and asked, “how much further down can we go?”51 Another reader, drawing a parallel between Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears, proposed that the two young women “get side-by side trailers.”52 Several elements of the existing welfare mom schema were used in these depictions of Bristol Palin. For example, one reader joked, “Time for a remake of Deliverance. By the way, who is Bristol’s baby daddy?”53 Here, an evocative reference to the white, poor, uncivilized rural South is paired with a referent traditionally used within black, poor, urban communities. Another reader joked, “I give it 4 months until they’re on Maury trying to find out who the daddy is!”54 The presence of the term “baby daddy” in reader responses to Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, along with its use in conjunction with terms such as “white trash” to describe the pregnant teen, suggest a cultural shift in the dominant discourse of teen pregnancy in the United States and a reworking of the welfare mom schema. The image of the welfare queen, which has been the

51 Posted by Rob in Chicago on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/01/breaking-news-sarah-palins-17-year-old-daughter-is-pregnant/ 52 Anonymous post, December 29, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.usmagazine.com/news/bristol-palin-gives-birth- to-baby 53 Posted by WeldonRobeson on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/352173 54 Posted by lefty_lady on December 30, 2009. Message 65. Accessed at: http://perezhilton.com/2008-12-29-bristol- pops/

dominant burlesque image of teen pregnancy since the 1960s, has grown increasingly incongruous with shifting representations of teen pregnancy in the media. Indeed, many of the contemporary images of teen pregnancy involve rural or suburban white, middle- or upper-class teens (think Juno; Jamie Lynn Spears; the Massachusetts teen pregnancy pact). The mainstreaming of the term “baby daddy” and its use alongside the “white trash” referent may be evidence of an expanding schema – one that is attempting to account for and explain why young women who do not fit the preexisting schema of “welfare queen” are engaging in unprotected premarital sex and in some cases actively choosing to become pregnant. With the use of terms such as “white trash” and “trailer trash,” a clear relationship was made between teen pregnancy and social class. However, class in this context was less of an indicator of wealth than it was of the behaviors, activities, and value systems that comprise a particular sub-culture. Reader responses pointing to Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears (two upper-class white teens) as discursive embodiments of the “white trash” schema are evidence of the schema’s emphasis on cultural rather than economic distinctions. Furthermore, the rhetorical characterization of Alaska as a wild, uncivilized, remote landscape from which the pregnancy emerged was also referred to repeatedly in posts that labeled Bristol Palin (and the Palin family) as “white trash.” Thus, geography also became a cultural feature of this schema. The inclusion of the “white trash” schema into cultural discourse surrounding teen pregnancy, its various points of intersection with the existing “welfare mom” schema, and the clear shift in signifiers from economic to cultural signifiers holds implications beyond mere semantics. The economic implications of the term “welfare mom” effectively thrust the topic of teen pregnancy into the realm of the public (as evidenced in the existing literature, which suggests that the “problem” or “epidemic” of teen pregnancy is usually contextualized in terms of the socio-economic burden it places on the state). However, the relationship between the “white trash” schema and economic status is less pronounced, resulting in less vehement meta- debates about the role of government in addressing the problem of teen pregnancy when it occurs in the context of a white, upper-class family. Hence, “white trash” becomes a dangerous emblem of a cultural attitude of lethargy and fatalism surrounding teen pregnancy – like trash, the pregnant teen who fits the bill is devalued and consequently discarded from public consciousness.

3.2 Situating the Pregnancy within the Public Sphere Up until this point, the discussion has focused solely on the rhetorical strategies used to privatize Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. I have argued that through attempts to cast Bristol Palin as a private subject, issues of spatial and decisional privacy were politicized in problematic ways. These arguments were also political in the sense that they pushed for the normalization of particular value sets and entrenched schemas that perpetuate limiting and/or problematic assumptions about the nature of teen pregnancy. However, the pregnancy was also politicized in interesting ways by responses that sought to thrust the pregnancy into the public sphere. In situating the pregnancy as a public, political issue, two major themes dominated the discussions. The first theme was the argument that the public nature of Palin’s position as a Vice Presidential candidate legitimated unbridled public commentary on her daughter’s pregnancy. The second major theme permeating these responses involved positioning the pregnancy as a platform for a renewed critique of various public policy and party platform issues. One way in which readers justified public commentary on the issue was by citing the already public nature of the pregnancy. Much of this argument centered on Palin’s willingness to accept the vice presidential nomination (and the high degree of visibility that accompanies such a position) despite the particulars of her daughter’s situation. As one reader stated, “All of this back and forth about leaving Bristol out of the spotlight is a non-issue. She is IN the spotlight now; her mother made sure of that when she accepted the job.”55 In other words, Palin’s decision to enter the public sphere effectively relinquished her daughter’s right to protection from public scrutiny. Though readers acknowledged the possibility that the teen had little choice over her newfound celebrity status, concern for the welfare of the teen was ultimately trumped in arguments asserting that Palin invariably invited public commentary when she accepted the nomination: “…The child (which is what she is) didn’t need to be dragged into politics to create an image, but now that it’s been done, you can’t suddenly ask for privacy when you were the one who asked for the limelight.”56

55 Posted by SusieQ on September 2, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b26771_morning_piss_war_of_wombs.html 56 Posted by orangepetal on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html

Other readers argued for using the pregnancy as a platform to discuss relevant issues surrounding the affair. As the previous analysis chapter discussed, many readers contended that the pregnancy provided a legitimate grounds for an examination of Palin’s ethos and abilities as a leader: “Why is this pregnancy important to discuss? It is not about vilifying a kid, but it is definitely about Palin’s management and decision-making skills.”57 Other readers argued for politicizing the pregnancy on the grounds that it presented an important opportunity to debate Palin’s stance on public policy issues. The most popular issue discussed by readers was that of abstinence-only sex education, a policy Palin openly supported. “The only way the pregnancy is relevant to the campaign is for what it says about Governor Palin’s policy for abstinence-only programs. If she blindly sticks to policies that prove to be failures, is she a good VEEP choice for McCain?” one reader implored.58 Another reader asserted that making the pregnancy a political issue was warranted given the “well-established positive correlation between abstinence-only sex education and the incidence of unwed teen pregnancy.” By actively and publicly supporting a policy that was proven unsuccessful in her own family, the reader claimed, “Sarah Palin has unwittingly made her family Exhibit A.”59 In attempts to position the pregnancy as a public affair, some readers called for a more thoughtful definition of the parameters of acceptable public commentary regarding the pregnancy. One reader, arguing that the teen should be recognized as independent of her mother’s decision to run for public office, suggested isolating the pregnancy from the questions it raised about Palin’s stance on policy issues: “Fair enough. Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is private. But Sarah Palin’s position on how to limit the number of teen pregnancies isn’t, nor is her abortion views. Let’s discuss the latter without the former.”60 Another reader attempted to define the boundaries between public and private by advocating for a more systemic approach to discussion about the pregnancy:

57 Posted by Redneck3 on September 2, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b26771_morning_piss_war_of_wombs.html 58 Posted by Michael A. on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866 59 Posted by JJ on September 2, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b26771_morning_piss_war_of_wombs.html 60 Posted by DC10 on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html

“I don’t think that we should be playing political tug-of-war with this young woman and her baby…But I do think her situation is one that we need to be talking about. We need to start asking ourselves why so many young girls her age are getting pregnant and why so many kids are dropping out of high school. Are their prospects so bleak that they are giving up? I know the far right will hail her “choice,” but the far right is only interested in abortion in the abstract and have little or no compassion for this young woman, her situation, and the people in her life.”61

As illustrated in the above response, some readers viewed the pregnancy as an opportunity to analyze why teens continue to engage in unprotected sexual intercourse regardless of their upbringing or exposure to sex education. However, in the political shuffle to either dismiss or demonize the actions of the pregnant teen, her mother, or the Republican Party as a whole, the socially progressive voice of reason was often muted on political and popular news sites. One rare example came from a disenchanted Townhall reader: “What I find striking in this whole story is how sad it is that teen pregnancy is still so prevalent in this age of information. I also find it incredibly disturbing that Bristol is one of the luckier unwed mothers who could have benefited from having parents who are in a position to have offered much more help in keeping both of these kids in school and encouraging them to work towards college so that one day they will have the educations to pursue careers that will elevate them above the normal obstacles that usually cripple young, unwed parents.”62

The examination also extended to discussions of the reproductive choices available to young women in similar situations, especially those options that Palin declined to address in official statements regarding the pregnancy: “It seems valid to ask why any seventeen year old would choose to get pregnant and then keep the baby. Birth control works, as does adoption. Abortion is not the only possible alternative. I would respect the Palins more if they used this as an opportunity to discuss adoption as a respectable, time-honored way to resolve an unwanted pregnancy – for the future of the child, the future of the girl, and the benefit of a childless family.”63

Other readers maintained that in pushing a “family values” agenda, Palin and other social conservatives set the precedent for the politicization of family issues. As one reader succinctly stated, “the GOP made a huge mistake when they made family values an issue because that made

61 Posted by aofh on September 3, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html 62 Posted by HappyRationalist on December 30, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/news/us/2008/12/30/palins_daughter_gives_birth_to_son_named_tripp/ 63 Posted by Mary on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://townhall.com/blog/g/897b6413-4d11-4e57-a8c3- b35394d81866

their families an issue.”64 Many expressed anger over the perceived hypocrisy of declaring one’s own right to spatial and decisional privacy when one publicly advocates for legislation that compromises such rights for the populace: “Respect my family’s privacy, this was a family decision; but elect me so I can take away your right to decide.”65 Or as another reader remarked, “Do as I say, not as I do (or teach my family). Control the excesses of the masses, hide the excesses of the aristocracy.”66 All of the above arguments are nuanced variations of the claim that the pregnancy warranted some level of public exposure and commentary. The justifications for turning the pregnancy into a political issue magnify some important philosophical debates about the distinction between private and public spheres of influence. One such debate centers on the right of the citizenry to access and evaluate the private lives of public figure and their families. Certainly, Palin’s family values agenda complicated the matter by exacerbating public analysis of her own family. Through measures that seek to limit a woman’s right to reproductive choice, curb the civil liberties of homosexuals, keep religion in the public school system, and censor obscene material, the social conservative agenda effectively blurs the lines between private and public by allowing the government to dictate the lives of private citizens. As a consequence of politicizing morality and family values, the private life of a candidate becomes even more central to the public’s understanding and evaluation of a candidate’s ethos. Thus, readers attempted to legitimize politicization of the pregnancy by manipulating the definition of private and public in the same way that Palin and other social conservatives have in the past. An analysis of the rhetorical strategies employed to situate Bristol Palin as either a private or political subject highlights several paradoxes and contradictions surrounding the topic of teen pregnancy in the United States. To cast Bristol Palin as a private subject, readers used the image of the emotionally and economic family and the moral integrity of the pregnant teen to argue that the pregnancy was being handled appropriately and competently, and thus did not present a social or economic concern to the citizenry. By conferring ultimate authority and

64 Posted by I’m_nobody on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/352173 65 Posted by Bernabeem on September 4, 2008. Accessed at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-my- daughter-is-preg_n_122947.html 66 Posted by bartmelton on September 1, 2008. Accessed at: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/01/1318541.aspx

decision-making power on the family, issues of spatial and decisional privacy were complicated, especially with regards to agency on the part of the pregnant teen. Readers also employed the welfare mother schema to demarcate Bristol Palin from the “typical” pregnant teen in the United States. Paradoxically, many readers who positioned Bristol Palin as the antithesis to the ‘”Other” also asserted that the Palin family’s situation can and indeed does happen to families all across the United States. In making such assertions, readers ignored the realities of many pregnant teens who do not have the emotional or financial support of a family to rely on. In addition, readers constituted Bristol Palin as a “good” kid from a “good” family, positioning the family structure as a key element in demarcating an acceptable teen pregnancy scenario from one that is undesirable. Thus, readers construct a paradox where teen pregnancy that “can happen to anyone” is acceptable only if it occurs within the context of a loving, supportive family. (Governor Palin corroborated this sentiment in a February 2009 Fox News interview, where she asserted, “I don't know how other families do it, if they've got to assume that the young parents are going to make it on their own or assume that government will take care of the young parent and that child. That's not government's role. This is a role for families to pitch in and help” [“Exclusive,” 2009]). In attempts to shield the teen from public scrutiny, some readers presented a fatalistic view of teen pregnancy, casting it as an undesirable yet inevitable situation given the impulsive sexual desire, curiosity, and irresponsibility of young people. Thus, important aspects of the teen pregnancy debate, such as the effectiveness of various sex education measures and reasons for the undeniable gaps between education and action were often not given a platform. Portraying the pregnant teen as irresponsible and immature also sends a contradictory message given that many readers commended the pregnant teen for having the maturity to keep the baby and accept the responsibilities of motherhood. These conflicting portraits of the pregnant teen reflect one of the paradoxes of cultural discourse surrounding teen pregnancy. While she is considered old enough accept responsibility for her actions and take on the challenges of motherhood, she is often also considered too young to make decisions about her body and her future without the influence and guidance of the family. Reader responses attempting to position the pregnancy as a public affair argued that the public nature of Palin’s position and the opportunity the pregnancy presented to talk about relevant policy issues warranted citizen debate. Both arguments raise questions about the rights

of the citizenry to politicize the private lives of public figures. Justifying the politicization of the pregnancy solely on the grounds that Sarah Palin willingly sought the public spotlight is problematic, for it relinquishes the teen’s right to privacy through no doing of her own. Attempts to separate Bristol Palin’s situation from her mother’s stance on topical policy issues, though noble, was ultimately an impossible endeavor given that Bristol Palin was consistently pointed to as an example of the failed policies Sarah Palin endorsed, effectively anchoring the teen to such discussions. Finally, many readers legitimated the political exploitation of Palin’s daughter on the basis that Palin’s “family values” agenda already blurred the lines between public and private spheres of influence. However, in the midst of all the tu quoque finger-pointing, these responses failed to recognize or address the more systemic consequences of compromised personal privacy, which is the vulnerability of the citizen to the political aims of competing ideologies and institutions.

CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION

The aim of this research was to explore the complex relationship between teen pregnancy, citizen discourse, and how gender implicates cultural conceptions of public and private spheres of influence. One of the major questions this study sought to answer was how Bristol Palin’s pregnancy shaped evaluations of Sarah Palin’s private and public identities. The analysis revealed a causal relationship in which Sarah Palin’s identity as a mother was consistently privileged over her identity as a political figure. In addition to reinforcing the dominant gender paradigm that positions motherhood as the locus of a woman’s identity, this trend in citizen discourse made Palin’s aptitude as a mother the basis for evaluations of her abilities as a statesperson. Politicizing the personal in such a way creates a vulnerable space for any woman attempting to negotiate the tensions between private and public identities. When motherhood is politicized in such a way, it can be used as a regulating force – one that either validates or illegitimates a woman’s right to participate in the public sphere. Another aim of the research was to identify the rhetorical strategies used to position Bristol Palin as either a private or political subject. The recurring themes of the strong, supportive family structure and the moral rectitude of the pregnant teen were used to position the pregnancy as a private, family affair. Conversely, citizen discourse attempting to politicize the event capitalized on the preexisting shades of grey in the private/public dichotomy, including Palin’s own family values agenda and the historical positioning of teen pregnancy as a socio- political issue. These rhetorical strategies highlight some of the latent cultural schemas, assumptions, and attitudes regarding teen pregnancy in the United States. Clearly, economic stability remains a central feature of the cultural delineation of an “acceptable” teen pregnancy scenario. The reactionary nature of this cultural attitude ignores the realities of many pregnant teens - those who do not have the economic or emotional support of family. Conversely, the absence of the economic implications to the state in the “white trash” schema projected on pregnant teens such as Bristol Palin encourages social inaction by casting such women aside.

Positioning the nuclear family as the ultimate salve to the “epidemic” of teen pregnancy also raises concerns regarding the pregnant teen’s decisional and spatial privacy. The power conferred on the nuclear family to make decisions for the pregnant teen and ensure that the baby grows up to become a productive member of society may serve to compromise the teen’s own decision-making abilities regarding her body and her future. In addition, the pressure inherent in the cultural expectation that the pregnant teen quickly form a family of her own with the father of the child may place the pregnant teen in a situation that is ultimately harmful or undesirable for the young woman. To protect the decisional autonomy and spatial privacy of the pregnant teen, we must expand our conception of family to include single motherhood and work to establish a cultural climate that recognizes the challenges of single motherhood while protecting the rights of single mothers. Most importantly, however, citizen discourse needs to move beyond reactionary politics and foster social dialogue that seeks to address the problem of teen pregnancy more systemically. Given the volume and scope of news coverage and commentary surrounding the pregnancy, it was important to limit the sample in a way that encapsulated the spectrum of attitudes and ideologies present in citizen discourse while simultaneously setting realistic parameters for analysis. One of the strengths of this study was the equal consideration given to liberal, conservative, and popular news sources. However, limiting reader responses to the first one hundred responses to two main stories may have missed some of the more interesting dynamics surrounding the pregnancy, such as the tumultuous split between Bristol Palin and the baby’s father, Levi Johnston, and the custody battle that ensued. Given that the impending marriage was cited as a major reason to leave the pregnancy out of public discourse, it would have been interesting to examine how the disintegration of this mythic image of marital bliss was resolved in citizen discourse. Nine months after the news of the pregnancy was first revealed to the public, Bristol Palin is still making national headlines. In February 2009, the young teen mother accepted her first interview with FOX News. During an interview at the Palin family home with Greta Van Susteren, the issue of contraception was addressed: VAN SUSTEREN: I don't want to pry too personally, but I mean, actually, contraception is an issue here. Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have a philosophical or religious opposition to it or...

BRISTOL: No. I don't want to get into detail about that. But I think abstinence is, like -- like, the -- I don't know how to put it -- like, the main -- everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it's not realistic at all. VAN SUSTEREN: Why? BRISTOL: Because -- I don't want to get into details on this. After alluding to the fact that abstinence might not be a realistic or effective prevention message to send to teens, Bristol Palin repeatedly made the plea to other teens to “wait ten years:” VAN SUSTEREN: Teen pregnancy -- what's your thought on that? BRISTOL: I think everyone should just wait 10 years (“Exclusive”, 2009). This contradiction speaks to the frustrations with and failures of abstinence-only sexual education measures. As Bristol Palin’s situation illustrates, the message of “wait ten years” is not only unrealistic, it has proven to be ineffective in preventing teen pregnancy. Perhaps part of the solution lies in a more thoughtful analysis of why teens engage in unprotected premarital sex. Our current schemas (such as casting the young woman as sexually deviant and promiscuous) and the tendency to use teen pregnancy as a public forum for promoting various ideologies ultimately hinder an honest exploration of this question. Several interesting studies have been performed in recent years to address the question of why teens choose to engage or abstain from sexually risky behaviors. Peer pressure and a highly sexualized culture are often cited as contributing factors, but contemporary research on adolescent women’s discourse on sexuality suggests other reasons as well. Some young women see sexual intercourse as a healthy and necessary step towards development, while others situate sex in the context of a loving relationship with their sexual partner (Lamanna, 1999). One of the largest motivating factors present in a young woman’s decision to abstain from sex is the belief that it poses a risk to the achievement of long-term goals (Lamanna, 1999; Regnerus, 2007). Race and class are inextricably tied to an understanding of the motives behind the decision to engage in sexual intercourse, as most of the women who cited ambitions and goals as a determining factor in abstaining from sex were Caucasian women from middle- to upper-class socio-economic backgrounds (Lamanna, 1999; Regnerus, 2007). Current public debate, which seems to focus more on issues of morality and the ideological battle over abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex education, tends to ignore the more fundamental questions that must be addressed if we wish to curtail the instances of teenage pregnancy in the United States. What

factors contribute to a young woman’s decision to engage in unprotected premarital sex? What factors contribute to a young woman’s decision to abstain from or practice safe sex? How can social programs more effectively address the challenges facing young women who are most likely to engage in sexually risky behaviors (those who are not optimistic about their futures, personal potential and/or self worth)? The answers to these questions can only be found by listening more carefully to what these young women are trying to tell us. Several months after Bristol Palin agreed to her first broadcast interview, she and her father made an appearance on the TODAY show to promote the Eighth Annual National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, an event sponsored by the Candie’s Foundation. Bristol has been appointed as a teen ambassador for the New York City-based Candie’s Foundation because “she believes she could be a living example of the consequences of teen pregnancy” (Netter et. al, 2009). During the interview, Todd Palin remarked on the strength of his daughter in taking on the new public role: “She’s tough. She’s a great mom. We’re proud of her for taking on this national responsibility” (Celizic, 2009). A noble task, indeed: to subject oneself to martyrdom after being sacrificed at the altar of national politics. This new public role seems especially ironic given the pains taken to shield the teen from the public during her pregnancy. Perhaps the most striking observation to be made from the affair is a sense of the liminal space in which the pregnant teen body exists. Throughout the campaign, Bristol Palin’s body was contested grounds for ideologues and politicos; the locus of a host of schizophrenic identities. Was she a child who made a mistake, or an adult who needed to accept responsibility for her actions? Was she a sinful child fornicator, or had she redeemed herself by choosing life? Was her unborn child evidence of her mother’s failure to provide guidance and supervision, a testament to her mother’s unwavering love and support, or evidence of the failed right-wing policies (e.g. abstinence-only education) her mother publicly advocated? The political nature of the pregnancy and the debates surrounding it are, above all else, examples of how easily the pregnant teenage body can be exploited in both private and public spheres of influence.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Erin Schmidt

A native of Minneapolis, MN, Erin Schmidt completed her Bachelor’s degree in Communication at Luther College in the spring of 2007. She enrolled in the Media and Communication Studies masters program in the Department of Communication at Florida State University in the summer of 2007. During the tenure at Florida State University, she provided undergraduate lab instruction in Public Speaking and Fundamentals of Communication. Erin’s research interests include sexuality and reproductive discourse in mediated texts, postfeminism and the rise of female chauvinism, and participatory media and social change.