Gender Attacks on Kamala Harris
Something Bigger Is Going On Here
Since it isn’t acceptable to directly attack Kamala Harris because she is a female, the gender attacks against her have taken a cruel and ridiculous turn. Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacked Kamala Harris last week during a Trump campaign event in Flint, Michigan, where she was a key speaker. Sanders picked up where JD Vance’s “childless cat-lady” comment left off.
For the sake of accuracy, here is a direct quote of what she said…. I didn’t want to misstate or misconstrue the stupidity and cruelty of the statement:
“You can walk into a room like this where people cheer when you step onto the stage and you might think for a second that you’re kind of special. Then you go home and your kids remind you very quickly that you’re not that big of a deal.”
If she had had the common sense to stop there, her comment could have been characterized as witty, self-deprecating, and funny. But common sense in the GOP Trump MAGA party seems in short supply. She kept on the theme of humility before pivoting to the Democratic nominee for president.
She went on to attack Harris:
“So, my kids keep me humble,” she said to the crowd, pausing for a few seconds. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”
Never mind that Harris has two stepchildren through her marriage to Doug Emhoff, Ella and Cole Emhoff, and has often spoken about her role as stepmom or, using her nickname, “Momala.” According to the sexist and Christian Nationalist Sanders, Harris isn’t the RIGHT KIND OF FEMALE.
Evidently, Sanders believes that you can’t really be a true female leader unless you have biological children. Step Moms and Step Grandmothers take deep umbrage at Sanders’ comments, along with those women who never have children, step or otherwise. But MAGA has no room for the “childless cat ladies” either, right JD?
It is a funny and curious way to try and win votes. Some in the crowd booed, much to their credit. Unfortunately, the laughs and applause were louder. I doubt Sanders expanded the voting bloc for Trump in any meaningful way.
The Sanders comment raises another angle in the ongoing gender war against Harris. The word “humble” needs to be considered in this context. Why would one assume that being humble is something that a woman OUGHT to exhibit, given the crass boastfulness of the ego-driven and narcissistic Trump? Really? Women ought to be humble?
Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, the potential First Gentleman, responded to the hypocrisy in Sanders’ statement. He rightfully called out her blatant sexism. At a campaign fundraiser for Harris the next day, Emhoff said:
“They said that somehow, because Cole and Ella aren’t Kamala’s, quote, unquote biological children, she doesn’t have anything in her life to keep her humble, as if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for.”
Emhoff added:
“There is nothing more important to me than Kamala and Kerstin and our kids, our big, beautiful, blended family. Women in this country will never humble themselves before Donald Trump.”
By this point, Emhoff was just getting warmed up. He hit the proverbial nail on the head by going further to the source of this gendered ideology. He said:
“We know what they’re really trying to do. It’s Dobbs. It’s Project 2025. It’s spreading hate and trying to pit women against each other, trying to pit us all against each other. But I’ve got news for him. Women in this country are sick and tired of weak men trying to take away their fundamental rights and then ... gaslight you about it.”
BOOM!!! (That was the sound of the mic-drop)
This isn’t just about Gov. Sanders being snarky. This is about a much more significant issue within the current MAGA movement’s ideology. Getting rid of abortion rights and accusing childless women of being “less than” citizens is part of the overriding Christian Nationalist-Handmaid’s Tale world they hope to create. But it doesn’t stop there.
The MAGA movement is coming after Invitro fertilization, after birth control methods, and after the dignity and status of women in American society.
It was no accident that, back in January, Republican representative Katie Britt of Alabama delivered the response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech while standing in her kitchen. I have nothing against standing in the kitchen, but the MAGA squad's imagery and message were unmistakable and intentional. That is where women belong!
Britt was presented as the MAGA world’s “ideal woman” who still puts home and her family of biological children front and center. With theatrical flourishes, such as taking a deep, dramatic breath after using the word “breathtaking,” she often broke into a weird sort of childlike breathy whisper. Some have called it the “Fundie Baby Voice.”
According to Jess Piper - a "former Evangelical and Southern Baptist" who ran as a Democrat for a Missouri Senate seat in 2022, she describes the Fundie Baby Voice as "the breathy cadence and the soft, child-like high pitch." Piper explained that "it was ingrained in every woman [she] knew from church." Many women try to "prove" that they can "be sweet" and "obey," as was expected by the norms of their typical fundamentalist churches.
Piper described the voice itself as having a "cadence of condescension." Her words about motherhood and family ideals "assured other fundamentalist Christians that she understands her role in society." That is the point. The gendered role of women in MAGA society is certainly not represented by a powerful and strong Kamala Harris but by a Fundie Baby-Voiced Katie Britt.
The "Baby Voice" has been a topic of conversation within the context of gender dynamics for several years. Just watch the documentary Happy Shiny People about the Duggar family and listen to Mom Duggar’s Baby Voice. This is nothing new.
But within the slogan “Make America Great Again,” there lies a not-so-subtle goal of taking the country back to the days when women were powerless, docile, subservient, and essentially, kept their mouths shut. This vision of a gendered society reaches back into our history to the early republican (not the party) period when the “Cult of Domesticity” was the cultural norm.
The period of 1790 to 1860 saw the rise in America of an ideology of feminine behavior and an ideal of womanliness that has come to be known as the “Cult of True Womanhood” or “Cult of Domesticity.” Historian Barbara Welter writes:
“True womanhood” held that women were designed exclusively for the roles of wife and mother and were expected to cultivate Piety, Purity, Submissiveness, and Domesticity in all their relations. Also exclusive was their “sphere,” or domain of influence, which was confined completely to the home. Thus, the Cult of Domesticity “privatized” women’s options for work, for education, for voicing opinions, or for supporting reform.
But women would not stand for the “cult of domesticity.” The past two centuries have seen Herculean achievements in the progression of women’s rights. The suffrage movement and right to vote, the integration and elevation of women in sports, the move for equal participation of women in business and politics, and even the adaptation of pants have been cornerstones in the female path to equality. Progressively destroying the notion that women should only be defined by their presence in the home, women have courageously carved out new pathways and opportunities for themselves.
That is why Harris’ slogan, “We Aren’t Going Back,” resonates with women who are registering to vote in more significant numbers than ever. The likes of independent and influential entertainers like Taylor Swift and outstanding women athletes like Caitlin Clark, who have endorsed Harris, put an exclamation point on the slogan.
For the MAGA crowd, the danger isn’t just returning to the 1950s; it is about returning to the 1820s. Not only are women in danger of losing important and hard-won rights such as abortion access and voting (yes, there are those in the MAGA world who want to strip women of the right to vote), but they also are in danger of being removed from public life and put back into their “sphere of influence,” in the kitchen (and of course, the bedroom). Given any amount of power they may accrue, it is a dark and dangerous ideology that will reveal itself quickly in legislation and Supreme Court decisions.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ comments are not just snarky political jabs at Kamala Harris. They are core to understanding what is driving these gendered attacks. It is a religious ideology threatening to express itself politically in an entirely re-ordered social structure based on patriarchy.
Patriarchy has ruled the Western world for millennia. It has served nothing good in terms of social outcomes. But the Christian Nationalists, including Christian Nationalist women, persist in pushing the antiquated and debunked theory of social hierarchy that has led to white supremacy, slavery, and rich white men who believe it is their right to grab women by the “p—-y” and do as they wish. It is vile and opposed to every teaching of Jesus, which the Christian Nationalists falsely appeal to.
Kamala Harris is a threat and an enemy of this ideology born out of Christian extremism and nationalism. You can hear them now saying,
“How dare she run for office without having her own biological children — How dare she speak about her career as a prosecutor while not speaking from her kitchen — how dare she represent women who are successful in politics when she doesn’t recognize the Cult of Domesticity? How dare she speak at all without using a Fundie Baby Voice.”
Such a person indeed threatens the religious right and the patriarchy that undergirds their ideology.
Stay tuned for more gendered Christian Nationalist attacks against Harris. You know they are coming.
Dan, keep it up!