Just Mothering: Amy Coney Barrett and the Racial Politics of American Motherhood

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and confirmation featured frequent references to her role as a mother. This article situates these references within the trajectory of American political development to demonstrate how motherhood operates as a mechanism for enforcing a white-centered racial order. Through a close analysis of both the history of politicized motherhood as well as Barrett’s nomination and confirmation hearings, I make a series of claims about motherhood and contemporary conservatism. First, conservatives stress the virtuousness of motherhood through a division between public and private spheres that valorizes the middle-class white mother. Second, conservatives emphasize certain mothering practices associated with the middle-class white family. Third, conservatives leverage an epistemological claim about the universality of mothering experiences to universalize white motherhood. Finally, this universalism obscures how motherhood operates as a site in which power distinguishes between good and bad mothers and allocates resources accordingly. By attending to what I call the “republican motherhood script” operating in contemporary conservatism, I argue that motherhood is an ideological apparatus for enforcing a racial order premised on white protectionism.

“They Were Laughing”: Congressional Framing of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s Sexual Assault Allegations on Twitter

Allegations of sexual assault and violence engulfed the confirmation hearings surrounding President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee (and now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh. Our work examines congressmembers’ communication concerning sexual assault and #MeToo during this critical time of the Kavanaugh hearing and how this relates to perceptions of gender and partisanship today. While previous research demonstrated a strong role of gender in influencing which members discussed #MeToo, we show that partisanship played a much larger role in discussions of sexual assault during this hearing. The findings highlight the shifting narrative surrounding the #MeToo movement and how the multiple identities of members of Congress, namely partisanship and gender, can be activated and produce changes in how elites communicate about the issue, which may have broader policymaking implications.

Voter Sex, Party, and Gender-Salient Issues: Attitudes about Sexual Harassment and Brett Kavanaugh in the 2018 Elections

Since the election of President Trump and the dawning of the #MeToo movement, gender-salient issues have had a primary place in recent American politics. This was particularly evident in 2018 in the wake of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings amid accusations that he has sexually assaulted a classmate. Previous research suggests that women should be more concerned about issues like sexual harassment and mobilized to participate in elections in which these issues are prominent. Yet, American politics has become more polarized in the last 25 years, requiring us to re-examine the impact of gender-salient issues on women’s electoral behavior. Employing data from a 2018 ANES pilot study, we examine the relative impact of gender and party on attitudes toward sexual harassment, Brett Kavanaugh, and participation in the 2018 elections. We find that, while gender plays some role in 2018, partisanship is still the dominant influence in these elections.

Icon

This chapter traces Justice Antonin Scalia’s rise from law school to a position on the Supreme Court and then his emergence as a judicial icon representing “conservatism” and “originalism” in opposition to the legacy of the Warren Court. It locates his rise in his political commitment to the Republican Party, his appeal to President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and his triumph over his fellow conservative intellectual Robert Bork for the leadership of judicial conservatism and the effort to promote constitutional originalism. Once established on the Court, Scalia’s influence grew until he and his jurisprudence became significant political issues for both national parties, especially in subsequent judicial confirmation hearings and presidential elections. When Scalia died in early 2016, his replacement became a major issue in the presidential campaign, and the new Trump administration promised to replace him with the most Scalia-like candidate it could find.

Talking (or Not) About Sexual Violence: Newspaper Coverage of the Confirmation Hearings of Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh

The ways in which sexual violence is portrayed in the media contribute to communities’ understanding of violence and can influence survivor outcomes. The parallel cases of the confirmation hearings of Justices Kavanaugh and Thomas provide an opportunity to measure if and how the cultural zeitgeist has shifted around issues of sexual violence. This study sought to answer two questions: (a) When a supreme court nominee is accused of sexual violence, have the ways the mainstream media discussed the violence in newspaper headlines changed between 1991 and 2018? To what extent and how? (b) Have the ways the mainstream media characterizes the nominee and the accuser within and between 1991 and 2018 changed? How? Headlines were collected systematically from eight major U.S. newspapers, resulting in a data set of 373 headlines from 1991 and 249 from 2018. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to examine the characterizations of the accuser, nominee, and violence. Supplemental chi-square analyses were used to compare how violence was categorized in the two years. While less victim-blaming and minimization of sexual violence occurred in the 2018 headlines, newspapers continued to avoid naming the sexual violence. The characterizations of the nominee, accuser, and violence became depersonalized in 2018, focusing on politics rather than the people and issues at hand, likely reflecting a highly politicized American public. Despite the heightened attention to sexual violence that current movements have sparked, our analysis of comparable cases in 1991 and 2018 suggests newspaper headlines continued to avoid naming sexual violence as violence in 2018 as in 1991, and furthermore, contemporary language about sexual violence and its survivors and perpetrators has not changed to reflect an increased response to survivor healing and perpetrator change. Rather, shifts in language suggest survivors and perpetrators may be politicized as tools for parties and politicians to debate larger issues or stake political positions.

Columbia and the Editorial Cartoon

This chapter looks at the figure of Columbia in editorial cartoons from the nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century where she represents the nation at times of sociopolitical impasse, crisis, or change. The chapter analyzes a contemporary editorial cartoon, “The Handmaid’s Senators” by R. J. Matson, which editorializes the confirmation hearings of US Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. An analysis follows of Columbia in the 1865 “Pardon/Franchise,” Harper’s Weekly centerfold by Thomas Nast; Columbia is seen as the mouthpiece for Lincoln’s enfranchisement politics. The chapter briefly analyzes three illustrations from Joseph Keppler’s Puck, drawn during the 1893 Chicago World Fair and with a focus on women. Columbia recedes to the background here, while Lady Chicago celebrates this historic event. Returning to Matson’s cartoon, the chapter concludes that Columbia has always been the sociopolitical handmaid, who protects underrepresented people and facilitates commentary delivered to the public.