- Joined
- May 17, 2010
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well, I mean with MAGA and especially the monetised maga that aren't actually career politicians, performatism is pretty much the standard setting isn't it?
i'd say, even without the huge extra element of tragedy added into her life, EK's position is fraught with contradiction.I think the posts on this thread probably highlight an important paradox at the heart of EK's public role and that of any prominent MAGA woman- especially one like EK whose own husband publicly extolled the evils of women being educated, or having careers, or doing anything that actually gives them too much 'agency' outside the virtuous patriarchal control of their husbands
i don't know nearly enough about EK to say if she's intelligent or not but she at least doesn't seem unintelligent, so how has that squared with her own husband's public attitudes towards women in public life, his stated aversion to women having an education career, and so on?
i mean just for a start it makes me wonder how much either of them entirely bought into the schtick he peddled, if it was merely him peddling thinly-veiled misogyny under the imprimatur of a benevolent, religiously-justified patriarchy because misogyny sells in the RW sphere. Like was he just selling that schtick for the rubes without buying into it? or did she have to deal with that paradox of a husband who entirely belittled her right to participate in the public sphere?
BAM
Sweetheart
Platinum Membera combo of compartmentalisation and cognitive dissonance is the best case scenario. Complicit in mass manipulation at the worst. Hard to tell with the evangelical MAGA folks - a lot of them are looking for deeper meaning and do a bunch of mental gymnastics to justify their greater good reasoning
yeah this, it must just be weird as fuck being a maga woman, being front and centre and the warm, pious female mouthpiece of a movement that fundamentally denies your right to have a public role or worthwhile opinion, basically trotted out as window dressing if you happen to be aesthetically presentable enough but constantly having to listen to figures who are adjunct to your own leaders, or are thought-leaders themselves, talking about repealing the 19th Amendment and so on.
I believe everyone's favourite maga-woman-come-liberal, MTG, has spoken out on exactly this paradox, nobody had 'MTG as feminist backlash within maga' on their bingo card for 2025 I'm sure but this climate sure breeds strange bedfellows or fellow-travellers.
MTG of course also suffers from the fact that compared to most of the maga ladies, and even in the light of what passes for the acceptable look in those waters, she isn't conventionally aesthetically attractive**. Of course, there is a whole separate conversation to be had about why exactly almost every maga-adjunct woman mutilates their faces to a pretty much parodic degree. It's wild to say Melania actually probably has the most subtle and the least jarring look to her cosmetically altered face compared to the other maga ladies.
But you have to wonder just how much their self-image and self-worth being decimated by maga misogyny was exactly what lead to the constant desire/need to alter and find the 'perfect' facial look via surgical mutilation, in the first place. I can't see it as being entirely coincidental, I mean its more than just 'these women are in the public eye of course they take their appearance seriously', the maga women 'brand' is far more extreme than what passes for the Hollywood/media baseline of a 'standard' cosmetic look. I mean, its almost like its being done as some kind of penance or rite of passage, fucking self-mutilation as the price of entry, its definitely fucked-up and indicative of deeply-rooted mental issues and issues of self-worth IMO
currently it seems EK has either had no work done or very little work done to her face, i'll be interested to see if that remains the case. If her face never starts looking like generic maga lady I'd guess its a sign she is somehow managing to wrestle with the inherent paradox of her position relatively successfully.
I don't even know where I'm going with this, except i guess something about EK reminds me of an essay title on Gertrude in Hamlet 'A heart cleft in twain', IIRC the essay talks about the contradiction that she acts out and her complex moral dilemma and mixed loyalties, and that that complexity/contradiction kinda peaks through in the faultlines, so to speak. Thats kinda sorta how i feel about EK.
** although actually I'd do her above any of the ridiculous gargoyles who mutilated their faces, i mean yeah its a like 5/10 face card but i always kinda dug those short chunky bodies and the fact she can do pullups and muscle-ups is pretty hot too.
