{"id":130,"date":"2014-04-09T15:17:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T15:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=130"},"modified":"2014-04-10T20:14:18","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T20:14:18","slug":"making-em-squeal-joni-ernsts-dangerous-political-femininity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=130","title":{"rendered":"Making ‘Em Squeal: Joni Ernst’s “Dangerous” Political Femininity"},"content":{"rendered":"

With November\u2019s midterm congressional elections approaching, most states are currently in the midst of primary campaigns. While these local-level contests usually don\u2019t attract much attention beyond state borders, the possibilities of viral video circulation occasionally introduce a particularly memorable candidate to the rest of the nation. While her five-way senatorial primary is still a close race, Iowa State Senator Joni Ernst recently caught the attention of the national media with a new video ad. The Republican candidate makes a lasting impression \u2013 one that could propel her to political meme fame akin to that of former Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O\u2019Donnell<\/a> \u2013 by opening the TV spot with a sensational statement: \u201cI\u2019m Joni Ernst. I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I get to Washington, I\u2019ll know how to cut pork.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

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Given the backlash amongst Iowa voters to Democratic candidate Bruce Braley\u2019s recent statement that current Senator Charles Grassley is just \u201ca farmer from Iowa who never went to law school,\u201d<\/a> Ernst\u2019s appeal to the state\u2019s agricultural base could spell out success, at least in the short-term. The ad\u2019s playful tone demonstrates that the campaign embraces Ernst\u2019s experiences on a hog farm, projecting them as the quintessential characteristics of Iowan life that make the state\u2019s voters and political climate unique. Indeed, it\u2019s unlikely that candidates from other states would include their own blend of Pork Rub<\/a> in their online campaign store.<\/p>\n

Far from the Hawkeye state, however, national media outlets have picked up Ernst\u2019s ad. Notably, it has received play on The Colbert Report<\/a> and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.<\/a> Fallon reacts with visible disbelief and disgust, stammering that \u201cI don\u2019t know what she\u2019s running for but let\u2019s just give her the job\u201d and parodying her with, \u201cHi I\u2019m Joni Ernst, and I grew up throwing battery acid in people\u2019s faces.\u201d Colbert, never breaking character, gives Ernst the kind of treatment that his program spares no guest, topic, or controversy. Running with a theme of castration jokes, he imagines Ernst\u2019s girlhood as uniquely shaped by her involvement with the family hog farm, suggesting that she never read Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/i> and only failed to operate on Ken dolls because of the toys’ pre-existing lack of genitalia. Further, he addresses male anxieties surrounding castration, noting that \u201cErnst already got Mitt Romney\u2019s endorsement, and she can have mine too if she comes nowhere near me.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Fallon and Colbert are, of course, primarily concerned with landing a joke that will resonate with their audiences, I think that the responses of these male TV personalities offer a point of entry into an important discussion of gender and electoral politics. Ernst\u2019s ad is undeniably quirky, and has successfully garnered attention for her campaign, but will likely be grouped alongside both ads and gaffes from other Republican women like O\u2019Donnell, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann. While these candidates cannot be called feminists, the prevailing expectation of their incompetency is indicative of masculinist views on political strength, capability, and subjectivity. What separates Ernst from some of her fellow Republican women is that she has not yet failed; in fact, a campaign that focuses its energy and resources on appealing to the agricultural base in Iowa could be successful. Thus, while the ad is undeniably sensationalist, it takes the work of male comedians to equate Ernst\u2019s statements about castrating hogs with a sense that she threatens masculinity.<\/p>\n

Fallon\u2019s comparison of the common farm practice Ernst references to throwing acid at people not only signals the disconnect that has long existed between urban and rural or agricultural voters, but also betrays a sense that women who are willing to participate in such agricultural work do not fit within comfortable, safe gender boundaries. Likewise, the Des Moines Register reported<\/a> that one political operative has joked that Ernst\u2019s Secret Service codename would be \u201cLorena Bobbit,\u201d further demonstrating the discomfort that Ernst has caused. And while it may be unlikely that a male candidate would make such a joke in campaign materials, Ernst\u2019s womanhood and willingness to cross boundaries are proving threatening to some parts of established political authority.<\/p>\n

While Colbert\u2019s jokes hint at similar responses, they might also leave space for a critique of \u2018proper\u2019 girlhood activities even while parodying the ad\u2019s shock-value. In satirically suggesting that Ernst\u2019s childhood involvement in farm work was not a part of \u2018normal\u2019 girlhood, Colbert gestures to the need for a re-evaluation of traditional femininity in politics. For Ernst\u2019s agricultural background to suggest that she is not fit for office exposes the thin line that female candidates must walk, maintaining a desirable feminine appearance and demeanor while demonstrating that she possesses the competence, rationality, and focus that are required to participate in what is still very much an old boys’ club.<\/p>\n

Constraints on female politicians are frequently up for discussion in the contemporary United States, amongst voters, analysts, pundits, and policy makers alike. Many voters on both sides of the aisle can agree that female candidates as ideologically distinct as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have faced extra obstacles to elected office by virtue of their gender and expectations of femininity and skepticism of a woman\u2019s qualifications, even before she has the chance to demonstrate them. Ernst\u2019s platform is inconsistent with contemporary feminisms, but her ad offers an intervention into particular dominant, masculinist logics operating in Congress, providing a critique that might leave space for much more radical interpretation and citation than Ernst could have ever intended. While I won\u2019t join Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin in giving my endorsement to Ernst, I do applaud her willingness to run this ad \u2013 she shows that women in politics don\u2019t need to be \u2018ballsy\u2019 to be brave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With November\u2019s midterm congressional elections approaching, most states are currently in the midst of primary campaigns. While these local-level contests usually don\u2019t attract much attention beyond state borders, the possibilities of viral video circulation occasionally introduce a particularly memorable candidate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[51,50,52,47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}