Stop the press. Hold the front page. An 18-year-old girl likes to dance!
If this doesn’t sound particularly newsworthy, it’s because it isn’t. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. But when you are a young black woman and your father is the president of the United States, all the usual rules about privacy, respect and general common sense apparently disappear.
So Malia Obama, who has shown extraordinary grace while growing up in the media spotlight, found herself plastered across the internet for the cardinal sin of dancing at a concert.
Less than a month after her 18th birthday, as Malia hung out at a festival with friends, she gave the briefest of shimmies, which was immediately captured on video and translated into: “Malia Obama Caught on Video Twerking and Flashing the Crowd” and “President Obama’s daughter flashes her undies at a camera”. Taking the public shaming one step further, social media users were quick to complain that Malia’s trip to the Lollapalooza festival coincided with the Democratic national convention, a major event in the political calendar that, of course, as an unelected citizen, she had absolutely no responsibility to attend.
It wasn’t the first time that Obama’s daughters have experienced high-profile public attacks. In 2014, Elizabeth Lauten, a spokesperson for a Republican congressman, resigned after comments she made on Facebook about Sasha and Malia Obama went viral. Criticising the girls for apparently not looking enthusiastic enough when they appeared alongside their father at a televised event, Lauten suggested they: “try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play.” It was a casual occasion (the annual Thanksgiving turkey “pardon” ceremony), but Lauten castigated the Obama girls for wearing skirts she deemed too short, writing: “Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar.”
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of these attacks is that the real target is never the “shamed” woman or girl, but the political man to whom they are related. Lauten’s true intent was revealed when her post continued: “Then again, your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter … So I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ department.” Her mean and inappropriate public derision of two teenage girls was a veil for the real mark: their political parents.
This week, Melania Trump, wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald, was slut-shamed in order to criticise her husband. Decades-old nude photographs of her were splashed across the front pages of the New York Post. Under the headline “Melania Trump’s girl-on-girl photos from racy shoot revealed”, they reprinted a number of images from a 1995 photoshoot, which had featured in a now-defunct French magazine.
Women whose fathers, brothers or husbands happen to have political careers are treated as mere appendages of their male relatives – to be judged, critiqued and shamed for the sole purpose of reflecting embarrassment back on to the male politician. Just consider the media treatment of Justine Miliband, who was torn down for not having a homely enough kitchen, or Samantha Cameron, who was eviscerated for wearing a sleeveless dress to a church service.To dig up ancient “racy” photographs of Trump’s wife adds absolutely nothing to the political conversation other than the heavy implication that such conduct is ill-befitting of a first lady, and might therefore reflect poorly on Trump’s candidacy.
Malia and Sasha Obama have not only experienced this suffocating scrutiny throughout eight years of their childhood and teenage years, but have also endured horrifying racist abuse – from accusations that Malia only won her place at university because she is black, to commentators describing her with racial slurs online. The same kind of abuse has dogged Michelle Obama throughout two terms as first lady, most recently in a repugnant cartoon comparing her unfavourably to Melania Trump.
Of course, some public comment comes with the territory for adult women who choose to become involved in their husbands’ political careers. It was right that Melania Trump’s Republican convention speech was criticised for its plagiarism, for example, just as it is reasonable to discuss and critique any political speech made by Michelle Obama. But the criticism should focus on their politics and views. Neither racism, slut-shaming nor moral policing have any place in the political arena. Nor should any such criticism focus on children who have made no attempt to step into the political spotlight.
To tear down wives and daughters as if they are empty vessels of family honour is dangerous and demeaning. But it also distracts us from the real issues. Most political men offer ample opportunities for criticism, all by themselves.
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