Introduction: what is ultra-femininity?

In the public mind the so-called Alt-Right1 is mostly regarded as a hate-filled “manosphere” that is defined in large parts by its misogyny and its anti-feminist, anti-woman rhetoric (Nagle, 2017; Sauer, 2020). It is deemed a movement of

angry white men to such an extent that in the aftermath of the attempted insurrection in January 2021, the fact that the violent mob storming the Capitol building was scattered with female faces made international headlines (Givhan, 2021; Shaw, 2021; Thomas, 2021). This unwillingness to recognise the role of white women in spreading racism and (neo-)fascism has its historical precursors in the 20th century and has been addressed by a number of feminist scholars (Davis, 1983; Lorde, 1984; Kompisch, 2008). Women in white supremacist movements, including the Alt-Right, often also receive less media and scholarly attention because they are less likely to assume active leadership roles. Instead, they typically self-identify as “shield maidens” that help to soften and normalise white supremacy (Love, 2020). During the Trump administration, Alt-Right imagery increasingly spilled into mainstreammedia in the US and many other countries. With it came a specific type of female self-stylisation, broadly defined as a bundle of beautification practices, that I refer to as ultra-femininity. Although this look is in itself not new, but has been familiar in conservative circles for some time, particularly in the US, I will argue that it is now strategised in a new way. What differentiates the Alt-Right from previous white supremacist movements is its rootedness in digital culture, especially social media.

Utilising new aesthetic forms, such as memes, earlier and more effectively than their political counterparts, has given the movement a decided advantage in what is now referred to as a “online culture war” (Nagle, 2017; Hornuff, 2020). In internet culture, digital images play an essential part in shaping social discourse – and it is especially young women that have made use of, and in many cases benefited from, these new possibilities of self-representation by creating highly influential aesthetic standards and motifs (Kohout, 2019; Weis, 2020). Based on approaches from fashion theory and cultural studies, this chapter examines mainstream media coverage, social media posts and refences in popular culture as well as scholarly literature, especially feminist theory, and conducts a discourse analysis of ultra-femininity and related female beautification practices in order to examine the “cultural rules” attached to these practices. The chapter seeks to answer the question how stereotypes associated with ultra-femininity are being used politically – both to captivate and to antagonise. Next to the gendered meanings obviously associated with ultra-femininity, the role of class criticism as a founding narrative of the Alt-Right movement – in this case, the positioning of ultra-femininity as a form of anti-elitist class resistance – needs to be examined as well. What part do „progressive” left-wing and especially feminist approaches to female beauty and beautification play in this? The chapter focuses particularly on a few controversial moments in popular representations of fashion and politics and on “metapolitical” visual strategies within the Alt-Right, highlighting four themes: depictions of right-wing women and the “Fake Melania” meme in liberal-leaning media, a brief look at the history of western female “beautification” and its class implications since the 19th century, a discussion of changing feminist and post-feminist perspectives on “beautification” and, finally, the role of ultra-femininity in pop cultural strategies of the Alt-Right.

From the outset, it should be clear that femininity is a highly loaded concept not without problems or conceptual inconsistencies in feminist theory. Second-wave feminist Susan Brownmiller, for example, described it as “a rigid code of appearance and behavior defined by do’s and don’t-do’s” (Brownmiller, 1984, p.9). In the context of concrete practices of beautification, the subject becomes even more thorny: As female beauty standards are understood as patriarchally imposed, any efforts made to comply with those norms are regarded as irreconcilable with female autonomy. Seen from that perspective, femininity – understood as a cultural performance – in itself is a betrayal of the cause of feminism (Kauer, 2009, p.33). Even though, as I will argue in more detail below, feminist theorists of the third and fourth waves have been more welcoming to the idea of productive female self-imaging through beautification techniques (Davis, 1995; Degele, 2008; Kohout, 2019), the term femininity has remained problematic if only due to its inherent gender binarism. It is usually circumscribed as a symbolic place or practice, defining the bottom position in a binary gender hierarchy (Butler, 1990; Schippers, 2007). However, understanding femininity as a social construction within a power relation does not mean that the symbols chosen to represent it are semantically arbitrary. Approaches in cultural theory and sociology to the construction of beauty norms have argued convincingly that the “materiality of the body”, is inseparable from its symbolic properties and must be understood within the context of power relations – especially those relating to class, race and gender (Fleig, 2000; Koppetsch, 2000).

* The term “Nazi-Barbie” used in the title was coined in 2015 on online message boards frequented by members of the Antifa and their sympathizers. It originally referred to the US-American Influencer and White Supremacy Activist Brittany Pettibone, but has since been used more widely to describe a certain type of young female social media personalities connected to the Alt-Right movement. Although I am acutely aware of the critique surrounding the trivialization of the label “Nazi” in contemporary political discourse, I do feel it is a fittingly crass description of the women examined in this paper as it reflects both the use of pop cultural iconography and their ideological agendas.

Enhanced women: from “rightwing women all dress the same” to “Fake Melania”

During the Trump presidency liberal-leaning media were outspoken in exposing and expressing their disgust for a certain brand of conventionally attractive, pointedly groomed femaleness:

But American rightwing women all dress exactly the same, which is to say, mainstream feminine – dresses, not trousers; heels, not flats; no interesting cuts, just body-skimming, cleavage-hinting, not-scaring-the-horses tedium. (Freeman, 2017)

You know the look: Hair that is long, layered and blown to salon perfection; makeup that covers the face in foundation, paints the eyes with subtle smokey shadows, and adds coat upon coat of mascara. (Del Russo, 2017)

It was a good reminder for Americans about how the Trump administration likes its women: hair done, makeup piled on, and lying through their teeth. (Valenti, 2017)

One could argue that the women described here share a kind of Wittgensteinian Familienähnlichkeit (family resemblance) in that their visual likeness points to further semantic similarities. It can be noted that their self-presentations lay the focus on traditional markers of femininity (long hair, use of make-up, dresses and high heels), while the perceived “sameness” hints at a dismissal of personal individuality in favour of a collective identity. A recurring point of criticism lies in the fact that these women’s bodies have been artificially enhanced in a multitude of ways. Next to their “piled-on” make-up and professionally “done” hair, acquiring “the look” requires an arsenal of further beautification techniques such as lash and nail extensions, dental work, as well as injections with Botox and fillers. The bodies in question are constructed not only socially, culturally and politically, but also material constructs in a very literal way. Serving as objects of study to a femaleness performed through a series of embodied acts, by “what is put on, invariably, under constraint, daily and incessantly, with anxiety and pleasure” (Butler, 1988, p.530). One could argue that this is true for the vast majority of women in media today regardless of their political affiliation. But what makes fashion and beauty culture such useful tools in setting symbolic boundaries is precisely that its aesthetic markers are nuanced and refined: the tone of lipstick, the height of the heel, the dosage of Botox injections.

In October 2020, just a few weeks shy of the highly anticipated US election, photographs depicting the then-presidential couple boarding the Marine One helicopter in Nashville, Tennessee, gave new fuel to a conspiracy theory commonly referred to as “Fake Melania”. As with previous instances, its purveyors cited perceived inconsistencies in Melania’s facial appearance as evidence of her being replaced by a body double in public appearances. Several in part contradictory approaches were offered to explain why the “real” Melania was unwilling or unable to be by her husband’s side. The more benign interpretations framed the operation as a cover-up for publicly unacceptable behaviour on MT’s side, such as secretly separating from her spouse or undergoing cosmetic surgical procedures requiring extensive healing time. However, it was the darker and more bizarre theories that captured the imagination of the audiences and took the concept of Fake Melania to another level. They claimed that MT had either been lobotomised into complete submission, murdered and replaced by a look-alike robot or perhaps never existed at all (Benjamin, 2020). This approach coincides with the aesthetic critique of the “artificial look” of women in the Trump administration in liberal media. Even before the rise of “Fake Melania”, MT had been relentlessly ridiculed for her appearance, which was perceived as overly groomed and strangely emotionless. Normative beauty, demureness and sophistication – qualities women are usually praised for in popular culture – oddly seemed to work in MT’s disadvantage.

I am almost sure that Mrs. Trump is not a robot, unlike the women in the famous novel [The Stepford Wives]. I say this despite her sculpted face and the generally 1950s Playboy Bunny appearance that seems to defy human aging. I am still sure that beneath the coaching and stilted speeches, she is a human being. (Landry, 2016)

[…]

Veröffentlicht in: Moritz Ego & Johannes Springer (Hgs.): The Cultural Politics of Anti-Elitism, London: Routledge, 243-260.