French and Feminine: Hegemonic Masculinity and the Emasculation of John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Race

Abstract

French leaders met the September 2002 announcement of preemptive U.S. military action in Iraq with open disapproval. Thereafter, in the build-up to the “Iraq war,” as U.S. military strikes began in 2003 and continued in 2004, France became the target of nationalistic attacks in the United States. Building on this anti-French sentiment, George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign used narratives that cast Frenchness as feminine, assigning “Frenchness” to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry—and thereby characterizing him as unfit for the White House. Specifically, political conservatives sought to strip Kerry of the masculine qualities perceived necessary to serve as president of the United States. Analysis of American political and media discourse from September 2002 to November 2004 shows that the 2004 presidential campaign came to be defined in substantial part by nationalistic and sexist political communications that capitalized upon and reinscribed patterns and norms of hegemonic masculinity while also feminizing and devaluing dissent in times of war.

Keywords:

• Discourse Analysis
• Hegemonic Masculinity
• Cultural Resonance
• Presidential Elections
• U.S.–France Relations
• Wartime Political Discourse

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2006 National Communication Association Convention in San Antonio, TX.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2006 National Communication Association Convention in San Antonio, TX.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank David Domke, Linda Steiner, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. Thanks also to Gail Stygall and Natalie Debray.

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2006 National Communication Association Convention in San Antonio, TX.

1. Some prominent conservative media pundits encouraged a boycott of French goods. On May 2, 2003, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly declared on The O'Reilly Factor: “According to the French government tourist office, the Factor-led boycott [of French products] has cost the French economy about 500 million so far. More than 40% of Americans who planned to travel to France have modified those plans. We say ‘good.’ Until President Chirac apologizes to all Americans for putting us in danger, the boycott stays.”

2. Punitive actions threatened by the U.S. leadership included bypassing France's international diplomatic power by limiting French participation in American-sponsored meetings with European allies, downgrading the status of France at international conferences, and a symbolic move by Bush to stay in a Swiss hotel across the border from an upcoming international economic summit meeting in Evian, France (Bumiller, 2003). For example, on the first point, U.S. officials considered shifting decisions asked of NATO to the organization's Defense Planning Council, which does not include France, and bypassing the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body, of which France is a member. In the same year, the administration successfully convinced the Defense Planning Council to agree to its request to make plans for Turkey's defense, effectively sidelining French objections (Bumiller, 2003).

3. Coded sexist remarks might include calls to protect the “women and children” during a crisis, asking a political opponent “who wears the pants” in the family; or use of gendered terms as insults such as a statement that one's political opponent is weak or a sissy. In the 2004 elections, much was made of John Kerry's expensive haircuts and his alleged “Botox” treatments (Rich, 2004). Such accusations that a man is vain about his physical appearance might be read as coded sexist remarks, if “real men” don't care what they look like and only women “primp” or spend money on their looks.

4. For example, Weber cites a thirteenth-century description of French men as “proud, effeminate, and carefully adorned like women” (Weber, 1990, p. 169, emphasis added).

5. For more on the role of entertainment-oriented media in presidential elections, see Moy, Xenos, and Hess (2006) and Young (2004).

6. Excerpts of the video are available online: http://wid.ap.org/video/cvn/barneycam.rm

7. An image of one of the NRA billboards depicting the “Kerry poodle” can be viewed on the NRA's website: http://www.nrapvf.org/news/article.aspx?id=154

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Anna Cornelia Fahey

Anna Cornelia Fahey received a Master's degree in 2006 from the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is currently Communications Strategist for Sightline Institute in Seattle