From “borking” to getting “kavanaughed”: language, reputation, and the importance of a (male) name

ABSTRACT

This paper considers how conservative media reported on the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh which emerged during his 2018 confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court. Whilst the focus on the potential reputational damage to Kavanaugh was perhaps unsurprising, this paper is concerned with how the Kavanaugh name was mobilised to allow Brett Kavanaugh to stand in for his family, American men, and the nation more broadly, and contrasts this with the relative erasure of Christine Blasey Ford’s narrative, that worked to paint her (and feminists who supported her) as an aggressive force attempting to destroy the lives of men. This was operationalised through moralistic conservative discourses that worked to privilege Kavanaugh’s discursive victimisation, over Blasey Ford’s material one. The message rang clear: tarnishing a man’s “good” name is more perverse than sexual assault itself.

KEYWORDS:

• ‘Brett Kavanaugh’
• ‘Christine Blasey Ford’
• ‘naming’
• ‘conservative media’
• ‘sexual assault’

Acknowledgments

I am eternally grateful to Professor Karen Boyle for all her help and guidance on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).