Walking the line with Michele Bachmann.

You know, if it wasn't for the expectation of a discussion of possible sexism when something involves a female politician, I'd chalk the picture of Rep. Bachmann eating a corndog up to the wacky habit the media has of getting snaps of politicians cramming food in their faces at state fairs and other campaign stops. I kind of understand why they do this. It's humanizing and makes the candidates look goofy. Sometimes food is political.  How a candidate  eats and what a candidate eats, or drinks, for that matter, takes on a fetishistic importance. Does the candidate nibble or chomp? Does the candidate order the wrong cheese for his sandwich? Arugula vs. iceberg?  Surprising amounts of skull-sweat are poured into the question of not only can a politician cut the mustard, but just what kind of mustard is he or she cutting?

And that would be that, except, I guess, for the shape of corndogs, and the types of captions that people can put with an otherwise standard:  "Here is a politician horking down some junk food" picture.  It isn't just a Michele Bachmann thing--I would say there's a certain potential for mildly "ick-factor" comments to be made regarding a picture of Rick Santorum eating an ice cream cone, and I would say that the irreverence of the humor would be coming from the same place--very socially conservative pols eating in a way visually similar to a sex act. I struggle with whether to come down on the side of "It's sexist" as a goofy picture qua goofy politician pictures, when it seems to me like it's just the context that makes it potentially so.   It's just that when it comes to representations of women by the media--there's an awful lot of context.



When I consider, for example, that Rick Perry probably has a number of views in common with Bachmann, I wonder if he'll be asked if he's "flaky." (I'd say the secession comment would be very hard to square with presidential-calibre-seriousness.) It also takes up a lot of context to grasp why a male candidate would be very unlikely to be asked if he were "submissive" to his spouse, although it does happen that candidates have been asked about the degree to which their religion comes into play in their policy-views, and I see those questions as being similar--in that they help a potential voter understand where a candidate is coming from.


From the p.o.v. of policy--it bothers me that Bachmann just makes stuff up.  It bothers me when she isn't called on things she makes up, like how the debt ceiling works.  It would especially bother me if she wasn't taken to task because someone was concerned about appearing to be sexist, just as it would bother me if she seemed to be held to a different standard of treatment than the other candidates in the opposite direction.

I think that's why I'm "meh" regarding this sort of representation--it's like being a line judge for feminism.  It is fair or foul? Maybe a corndog is just a corndog. But if it distracts from what she's saying--maybe I'd just rather focus on her when her mouth isn't full. (And those other candidates, too.)