I never thought I’d be defending Melania Trump, but I guess it’s been a weird year.
The former-model turned FLOTUS has taken her position now, replacing the formidable Michelle Obama, and we’re all a bit dumbstruck.
Literally, I mean DUMB-struck. Because it seems “dumb” is the go-to insult for the wife of Donald Trump and we’re striking blows with it like we can’t stop.
When she first appeared with Donald on the campaign trail, she captured enormous interest: an Eastern European beauty beyond compare, whose secretive history included nude photos. She played the silent type which only increased our interest. And then her One Big Speech, her only speech throughout the campaign, was found to have been plagiarised from the worst person possible: the Democratic first lady, Michelle Obama.
And yeah, the jokes were fun for a bit. I watched along and laughed too.
But now Melania Trump has been firmly cast as a gold-digging bimbo with an incomprehensible accent who is silent, meek, and dumb.
In a week when the hashtag #rapemelania was trending on twitter, and Gigi Hadid’s impersonation blew up the American Music Awards, the mocking has been relentless. Mean girl memes have dominated.
I know I sound like the fun police here, but can I just ask why we hate her so much?
Because she’s beautiful? Because she’s different? Because she posed nude in a magazine, decades ago? Because she married someone she met and fell in love with?
Regardless of her politics, Melania Trump is a woman who cannot possibly be dumb. She reportedly speaks seven different languages. She came from a poor background in a Soviet Bloc state to America to raise her son, build a successful career and be a self-made woman. And on her marriage to Trump, she has said that they are both very independent but that “to be with a man like Donald you have to be quick, smart and intelligent.”
She’s self-contained, almost private even, in an age when society has an appetite and demand for the personal business, backstory, dreams, habits, diet, exercise, and skincare regime of every A-Z Lister. We’ve become so accustomed to the overshare, that perhaps it’s her silence and self-preservation that makes us uncomfortable.
Over and over again I’ve heard people cast aspersions onto Melania.
When we mock Melania Trump these are the message we’re endorsing:
- That if you’re beautiful, you’re dumb.
- That if you speak funny, you should be mocked.
- That when you marry, you take on the ideologies of your husband.
All of these are dangerous, unfair assumptions.
As First Lady, there’s another assumption. That her position is a national figurehead, that her obligations in that role are to select a cause and pursue it. That’s not true, either.
“First Lady” is a title bestowed upon the wives of our Presidents and Prime Ministers and Governors, not an actual position that has qualifications or expectations or quotas. The role of the US First Lady is what the US First Lady deems it to be.
Yes, we were fortunate to have in Michelle Obama a woman who campaigned for countless good causes including the education of young women. But we can’t expect a Michelle Obama to come around every presidency.
We don’t have to support Melania Trump just because she’s a woman, by any means. I’m not asking us to cheer wildly for her, or invite her over for a wine time and a girly chat.
I’m just saying; can we ease up on the mean-girl jibes and think about the message they send?
My colleagues on the Mamamia Out Loud podcast, Mia Freedman and Jessie Stephens, rightly pointed out that every political figure gets countless ribbing, stereotyping, and shit-canning in the media, so why would we treat Melania like a precious snowflake?
I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of all the judgement.
Maybe it’s the same reason that Mamamia had the ‘kind carpet’ at the Brownlows, the same reason that I endorse Red Carpet campaigns that #askhermore. The reason why I baulked when all my old radio bosses told me ‘women’s voices are too squeaky’ and the same way I was taught, when critiquing red carpet outfits, to play the dress and not the woman.
Because women are more than how they look, who they marry, and how they speak.
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Top Comments
She has not once denounced his racism. She literally took on his mindset because she refuses to speak out against his xenophobic bullshit. That's the reason she's mocked. She's SOOOO intelligent, but lets that IDIOT do all the talking, and never once does she share her own opinions or thoughts. She parrots his rhetoric. She lost the respect of the people when she decided, long ago, that her voice didn't matter as much as her chump husband's. She's the one cow-towing to his misogyny, racism, etc., while being, simultaneously, due to her heritage, a target for his hatefulness.
She's an immigrant: He rails against immigrants and she doesn't slap the shit out of him for throwing her and people like her under the bus.
She's a woman: She lets him get away with his misogyny, and doesn't call him out on it.
She came from a poor background: Yet she never once takes the side of the poor people that Trump throws under the bus on a daily basis.
For her silent complacency, she deserves all the ire the American People can muster. Her silence has allowed this bloviating sack of shit to keep being a bloviating sack of shit, and it's her own fucking fault.
She is seen as "Silent and Meek" because she IS SILENT AND MEEK. She doesn't stand up for herself or her constituents, and that's why people dislike her.
She's gone on National media in support of Donald Trump's racist views of Barack Obama, and the conspiracy theory birtherism. Melania, well an immigrant herself, has shown only cruelty to other immigrants. She is a very ugly person on the inside.