Skye de Saint Felix

When President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court in July 2018, many Democrats initially opposed him. He became a much more controversial nominee when Dr. Christine Blasey Ford brought forward accusations that he sexually assaulted her in 1982. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh’s rhetorical style of predatory white masculinity was supported and encouraged by a chorus of Republican senators. Kavanaugh’s articulation of predatory white masculinity made white men victims, used women as pawns in white men’s innocence narrative, and enacted a partisan agenda to justify rage and nostalgia for a time when white male privilege was less scrutinized. But with the Kavanaugh confirmation, predatory white masculinity shifted norms and conventions about judicial temperament. His rhetorical style produced a shift in temperament, which augmented rage and grievance as the ideal temperament for men in power, especially when echoed by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and then-President Trump.

After Senator Wendy Davis’s epic filibuster of Texas’s House Bill 2 in 2013, she was vilified in the media as “Abortion Barbie.” As a term, “Abortion Barbie” was circulated in conservative and liberal press, from blogs to traditional media outlets. This essay examines the media frames that helped characterize Davis as Abortion Barbie to chart how they functioned during and after the Texas HB2 debate. By making female bodies inert, sexualizing them, and describing women as criminal, we argue that the visual rhetoric of Abortion Barbie damaged Davis’s political career and circulated this negative image to the public as a rationale for sexist policies that undermine access to reproductive health care.