Disturbing Femininity

• Main Author: Kirsten Hvenegård-Lassen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Linköping University Electronic Press 2013-06-01
• Series: Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research
• Subjects: Gender; gender equality; politics; performativity; performance; celebrity
• Online Access: https://journal.ep.liu.se/test3212/index.php/CU/article/view/2043

When Helle Thorning-Schmidt in 2011 became the first female Prime Minister in Denmark, this “victory for the women” was praised in highly celebratory tones in Danish newspapers. The celebration involved a paradoxical representation of gender as simultaneously irrelevant to politics and – when it comes to femininity – in need of management. Based on an analysis of the newspaper coverage of the election, I argue that highlighting gender (in)equality as either an important political issue or as something that conditions the possibilities of taking up a position as politician was evaluated as a performative speech act, i.e. an act that creates the trouble it names. Ruling out gender equality as relevant was, however, continually interrupted by comments on how Thorning-Schmidt and other female politicians perform gender in ways that fit or do not fit with “doing politician”. These com-ments tended to concern the styling of bodies and behaviour and followed well known – or sticky – gendered scripts.