Ah, the avalanche of racism and misogyny that came after the Kamala Harris announcement. The “Kamala is not really black” narrative has been dissected by Adam Serwer in great detail. Spoiler alert: all of these “DEI” discussions are inherently racist and white supremacist because they assume that a person of color is unable to succeed in the same way as a white person. Even though so far the GOP has focused on cats, biological children, “cackling” and paper straws (ikr), there are already some deeper philosophical discussions about Harris carrying the spirit of Jezebel.  That one was relatively new : after all, after the ball-busting and nasty Hillary Clinton (who, apparently, also has an unpleasant laugh, according to the GOP), a new line of attack needed to be introduced. 

It’s not that new though, as Melissa Gira Gant notes in her expose; the Jezebel trope has a long and racist history. To put it simply, men in patriarchy have always outsourced their self control  and keeping their genitalia in their pants to women: especially in Medieval Christian tradition women were seen a responsible for men’s “impure” thoughts, (sexual) violence, and mental health. Loose hair, passing by on the street or even sitting next to your brother (!) were conspicuous enough to warrant accusations of ye olde slut shaming. Aficionados of witch-burning didn’t need too much accusatory material in the world where men’s word was inherently more trustworthy. 

To put it into academese, women were securitized to such an extent that their mere existence was often considered dangerous enough for extraordinary measures. The interesting part here is that there was essentially no exemptions: all women were potentially viewed as agents of chaos and destruction. Paging Jordan Peterson here: the fact that popular culture conceptualised women as such doesn’t mean that this is what women actually are. It was just a patriarchal attempt to make sure that women don’t escape their subjugation. Hence, monstrous women, succubi, Jezebels, all of whom I would still lump into the toothy vagina category. After all, an appropriately performed masculinity meant domination, having it even metaphorically snapped away in an ill-advised tryst would spell ruin for men.

So how does the Jezebelian Harris narrative work? Not only does it exoticise her with a light of a thousand racisms, it is also supposed to make her seem dangerous for other women. She might take men’s gun/penis away AND take the husbands away from women! Which, of course, in a patriarchal society where women are financially dependent on men is, in fact, quite dangerous. This also explains the GOP’s focus on the laughing. Who knows what is she laughing about? Could it be them? Does she think they are stupid? Could that destroy their claim to power? It’s not only about the joy of a person of color potentially at the expense of their white counterparts (which historically and even contemporary have been reversed), it’s also about performing a certain type of femininity that is supposed to be weak, both physically and mentally (cue the transphobic hate wave against Imane Khelif). Women in positions of power have always made conservative men insecure and scared because they are afraid that women would do what men have done over the course of millennia to them. Not let them vote or take their body autonomy from them come to mind. As Barbara Spackman writes,

In the fascist topography of gender and sex, stepping out into the public sphere “masculinizes” and “sterilizes” women, while the loss of a position in the public sphere necessarily “devirilizes” men. Production and reproduction are strictly, and asymmetrically, linked for men and women: only men involved in economic production are figured as capable of sexual re- production, whereas involvement in economic production is presumed to destroy the woman’s ability to reproduce. 

This is key to the attacks on Harris and, I would argue, showcases the deep penetration of fascist ideology couched into the mainstream GOP discourse. Pun intended. 

Insecure men within the GOP are threatened by a Black woman’s joy because it can mean them losing power over the narrative – and in the elections, that’s why they try the age-old tactics. They are forgetting that the US society is no longer in 1950s or 1920s. Most people have multiple identities and (gasp) might have been in several relationships, without kids at that. “Nasty woman” worked with Trump’s base to an extent. Jezebel will not get him extra votes.