putting the melania in melan(ia)choly

Melania Trump has had a rough 14 months.

Since January 2016, the First Lady who never wanted to be First Lady has unwillingly uprooted her life and moved from Manhattan to DC, where she has had to deal with an incredible amount of White House scandal and chaos. Most recently, she learned that her beloved husband (unsuccessfully) tried to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels to hide the fact that they had a prolonged affair.

Even her husband agrees that this has been a trying time for Melania. This past weekend, he told Pennsylvania rally-goers, “You think her life is so easy, folks? Not so easy.” Donald was most specifically referring to the media storm (GOOD ONE, SARAH) surrounding the un-hushing of the Daniels hush-money, but his comment was perhaps a nod to Melania’s entire tenure as his spouse.

In that, Melania Trump has had a rough 14 years.

In September 2004, a freshly engaged Donald Trump went on Howard Stern and confirmed that he shares in Stern’s opinion that his daughter Ivanka is “a piece of ass.” Around the same time, sleazeball-with-a-mop-top Howard Stern also questioned whether Trump was interested in “banging 24-year-olds.” Trump answered with an unsurprising and an enthusiastic “yes.”

A year later, in September 2005, a newly married Donald Trump was recorded boasting about acting on that “yes,” stating “when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.” (Note: in their 14 years of marriage, Donald Trump has been accused of sexually assaulting 7 women: Rachel Crooks and Natasha Stoynoff in 2005, Jessica Drake, Samantha Holvey, and Ninni Laaksonen in 2006, Summer Zervos in 2007, and Cassandra Searles in 2013).

Ten months after that, in July of 2006, proud new parent Donald Trump allegedly had a consensual sexual relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels while Melania was home with their 4 month old son.

Fast forward 10 years to election night 2016, when Melania reportedly “cried in despair” when her husband won the presidency (of course, the reporter reportedly reporting this information is none other than Michael Wolff, and the report reportedly reported is “Fire and Fury”). She, like most of the Trump team, had been assured he would lose handily, and she could soon return to her “normal” life.

Instead, Melania was ripped from her gilded Park Avenue palace and dragged to the slightly less gilded halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Rumor has it that during the night, she paces the halls of the residential quarters, listening to Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” on loop and binge-eating scooped-out Bethesda Bagels with cream cheese and caviar to remind her of the past she left behind. “Let me out,” she whispers to Abigail Adams’ portrait. “Bitch, please,” Adams answers back. Melania weeps quietly (though snotless-ly, as she had a surgery to remove her snot-ducts when she was 28 at Donald’s request to maker her a “hotter crier”). Rinse, repeat.

We the people have bought into the narrative of a “trapped” First Lady, the sad Slovenian who never asked--and never wanted--to be the wife of the Commander-in-Chief. We have speculated that her blinks are Morse-code cries for help and that her long locks are part of a Rapunzelian plot to descend the outer walls of the East Wing to freedom. We have plastered #FreeMelania on our Women’s March posters, and taken pity on the woman married to the worst person in America.

When we dig beneath the humor of fake-Melania-gate and what-was-in-the-Tiffany-box-gate, we get to our central question--is Melania Trump a victim, and should we feel bad for her?

The thing is, to assume Melania’s victimhood--and to offer to rescue her from it--is to strip away her agency. And to strip Melania’s agency is to strip her complicity as well.

We can start with the question of whether Melania is a victim. She herself has repeatedly denied being one. In an interview released shortly after the Access Hollywood tapes became public, Melania told Anderson Cooper, “people, they don’t really know me, people think and talk about me, like, ‘Oh, Melania, oh, poor Melania.’ Don’t feel sorry for me.”

Still, actions speak louder than words, and Melania’s behavior indicates a relationship that...isn’t quite right. There are the obvious clues: the video of the Trumps arriving at the White House for the first time and Donald leaving his wife behind to greet President Obama; the numerous photos of Melania miserably eyeing her husband; the dwindling number of public appearances as a couple; the GIF heard round the world.

Underlying all of this is Trump’s hefty and public history of sexual assault, including the abuse of his previous wife. Numerous studies show that domestic and sexual assailants are often repeat offenders; furthermore, narcissism magnifies the odds that men will commit sexual assault and rape. We do not want to assume anything about Trump’s treatment of Melania, but given these statistics, it is not unlikely that he has engaged in abusive behavior towards her as well.

Still, Melania asserts that she was always in control of her circumstances. She knew the man she was marrying. She understood his behaviors, tolerated his crudeness, shrugged off his misogyny. To say that she was stupid or clueless or misguided is to undermine Melania’s awareness or intelligence. It is to undermine the choice she made and the power she had to make it, a wholly unfeminist approach to thinking about her.

A 2016 Vanity Fair piece offers reason for this choice. The article reveals, “thanks to her relationship with Trump, she finally got her glossy-magazine spread—nearly naked in British GQ, handcuffed to a briefcase on a private jet, which Trump supplied.” (see picture to the left...)

One could say that Melania was a savvy business woman who used her proximity to Trump to advance her career. Her choice to make a career of her looks was just that--a choice. As long as that shoot was all Melania’s choosing, then who are we to judge her for getting what she wanted.

Still, the symbolism, the SYMBOLISM! Trapped inside Trump’s private jet! HANDCUFFED TO A BRIEFCASE! It doesn’t take an English major to recognize the ironies of Melania’s liberation in this photoshoot. Melania’s career is inextricably linked to Trump’s will! She is LITERALLY a prisoner to the capitalist oppressive machine! Say what you will about Trump, but between this and his asking Stormy Daniels to use a Forbes cover with his face to spank him, the guy has a knack for unknowingly invoking ironic metaphors about money and sex.

With that, there is obviously something deeply disconcerting with this particular brand of Melania Trump feminism. Perhaps it is because the questions of agency and victimhood are further complicated by the fact that Melania is not a particularly trapped victim. Whereas countless women do not have the resources to escape their domestic situation or workplace, Melania is privileged. She could have chosen differently, she could have changed her fate, and we should therefore be seeking to empower and liberate those who do not have choice.

It is particularly important to think about empowering and liberating those women because Melania’s husband has extended his personal, domestic brand of sexism and oppression outwards. His administration continues to hire sexual assailants, support child molesters, and slash initiatives aimed at combating issues of sexual assault on campus, in the military, and in our government. The conflict in Melania’s agency and feminism is not in her choices, but in the fact that her choices have robbed other women of their own.

Simply advocating for the individual right to choose--to choose who to marry, where to work, who to sleep with, when to show off your body, etc.--isn’t enough. To be a feminist is to work not just for individual choice, but for choice for all women, especially non-white, non-cisgender, non-straight, non-wealthy women. To say Melania is simply a career-minded third wave feminist who hasn’t learned the ways of the intersectional future is...pretty fucking generous, not to mention a total mischaracterization of her priorities.

Then again, to say Melania deserves our sympathies is simultaneously patronizing and ignorant of the fact that she shares some blame in her husband’s rise. All of this is to say that our thesis--you know, the one we bolded a few paragraphs ago, that “to assume Melania’s victimhood--and to offer to rescue her from it--is to strip away her agency, and to strip Melania’s agency is to strip her complicity as well,” is too black and white. Agency is not necessarily in conflict with victimhood and victimhood is not necessarily in conflict with complicity. Melania might be a victim of verbal, emotional, domestic, or sexual abuse (or even just really unhappy in her relationship), but she also has used her voice to defend and support her husband.

So perhaps the answer to “should we feel bad for Melania” is a “yes, and.” Yes, we should offer this woman the means for liberation, and we should also understand that she may genuinely not want it. Yes, we should sympathize with Melania, and we should also direct our efforts at helping those whose pain isn’t public. Yes, we should acknowledge the bizarre brand of feminism Melania represents, and we should also strive for better than that feminism.

And yes, we should analyze Fake Melanias until we can prove that such a body double does, in fact exist, and we should also remember that there are better punchlines than Melania Trump.

Maybe that’s the unsatisfying resolution to all of this: that there are those more worthy of our sympathy--and those more worthy of our ire--than Melania Trump. In that way, she is sort of, kind of, a little bit like so many of us for whom life is both pretty darn good and also “not so easy.”

As 20-somethings with fewer Ivanka Trump brand skirt suits and stilettos (we like having all ten toes, theenk you) than Melania but more practice in imperfection than Melania, what’s our advice for this flailing First Lady? Well, Mel, we suggest watching an episode of Fixer Upper, eating a bowl of Pad Thai, and curling up with People Magazine and a pint of Half Baked. After all, you’re (questionably) worth it.

#melania #melaniatrump #trump #feminism #sigh #stateoftheunion #freemelania