It’s not exactly news when a conservative white man takes below-the-belt shots at a liberal woman of color (in fact, I think they just call that “Fox News’s afternoon programming block”), but recently resurfaced comments that made in 2021, referring to the Democratic Party as being run by still manage to feel beyond the pale. (Though he does not mention Vice President Kamala Harris—now the increasingly likely Democratic presidential nominee—by name, it’s no secret that she has no biological children.) I probably shouldn’t expect much better from Vance—whose record is heavy on , rhetoric and legislation—especially in the .
But it’s hard not to see his comments as tapping into a deeper cultural anxiety about women who don’t adhere to the June Cleaver fantasy of “family values” that many members of the GOP still profess to represent. The funny thing is that Harris actually embody those values. She’s been married to attorney Doug Emhoff since 2014, and is stepmother to his two adult children, Ella and Cole, who refer to her as “Momala.
” Harris has noted the strength of her relationship with Emhoff’s ex-wife, producer Kerstin Emhoff, as well as her household’s close-held routines, in 2019: “Our time as a family is Sunday dinner. We come together, all of us around the table, and over time we’ve fallen into our roles. Cole sets the table and picks the music, Ella makes beautiful desserts, Doug acts as my sous-chef, and I cook.
” It should go without saying that how a person creates or finds family has nothing to do with their value as a person, nor their fitness as a public servant—but more to the point, would a male presidential candidate ever be raked over the conservative coals for failing to reflect the “one man, one woman, 2.5 children” family structure that American culture has idealized since the Cold War? (James Buchanan was , after all.) There as a politician, but as a half-Black, half-Indian woman nearing the age of 60, Harris’s White House family portrait was never going to look like the majority of those that came before it—and in many ways, that’s a good thing.
It’s particularly difficult to stomach Vance’s misogynistic critiques while the party he hopes to help lead is targeting families of all kinds, , , and in order to ensure their children’s safety and access to lifesaving care. It doesn’t matter how prettily Vance and his fellow Republicans pose for pictures with their doting wives and children; their bid to brand themselves as the party that’s truly on the side of American families is hypocrisy in its purest form. It should be rejected as swiftly and completely as Vance’s suggestion that a woman’s value is based on her domestic role.
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