Attitudes towards Melania Trump have already been shaped by deep-seated social stereotypes surrounding the “eastern European woman”, argues Jelena Prtoric, therefore we should keep this in your mind as she starts her stint as First Lady

I have been anxiously keeping tabs on media headlines about her since Donald Trump embarked on his journey to conquer the White House though I have lived most of my life completely oblivious to Melania Trump’s existence. Melania arises from a specific history, one that overshadows her personality: compared to a Slavic, eastern woman that is european. Regardless of the age gap and very different life trajectories, Melania and I also had been created within the exact exact same nation — Yugoslavia. If We had been to go out of my desk in Croatia’s money Zagreb, at this time, after an hour’s drive be in her i’d hometown of Sevnica in Slovenia.

A linguistic that is common geographic heritage don’t make two individuals kin, and I also is the very very first to disapprove of (a few of) Melania’s life alternatives. There’s nothing inherently empowering in being somebody’s wife. Much more so whenever that somebody is Donald Trump, when you protect their stance on immigration and women’s legal rights.

Donald and Melania Trump during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Image: Disney / ABC tv Group under a CC licence

Donald and Melania Trump in the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Image: Disney / ABC tv Group under a CC licence

Donald and Melania Trump in the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Image: Disney / ABC tv Group under a CC licence

Melania Trump’s hometown of Sevnica. Image: Eleassar under a CC licence

Melania Trump’s hometown of Sevnica. Image: Marijan Latin under a CC licence

Keep in mind just exactly exactly how, despite her steering clear of the spotlight from the campaign path, Melania’s first public speech during the Republican National Convention turned into a total fiasco? That occurred, needless to say, because huge chunks of her speech had been plagiarised, lifted from Michelle Obama’s meeting message. Scorn while the mockery then followed, in addition to Washington Post went an article that linked Melania’s plagiarism to “the tradition of cheating in eastern European schools”.

In line with the article, Melania’s penchant for plagiarism could effortlessly be explained by the shortcomings of a problematic communist-era system that is educational. During communist times, children had been motivated to memorise instead of to believe on their own. This misconception happens to be debunked since, in a letter that is open a range scholars towards the Balkanist, and also by Polish writer Agata Pyzik in Jacobin.

In all honesty, all of the news know better right now than to blatantly insult Melania’s origins. Whenever model Gigi Hadid did her Melania impression — ducking her lips and mocking Melania’s eastern European accent — much of this media condemned her performance, calling it racist: really a surprise that is pleasant.

Yet numerous articles describe Melania just as dull and uncharismatic: some still talk if she were a doll (in one New Yorker article she’s “the perfect body on which to hang a brand”); many question her intelligence, and flirt with the term “trophy wife” about her as. And even though her being a lady plus an immigrant should produce some sympathies from liberals, their silence had been deafening whenever she got slut shamed (by Ted Cruz supporters mostly) for posing naked.

Probably the most she is represented as a victim of her husband sympathy she gets in the media is when. Yes, the brand new president associated with united states of america is sexist and condescending to females, but two wrongs don’t make the right, and depicting Melania being a submissive device in their arms is simple incorrect.

To wit: we have all evidently written from the risk of Melania doing such a thing essential as very First Lady. Ivanka Trump — a high-achiever, opinionated and outspoken — has currently guaranteed the name of First Daughter. If Melania had the exact same history as Ivanka, would media objectives of her be any different? I’d say therefore.

Melania will not be Ivanka. Having endured close to her spouse through the entire campaign, it’s extremely improbable that she’ll “turn against him” and be the iconic woman we’d all want to see as very First Lady regarding the States. And regrettably, absolutely nothing shows that she might make use of her influence that is new to the issue of stereotypes about eastern European ladies. But nevertheless she behaves, i am hoping she’s judged by her actions alone, maybe maybe not her husband’s, rather than based on profoundly embedded stereotypes that are cultural.

But Melania is not merely a spouse. As an immigrant, previous model and parvenu into the American jet set, she actually is caught in an internet of stereotypes and cultural misconceptions which exist into the western about eastern Europeans.

From the presumed “desolate environment” of post-communism, usually the item of a unprivileged back ground and dealing with grim financial leads within their house nations, eastern European women can be often regarded as specially docile and submissive into the eyes of Western guys. Apart from that, eastern European girls nevertheless have actually the standing of going poor at their knees for western men.

Needless to say, it isn’t just eastern European ladies who face such stereotypes. Anti-eastern European prejudice is a tricky concept to show and delimit. Will it be once you mock your neighbour’s hefty accent that is russian English? Can it be whenever you claim these damn Poles stole your jobs whilst simultaneously maintaining that they’re sluggish? Can it be once you don’t bother to master the names of love and seek profile any country east of Germany, presuming that it is “former Soviet”? One typical denominator but may be the propensity to characterise eastern Europeans as less educated, lacking design or elegance, labelling the men as brutish and aggressive therefore the females as meaningless dolls.

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