Images of the Trump family’s visit to the Vatican have become the latest meme-trigger to cause a comedy storm on Twitter, which is perfectly understandable: With Donald grinning like a jack-o’-lantern, Melania and Ivanka channelling a couple of glammed-up widows (or witches, depending on your preferred pop culture reference) in black lace and veils, and a dead-eyed Pope Francis hovering awkwardly to the side, they could easily be mistaken for the cast of the next season of American Horror Story.
To veil or not to veil?
Melania Trump wore a veil to the Vatican Wednesday to meet the pope, but no head covering days earlier to meet the king of Saudi Arabia, a religiously conservative country where most women cover themselves up from head to toe.
Among the cathartic joke-tweeting, a common question is being raised about exactly what should be read from the Trump women’s attire. Mere days after attracting widespread praise for apparently “rebelling” in Saudi Arabia by going bareheaded, there’s been some confusion as to why the women lauded in The Washington Post for “showing the world what feminine power looks like” would meet the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in such funereal garb, complete with head-coverings. What happened to these two beacons of feminism?
The short answer is that Melania and Ivanka Trump are not beacons of feminism. But you probably already had an inkling of that.
The longer answer is that, in reality, what the two women wore in Saudi Arabia is textbook for Western female leaders and wives of leaders. What they wore to meet the Pope was also by-the-book, although Pope Francis has relaxed a few of the dress code requirements. Traditionally, apart from a few royal exceptions, women meeting the Pope in the Vatican are required to wear long black dresses with their arms and head covered.
A handful of women have “privilège du blanc”, which means they can choose to wear white instead. Pope Francis has allowed hemlines to be shortened, bless him, and even let Queen Elizabeth II crack out the lavender when she visited in 2014.
But the Trump women aren’t royals. While they probably could have gotten away with something a tad more modern (though can Melania really be faulted for choosing Dolce & Gabbana?), their outfits are barely different to what Michelle Obama wore to meet Pope Benedict in the Vatican in 2009.
And just as Obama toed the Vatican dress code line then, she too was praised in global headlines for choosing not to wear a headscarf while visiting Saudi Arabia two years ago.
(Although ironically, not by Donald Trump.)
Many people are saying it was wonderful that Mrs. Obama refused to wear a scarf in Saudi Arabia, but they were insulted.We have enuf enemies
Of course, as Ruby Hamad wrote then for Fairfax, Michelle Obama wasn’t doing anything against official protocol, or new – in fact previous first ladies Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton also went headscarf-free in Saudi Arabia; and Clinton continued to go bareheaded on visits to the kingdom as secretary of state.
Contrary to the media’s unending love of headlines claiming prominent Western women are heroically rebelling against Saudi Arabian custom – and showing the kind of feminist example to Saudi women that will surely have them breaking the chains of patriarchal oppression out of sheer will – there simply is no obligation for Western women to cover their head while visiting the country, let alone an expectation that foreign dignitaries adhere to the strict dress code enforced on Saudi women.
(If they’d visited an equivalent of the Pope, that might have been different. But as we know, women have a strict dress code for papal visits in the Holy City, and they tend to adhere to them.)
That hasn’t stopped commentators lauding every Western female leader who’s gone bareheaded while visiting the country in the past decade for their courage and good feminist example (or criticising them, depending on how contrarian they want to be).
Just last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also made headlines for not wearing a headscarf on a visit to Saudi Arabia. And earlier this year, British Prime Minister Theresa May was called an “inspiration” to Saudi women for doing exactly what Obama, Clinton, Bush and others had done before her.
As Asma T. Uddin pointed out at the time, May’s statement prior to her headscarf-free trip that she wanted to be a “role model” for Saudi women was framed in the media as being about her outfit more than anything else – as if a bit of Western “hairspo” is all that’s needed to break Saudi women’s chains.
The irony is, of course, that Saudi women are well aware of their own oppression, and they have their own protest movements working to end the ban on women driving or the requirement that they travel with a male guardian. “Saudi women don’t need to be inspired about their potential,” Uddin wrote. “May would do better to recognise and highlight that potential.”
But, although she spoke about wanting to be a role model before the visit, May chose to avoid making any overt statements on the topic of women’s rights while there, because that – not her hair – would have caused offence.
There’s so much more to campaigning for women’s rights than the pure optics of dress. Yet this is what we continue to focus on.
Obsessing over whether women choose to wear headscarves or not during official visits – when they’re not even a requirement – is beyond pointless. It boils the oppression of women down to clothing, and obscures the real issues facing Saudi women – like freedom of movement and independence from men.
Worse, it gives politicians an opportunity to look like they’re doing something progressive for the cameras, when in reality, they haven’t done anything at all.
