The gestation of Usha Vance’s fourth baby – born on Sunday – has made for a politically revealing spectacle. Not only was she the only Second Lady to be pregnant since Ellen Colfax, the wife of Schuyler Colfax, in 1870, but she led, throughout the visible portion of the pregnancy, with just that: the visible bump. For J.D. Vance’s wife, there was no locking herself away or hiding her pregnant belly beneath frumpy maternity wear. Instead, she embraced the Trumpian vogue for ‘babycon’ through a range of clingy pregnancy dresses.
Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration last year, the ‘Maga babe’ has become as much an aesthetic phenomenon as a political one. Take a look at the women in the President’s orbit and a clear identity emerges: blonde or brunette, tanned, beautifully made-up and – crucially – hyperfeminine. No trouser suits or masculine tailoring here; their wardrobes are bold, figure-hugging and unashamedly sexy. These women, their look seems to suggest, will happily service the Republican agenda by day and their husband’s needs by night.
As a Hindu former litigator who gave up her law job to support her family in 2024, Vance isn’t your typical Trumpian darling. Yet she has followed in the footsteps of fellow Maga mothers with her bump-hugging sartorial choices these past nine months. Of particular note was her $8.75 coral number from Old Navy, which she wore for an awkward interview with her husband last month, as well as a clingy black, tulip-adorned Milly dress, worn to a White House military mothers celebration in May.
The other two eye-catching babyconners this year have been Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary (second baby, a girl, born in May), and Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller (fourth child, a boy, born last month). Miller and Leavitt in their advanced pregnancies went for a brasher babycon than Usha, wearing tight, sexy dresses to the eventful White House correspondents’ dinner in April.
At nine months pregnant, Miller explained her sartorial approach to pregnancy on X: ‘In honor of Mother’s Day, a reminder that peak feminism is having babies. The most radical thing a woman can do is embrace her biological destiny.’ To accompany this, the 34-year-old posted a photo of herself wearing jeans unbuttoned to below her bump, with only a black sports bra and lustrous hair flowing down her bronzed back above.
For women like myself, it is deeply depressing that the governing political philosophy of the US’s presidential party is essentially a series of grunts that sound like they come from the dimmer ends of the football pitch (Man, Strong! Woman, Babies!) In the Maga babycon world, there is no room for difference or even the painful reality of a great many people’s fertility journeys. Only for brute reproduction and a sexy bump.
In the Maga babycon world, there is no room for difference or even the painful reality of a great many people’s fertility journeys
Indeed, the forces of sex and anti-sex are locked together in American popular culture in a particularly dystopian way: see the archetype of the sexy, virgin Christian (be she cheerleader or glee club princess) or the sexy, faithful ‘trad wife’. But the vulgar obviousness of babycon politics almost breaks down under its dunder-headed contradictions. Of course women should wear what they like, but these ladies are part of a movement that preaches conservative sexual values of the most unforgiving kind, such as no abortion whatsoever. This is a movement that preaches chastity and marriage and sexual continence under the veil of Christianity (albeit Miller is Jewish and Vance is Hindu).
But what these women really preach with their babycon wardrobes is sex. Sexy, sexy sex. I’m pregnant because I’m fertile, because I’m young, and men find youth and fecundity sexy, just like my husband does, and you can bet I’ve had some brilliant orgasms along the way. It’s The Handmaid’s Tale with open-flied jeans
Personally, I think it’s lame to treat a natural pregnancy like an achievement. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I found it (after the monstrous first trimester) a pleasant side-fact, easily forgotten. Yet I couldn’t believe how much sympathy and how many allowances were made when really I was just going about my business with a biological process occurring inside me. I didn’t wear clingy garb and I didn’t feel particularly sexy. I prioritised comfort as most normal women not trying to make a point must do when pregnant.
Women are people. That they can also make babies is a strange and wondrous thing – and, yes, it is a power. That power isn’t some magic femininity, though; it’s a gestation process which has either befallen, or delighted, most female animals since evolution got to that point. It’s fine to sex it up but to suggest that merely by going through their most basic reproductive function do women fulfil their purpose makes this belly turn queasily inward. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing the sombre Usha, now post-partum, back in her norm-con garb.
Comments