On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States for the second time, effectively ending the #MeToo movement. At his side stood first lady Melania Trump, striking in a black hat that cast a shadow over her eyes, leaving part of her expression unreadable. Her dramatic hat and straightness of her coat were almost cartoonish, a theatrical stylization that looked something like a fashion icon and supervillain.
In many ways, Melania Trump’s public image embodies a contradiction. She utilizes the aesthetic of traditional femininity to echo the conservative values that her husband’s administration proudly champions, yet there is nothing quiet or conventional about her presentation. Her carefully crafted public appearances are not just a personal style but a deeper political performance that reflects the values of her husband’s political party affiliation.
Throughout history, beauty has been weaponized, particularly against women with political ambitions. The suffragettes were criticized as masculine, ugly and undesirable, with insults targeted towards their physical appearances to discredit their political action. The implication was clear that only ugly and lonely women cared for their rights and autonomy. Beauty, in this context, becomes a tool of control. In order to be taken seriously, women should strive to look beautiful.
The first lady complicates this narrative by using beauty as armor and power, but it’s important to shine light on what kind of beauty is being upheld. The idea that beauty must be feminine is rooted in sexism. If beauty must be skinny, then it is fatphobic. If beauty is linked to wealth (with online aesthetics such as “quiet luxury” or “old money”), then it is also a tool to expose classism. When female conservative figures look and dress in a way that makes them look cartoonish, they reflect the out-of-touch state their wealth and privileged status allow them to be exempt from.
Melania Trump’s beauty is not accidental when it is a curated performance in a world where women, especially those aligned with power, are judged as much or more so for their appearances than for their actions. It dictates how seriously they ought to be taken, and in this sense, the first lady is not alone. Women like Laura Loomer and Erika Kirk, among other conservative female figures, embrace hyperfeminine perfectionist aesthetics. This is not necessarily done as vanity, but as a strategy.
The pressure for women in public life to appear beautiful is suffocating, but when conservative women optimize their looks, it creates an additional layer of symbolism. Their exaggerated femininity echoes a political ideology that insists on rigid gender binaries. This is an ideology supported by President Trump, who, on inauguration day, signed an executive order stating that there are only two genders with a federal redefinition of the term “sex.” This new definition only includes male and female, which bluntly denies the existence of non-binary identifying people.
Hyperfeminine beauty becomes a performance of gender conformity to exclude transgender people, even if it borrows heavily from queer and drag aesthetics. The heavy makeup, sculpted bodies and surgically enhanced features were pioneered by drag culture. These women create a double standard by playing God with the taunt that they can put on makeup and get surgery, but transgender and non-binary people cannot without being shunned or discriminated against.
It is easy to scorn women who participate in the systems that harm other women, but it’s also important to recognize the reality of this environment. A woman who is not conventionally attractive is often not taken seriously at all, especially in conservative spaces. If the first lady weren’t beautiful, would her husband’s following give her the same kind of respect? Most likely not, but more importantly, would hypothetical unattractiveness impact her husband’s platform too?
In 1982, Bill Clinton was re-elected to serve as governor of Arkansas. Conveniently, Hillary Clinton changed her last name from Rodham to Clinton that year. Her previous choice not to take on his last name was not received well by voters, which was a contributing factor that cost her husband re-election in 1980. Along with her name change, she dyed her brown hair blonde, traded her glasses for contacts, cared more for makeup and began to take on an interest in fashion. The changes she made portray the direct relation between a woman’s beauty and the political power it can provide. She used her beauty and willingness to conform to traditional feminine values as a literal strategy, and it worked.
As for Melania Trump, it doesn’t validate the policies or beliefs she upholds and it doesn’t mean she’s not aware of what she’s doing, but perhaps it does help us understand the why behind the performance. These women aren’t just trying to be pretty; they’re trying to stay powerful in a misogynistic world that still measures a woman’s value by her appearance.