Confirming the Ladies’ Man: Brett Kavanaugh’s Performances of Masculinity

Abstract

Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing occurred in the context of an increasingly partisan court deciding mega political questions. Kavanaugh’s private virtues, particularly his mentoring relationships with women and girls, were celebrated in a performance I call “the ladies’ man” to avoid rather than answer questions about a factional court. After Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations, Kavanaugh performed the aggrieved victim/hero, a performance of masculinity that paradoxically claimed to be within the law and justify vengeance outside the law. That the public performance of private gendered virtues was offered to foreclose questions about an attempt to govern through faction raises larger questions about the ostensible universality and neutrality of courts.