Why US Congresswomen wore white to Trump’s State of the Union
The sea of white "spectacle" at the State of the Union address. Photo: Getty
Women lawmakers wearing white suits garnered more attention in the media than US President Donald Trump at the annual State of the Union address.
The white outfits were a visual tribute to the Suffrage movement, which fought for women’s right to vote, and celebrated a milestone this year.
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, centre, among lawmakers. Photo: AAP
State of the Union statement
Of the 116 Congresswomen, 106 dressed in white in a show of solidarity initiated by the House Democratic Women’s Working Group, which said it wanted to see a “wave of suffragette white” during Mr Trump’s speech.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the US constitution’s 19th amendment, which prohibits states and federal government from denying the right to vote on the basis of gender.
Hours before the speech, Democratic women posed and posted photos of their hashtag #suffragettewhite outfits.
US First Lady Melania Trump, who wore white to last year’s State of the Union address, did not take part, opting for a navy blue, military-style suit.
But many noticed Mr Trump’s daughter, Tiffany Trump, wore white.
This afternoon, ahead of the #SOTU I was honored to stand alongside some of the 106 women of the #116 Congress in #suffragette white @HouseDemWomen pic.twitter.com/RGgPJvTdDh
— Sheila Jackson Lee (@JacksonLeeTX18) February 6, 2019
La Trobe University associate history professor Clare Wright told The New Daily the women lawmakers were referencing history through their clothes.
White was worn en masse for the first time in London in 1908 in the great suffragette demonstrations in London, before women marched in white on New York’s Fifth Avenue in 1915.
“They’re making a symbolic and united stand on behalf of their gender, which directly parallels the exact reasons why the suffragettes wore white in the first place,” Dr Wright said of the Congresswomen.
The crowd of women in white on the White House floor on Tuesday were stony faced for much of Mr Trump’s 80-minute address, besides his acknowledgement of a record number of female lawmakers elected to Congress.
Stony faces at the State of the Union address. Photo: Getty
“The President of their government is obviously known as a particularly misogynist individual and they are taking a united stand as women against misogyny,” Dr Wright said.
First Lady Melania Trump didn’t wear white this year. Photo: Getty
The colour of purity
A white wedding gown has symbolised the idea of purity for brides on their special day, and the suffragettes shared this notion.
Dr Wright said organisers of suffragette demonstrations knew white would increase women’s chances for media attention, but the colour also held an important virtue of “purity”.
The suffragettes argued women were morally superior to men and would “clean up” politics like their homes, she said.
The white colour was also considered non-threatening when they could be accused of masculine aggression.
“There was a specific idea that women in politics would curb the bad behaviour of men more generally, not just politics,” Dr Wright said.
However, the suffragettes researcher noted the movement embraced three colours – white for purity, green for hope and purple for dignity.
Dr Wright said the purity ideal had been lost when talking about equal representation in politics today and women had since fought for the “right to drink”, “swear” and “gamble”.
“We think about it on a pure equality level,” she said.
The women who have worn white
Photographers have snapped the white “spectacle”, as Dr Wright termed it, for the better part of the 21st century.
Labour lawyer Inez Milholland Boissevain wore a white cape and rode a white horse to lead a suffrage parade along the White House’s Pennsylvania Avenue in 1913.
Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to be elected to Congress, dressed in white in 1968 on election night.
Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also addressed a crowd in a white suit at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. Photo: Getty
Dr Wright, author of You Daughters of Freedom: The Australian Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World, said the Australian contingent of the London suffragette march in 1911 were also united under a banner of white, purple and green.
“They marched behind that banner that still hangs in Parliament House today,” she said.
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