Performing Political Motherhood

To interpret the PMs’ rhetorical performances of personas of “mother of the nation,” we begin from Judith Butler’s ([1990] Reference Butler2006) concept of gender performativity. For Butler ([1990] Reference Butler2006, XV), the concept of gender performativity is not “a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual, which achieves its effects through its naturalization in the context of a body, understood, in part, as a culturally sustained temporal duration.” Thus, the gendered body serves as an instrument through which cultural meanings are expressed. As a feminist poststructuralist theorist, Butler ([1990] Reference Butler2006, 195) disregards any “truth” about sex and understands gender as an act, arguing “that there need not be a ‘doer behind the deed’, but that the ‘doer’ is variably constructed in and through the deed.”

Within the feminist poststructuralist frame, we draw on Campbell’s (Reference Campbell1998) exposé of the “discursive performance of femininity” that is “enacted and performed bodily;” for a woman to be an agent, or assume the role of a rhetor, Campbell (Reference Campbell1998, 2) argues, “she must ‘cite’ or ‘enact’ cultural norms of femininity,” which are traditionally anchored in the private rather than the public sphere and inherently constrain women rhetors. One may enact femininity rhetorically by applying strategies associated with women, such as adopting a personal or self-disclosing tone – signifying intimacy, domesticity, and nurture – and assuming a feminine persona by appropriating emotional appeals to motherhood, domestic metaphors, and personal narratives (Campbell Reference Campbell1998). These feminine traits have traditionally been contrasted with masculine traits such as competence, assertiveness, and acting as a leader, which, Jamieson (Reference Jamieson1995) argues, has meant that women can be either feminine or competent. Thus, the notion of a “woman leader” becomes an oxymoron, the constraints of which actual women leaders must negotiate. Within this frame of discursive performance, we understand the persona of “mother of the nation,” not as a result of the PMs’ “womanhood” (or, indeed, “motherhood”) but as an effect of their embodied rhetoric; they are, potentially, perceived as “mothers of the nation” by their audiences because of how they perform gender in text and image, using their bodies and words as rhetorical devices. This raises the issue of what the rhetorical performance of “motherhood” entails politically.

In so-called Western societies, the persona of the “good mother” has traditionally been defined as the fulltime, stay-at-home, White, and middle-class mother who is completely fulfilled by her domestic pursuits (Boris Reference Boris, Glenn, Chang and Forcey1994). The emergence of alternative motherhood ideologies (Johnston and Swanson Reference Johnston and Swanson2006) notwithstanding, “intensive mothering” (Hays Reference Hays1996) persists as the overriding conceptualization of motherhood. In a similar vein, Mackenzie (Reference Mackenzie, Angouri and Baxter2021, 418) identifies a “child-centric motherhood” discourse in which mothers position themselves “entirely in relation to their children, as devoted, loving parents, to the exclusion of other potential subject positions.” These mother-centric parenting ideals continue to be quite powerful in Western societies, “where dominant discourses position women as ‘natural’ carers and therefore the parent most needed by their children” (Mackenzie Reference Mackenzie2017, 297–298). This motherhood ideology is a counterweight to the selfish, get-ahead logics of society in general (Hays Reference Hays1996). Whereas the “good mother” is constructed as selfless, naturally nurturing, hard-working (for the benefit of her children), and successful in the private sphere, the “good professional” is constructed as promoting the self, lacking nurturing qualities, and fulfilling their own potential in the public sphere, leading to what Johnston and Swanson (Reference Johnston and Swanson2009) term the selfish/selfless double bind for women.

Transferring this tension into the political sphere, Ferree (Reference Ferree2006) argues that women’s political activities challenge the traditional distinction between “private” and “public” – a “separation of spheres” that assigns women domestic roles, those of support and nurture, which are the opposite of political leadership. As Ferree (Reference Ferree2006, 95) explains:

Here, the theory of role congruity, referring to the level of (in)consistency between the norms that accompany two social roles occupied by one person, offers a strong explanation. In the case of women leaders, it suggests that the prejudice they experience is caused by the contradicting social norms and expectations that are attached to the role of a leader and the role of a woman (Eagly and Karau Reference Eagly and Karau2002). When occupying two roles that carry contradicting expectations, one is always at risk of failing to do one – or both – of the social roles “correctly.”

Exploring how women politicians negotiate their role conflicts, Deason, Greenlee, and Langner (Reference Deason, Greenlee and Langner2014) coin the concept of “politicized motherhood,” which denotes the emphasis that is put on women politicians’ maternal role. They argue that it can, on the one hand, present challenges for women because the traditional image of at-home womanhood has historically been seen as incompatible with political leadership. On the other hand, politicized motherhood may provide an advantage for women, as motherhood is associated with personal warmth – a highly desirable characteristic for a political leader. Where traditionally feminine traits have been seen as counterproductive to political leadership, motherhood “may give women a socially acceptable space in which to present themselves as ‘tough’” (Greenlee, Deason, and Langner Reference Greenlee, Deason, Langner, Bos and Schneider2017, 197). This, however, is not a necessary outcome but a rhetorical challenge: the performance of the “right” mixture of “feminine care” and “masculine toughness.”

Historically, rhetorical appeals to motherhood have successfully resolved the challenge, and these appeals were common in, for instance, the rhetoric of women reformers. One example is Mary Harris Jones, who helped found the Social Democratic Party and the International Workers of the World (industrial labor’s most radical wing) in the early 1800s in the US. She answered only to “Mother” and called the miners she represented her “children” or her “boys” (Tonn Reference Tonn1996). Tonn (Reference Tonn1996) claims that the maternal role was a particularly apt rhetorical strategy for women labor union agitators, as mothering and agitation share two essential dimensions: nurturing and militancy. In the case of conservative US politicians such as Sarah Palin, Schreiber (Reference Schreiber2016) identifies a similar strategic frame of “feminine toughness.” At the height of her political success, Palin was praised for being full of “grace” and “femininity,” and her references to motherhood, coupled with her conservative policy goals, boosted her as a tough political candidate who was, essentially, successful because she performed “toughness” with “charm.”

Rhetorical performances of the mother persona are also associated with heads of state, such as the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has famously been referred to as “mother” (Suder Reference Suder2021), as in “mother of all problems” (Puglierin Reference Puglierin2020) and “mother of Syrian refugees” (Oltermann Reference Oltermann2015). Simpson (Reference Simpson, Krimmer and Simpson2019, 314) points out that when Barack Obama advocated for immigration reform, no one called him “Papa Obama,” but in the case of Merkel, she “has been subsumed into the category of the maternal,” as if motherhood is the only way in which we can make sense of a woman as a credible head of state. This is not to say that there are no “fathers of the nation;” to the contrary, “founding fathers” abound, but their role is typically different, “siring” the nation rather than “nurturing” it.

The negotiation of performance and perception leads to an assessment of the actor’s authenticity – the symbolic, mediated, and interactional process, which involves political actors, their opponents, and the news media in the assessment of the “truth and realism” of the political leader’s image (Parry-Giles Reference Parry-Giles2014, 11). Political authenticity can therefore be understood as a social construction, created and negotiated though complex communication processes involving politicians, media, and citizens (Luebke Reference Luebke2021). In what follows, we center perceived authenticity, focusing on how audiences negotiate mediated images of politicians. Audiences are not simply passive observers of performed and mediated authenticity but active participants in processes of meaning formation who observe and assess based on their own pre-existing attitudes, where they rely on, for instance, political cues such as party affiliation to make judgements about politicians (Luebke Reference Luebke2021).

For women political leaders who seek to perform the motherhood persona, perceived authenticity – of the political leader’s own performance and the media’s portrayal – is key to their rhetorical success. In the case of Palin, for instance, the “hockey mom” persona seems to come across authentically, as she is consistently praised for seeking political office for the “right” reasons, namely, not to gain power and authority but to help people (Schreiber Reference Schreiber2016). As Schreiber (Reference Schreiber2016) notes, conservative women politicians may have an advantage in this regard, since offering a more “feminized” account (i.e., wanting to help people) aligns their quest for office with traditional notions of gender and mothering. If performed authentically, then, a motherhood persona opens a rhetorical space in which women politicians can successfully negotiate gendered expectations of their performance of leadership in relation to situational constraints like national context and party affiliation. In the following section, we review literature on how feminine traits were utilized by women leaders in the communicative handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, thus establishing the pandemic rhetorical situation and setting the stage for our contribution to the extant literature.

COVID-19 and Feminine Rhetorical Style

Studying the use of feminine rhetorical style during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dada et al. (Reference Dada, Ashworth, Bewa and Dhatt2021) find that speeches by women leaders cover a range of social issues (including substance abuse, domestic violence, and mental health), but center the personal dimension of these issues (positing them at the level of families rather than the state). In accordance with established norms for the discursive performance of femininity (Campbell Reference Campbell1998), women pandemic leaders have also been found to use a more empathetic and compassionate speech style than men in similar roles (Dada et al. Reference Dada, Ashworth, Bewa and Dhatt2021; Johnson and Williams Reference Johnson and Williams2020; Voina and Stoica Reference Voina and Stoica2023). For instance, Power and Crosthwaite (Reference Power and Crosthwaite2022) examine speech style in the crisis response of PMs in Australia and New Zealand in texts published on their websites. They find that Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand) used a more personal style in her messaging than Scott Morrison (Australia). Similarly, Voina and Stoica (Reference Voina and Stoica2023) analyze Ardern’s Facebook communication in the initial phase of the pandemic, finding that her messaging was embedded in attitudes and values that are specific to ethics of care.

As Johnson and Williams (Reference Johnson and Williams2020) show, the link between care and femininity offers unique opportunities for women leaders’ pandemic response as they may gain political sway by performing women’s traditional roles as caretakers – as epitomized by the role of motherhood. “The pandemic,” they argue, “has undermined the traditional divide between the (feminine) private sphere of the home and the (masculine) public sphere of politics […] that has traditionally disadvantaged women leaders, allowing them to leverage women’s role in the home to their advantage in the political sphere.” (Johnson and Williams Reference Johnson and Williams2020, 945) However, the specific rhetorical circumstances and the broader contextual preconditions for such leveraging remain unclear. The specific character of the pandemic contrasts with, for instance, a military crisis, which, Davidson-Schmich, Jalalzai, and Och (Reference Davidson-Schmich, Jalalzai and Och2023) argue, elicits agentic skills associated with a masculine communication style of ‘direction-giving language’, assertiveness, and competition. As these authors conclude, congruence between social expectations and social roles in relation to the issue at hand is paramount to citizens’ perceptions of (all) politicians’ credibility.

Moving to the national context of Norway, Arora, Debesay, and Eslen-Ziya (Reference Arora, Debesay and Eslen-Ziya2022) find that Erna Solberg’s Facebook posts during the initial phase of the pandemic consisted of a persuasive narrative made up of themes displaying empathetic leadership, such as promoting responsibility and togetherness (invoking the culturally pervasive responsibility of “dugnad,” a jointly performed, unpaid, and voluntary effort/work for a community). This suggests that Solberg deployed strategies pertaining to the feminine rhetorical style in her advocacy of the Norwegian pandemic strategy, but how was her persona as “mother of the nation” established, more specifically? And how does that performance compare with other national leaders’ invocation of the motherhood persona? More importantly, how is the performance received and negotiated? To answer these questions, we draw on the concept of credibility, which we operationalize analytically below. Before turning to our analytical approach, we present our methods of data collection.

Contextual Differences

Today, gender equality in political leadership is quite high in the Nordic countries – largely explained by policies to ensure a certain gender balance in decision-making and by voluntary gender quotas within some political parties, particularly in Norway (Teigen and Skjeie Reference Teigen, Skjeie and Knutsen2017). Although the Scandinavian region is not a feminist “nirvana,” its gender equality credentials are extraordinary compared to most other regions of the world (Holst Reference Holst, Witoszek and Midttun2018). Both Norway and Denmark fall into the category of “women-friendly societies,” with welfare systems providing parental leave, day care services, and so on, which have for decades enabled women to take equal part in work life and other spheres of society, including political activities (Hernes Reference Hernes1987).

However, whereas Norway is the second most gender equal country in the world, Denmark has consistently performed less well, securing a spot no higher than 23rd in the World Economic Forum’s (2023) gender equality index. This is, perhaps, explainable by differences in the countries’ cultural approaches to gender equality, generally, and to feminism, more specifically. In Norway, feminism is a widely accepted perspective with a distinct history of “social feminism” (Holst Reference Holst, Witoszek and Midttun2018). Unlike Norwegian feminism’s strong emphasis on political participation and representation that favors shared values and community ideals, in Denmark there is, as Holst (Reference Holst, Witoszek and Midttun2018) shows, a more liberal approach that resonates with Anglo-American feminism, characterized by individuals’ right to non-interference, freedom of choice, and private autonomy. This materializes as a more critical approach to political interventions as, for instance, seen in strong resistance to gender quotas.

The Danish public discourse on the topic is also characterized by a “modern” argument, positing gender equality as a “closed case;” understood as either achieved or “gone too far” (Dahlerup Reference Dahlerup2018). This makes Denmark susceptible to backlash, as indicated in a poll published in The Guardian, where more than 25,000 people of 23 major countries were asked about their attitudes towards gender and equal rights. The poll found that Denmark is one of the least feminist countries in the developed world and showed that just one out of six Danes would label themselves as feminists. Surprisingly, more Danish women prefer to be wolf-whistled than called a feminist (Orange and Duncan Reference Orange and Duncan2019). In light of these surprising findings, it may be less surprising that studies show Danish news media remain rather stereotypical in their gendered representations of politics and politicians (Askanius and Hartley Reference Askanius and Hartley2019; Jørndrup Reference Jørndrup2021).

Despite Norway’s high gender equality and generally more open approach towards feminism – including its long history of “social” feminism – the media landscape resembles the Danish situation, as Norwegian news media reproduce stereotypical gender differences. As to the portrayal of politicians specifically, Rogstad (Reference Rogstad2013) found that personal coverage is far more common for women politicians than men, and that while the latter are described in rather gender-neutral terms, women politicians are gendered in more dramatic and polarized ways, either as very feminine or very masculine. Similarly, Frækhaug (Reference Frækhaug2014) found that women politicians on covers of newspapers are portrayed either as gentle and soft within an “intimacy frame” or as tough and hard within a “battle frame.” Based on the observation of these contextual preconditions, we explore the different national receptions of similar rhetorical strategies, as performed by Solberg and Frederiksen, respectively. To do so, we first explore the two PMs’ mediated performances of motherhood, then turn to the focus groups’ perceptions of the credibility of these mediated performances.

Performing Motherhood

Erna Solberg

Erna Solberg, leader of the Norwegian Conservative Party, first became Prime Minister in 2013 and was serving her second term when the pandemic hit. She is Norway’s second woman PM, following Gro Harlem Brundtland, who led three Labour Party governments between 1981 and 1996. The Solberg government interchanged between a majority and minority government and ended its second term in 2021, shortly before the pandemic measures were lifted for good.

Brundtland, Norway’s first woman PM, has famously been called “mother of the nation,” a term that has stuck to her even in recent times. In 2023, as Brundtland was making a political “comeback,” one newspaper wrote that “mother of the nation Gro Harlem Brundtland (84) has been elected to Oslo city council” (Svendsen and Lilleås Reference Svendsen and Lilleås2023). And in a documentary series from 2017 titled “When we ran the country” about Norway’s six most recent prime ministers, Brundtland’s episode is called “The story of a mother of the nation” (whereas Solberg’s episode is entitled “The builder of the future”). Preceding her prime ministership, Solberg had been labelled “Iron Erna” due to her tough stance on immigration (Arora, Debesay, and Eslen-Ziya Reference Arora, Debesay and Eslen-Ziya2022). The iron metaphor, which was famously used to label Great Britan’s first woman PM Margaret Thatcher, “reeks of gender stereotyping with its implicit assumption that a lady is too weak to lead, unless she is made of unexpectedly strong stuff” (Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala Reference Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala2020, 160). However, leading up to her prime ministership, Solberg started to show a softer side by caring for voters’ health, jobs, and schools (Arora, Debesay, and Eslen-Ziya Reference Arora, Debesay and Eslen-Ziya2022), traditionally more feminine topics (Jamieson Reference Jamieson1995).

The trajectory of a tougher persona being replaced by a softer is not unknown for women politicians. Hillary Clinton is, perhaps, the most disputed woman politician of all time. Caught in numerous double binds (Jamieson Reference Jamieson1995; Parry-Giles Reference Parry-Giles2014), Clinton was initially described by the media as “hard,” “aggressive,” and “too tough” (Jamieson Reference Jamieson1995, 37–38). Jamieson (Reference Jamieson1995) argues that what is positive for one gender, is negative for another, meaning that Clinton’s toughness was perceived negatively. Following the critique, Clinton adopted a more feminine persona, encompassing a softer speech style, behavior, and appearance. The more feminine version of Clinton may have helped turn public opinion in her favor, but it did not solve the old dilemma that by appearing feminine, she risked being perceived as incompetent (Jamieson Reference Jamieson1995, 50). One of several instances, the so-called “New Hampshire tears” episode, is highly exemplary of this double bind. During a meeting in a coffee shop leading up to the presidential election of 2008, Hillary Clinton’s “voice had softened, taking a never-before-heard quality of slightly mournful tenderness” (Hertzberg Reference Hertzberg2008). The media frenzy that followed labelled her as an “icy control queen” who “welled up with emotion” (Goldenberg and Adams Reference Goldenberg and Adams2008) and thus framed her display of emotion as strategic and inauthentic. Goren (Reference Goren2018, 115) explains this as a double bind in which women politicians must navigate between being feminine and unfeminine simultaneously; they must “keep their emotions calm and measured since this is another facet of their authentic selves that must hew to gendered standards so as not to descend into stereotypes.”

Turning back to Solberg, when she began performing a more feminine persona, the term “mother of the nation” became associated with her in the news media – although never quite to the same extent as with Brundtland. Simultaneously, Solberg started to position herself as a motherly, homey, and “of the people” type of person. Googling “at Erna Solberg’s home” (in Norwegian) leads to a large image collection of Solberg performing motherhood, being simple and homey, as well as a long list of interviews and news reports where she invites journalists into her home, which appears to be very ordinary, a bit busy, a bit stuffy, a home in which people actually live.

One much-discussed piece about Solberg, an interview in one of Norway’s biggest newspapers Dagbladet’s feature magazine Magasinet leading up to the parliamentary election in 2013, shows her and her husband Sindre Finnes in their home in Bergen. The interview led to a debate regarding the intention behind the images (Krogstad Reference Krogstad, Ihlen, Skogerbø and Allern2015). Solberg is pictured barefoot preparing food in her kitchen – reproducing a longstanding conservative trope of a woman being barefoot (and often pregnant) in the kitchen as a way of putting women in “their place” (Greene Reference Greene2022). The kitchen is modest and messy: there are dishes, bottles, and food wrappers scattered around the counter, and in the background, there is an iron resting on an ironing board and shelves overflowing with board games, more bottles, and gadgets. The images caused a stir, as they portray values contrary to those of the Conservative Party (i.e., not showing a clean and “upper-class posh” home) (Krogstad Reference Krogstad, Ihlen, Skogerbø and Allern2015). They were interpreted as Solberg’s strategic attempt to be perceived as “of the people” in order to appeal to a broader electorate, although Solberg herself claimed to be surprised that the public thought it was a conscious media strategy (Krogstad Reference Krogstad, Ihlen, Skogerbø and Allern2015).

Closer to the pandemic, in 2018, Solberg did a picture series in a story in Norway’s biggest tabloid newspaper VG Pluss titled “Join Erna in her kitchen: Here is her prayer for Christmas” (Fjellanger Reference Fjellanger2021, see Figure 1). Although she herself is dressed more formally on this occasion (perhaps, due to the Christmas celebrations), Solberg’s home is still messy, chaotic, and down to earth, and she is pictured in the kitchen serving food. These images have been recirculated during the pandemic, such as in a news story in VG in 2021 about Solberg in quarantine. As their recirculation indicates, the images continue to be iconic of Solberg’s persona and how she performs and is portrayed in media. What is particularly notable is that Solberg’s motherly persona is enacted in collaboration between her own performance and the media/journalist’s portrayal, indicating an overlap between how she wants to present herself and how the media represents her.

Figure 1. Erna Solberg in her kitchen. Photo: Hallgeir Vågenes/VG (Fjellanger Reference Fjellanger2021).

Both images discussed above connote that, despite being the prime minister and the leader of the Conservative Party, Solberg lives in a regular home, has an ordinary kitchen, and an ordinary life. In the more recent image, she acts like the “typical” mother during the busy Christmas season – preparing Christmas food for her family in a chaotic kitchen, essentially being portrayed in the at-home, feminine “sphere.” As Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala (Reference Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala2020, 146) point out, women leaders’ bodies are discussed much more in public than men’s and often to the women’s disadvantage. Thus, they argue, Solberg’s physique as a “big woman” could have been a challenge if she were a political leader in a country prone to harsh tabloid media coverage. However, in the more benign context of the Norwegian media landscape, we believe that the portrayal of Solberg’s body works in her favor; she is often portrayed as “cute,” “clumsy,” and “endearing.” Arguably, Solberg is becoming the embodiment of the mother of the nation in a Norwegian cultural context.

In April 2020, shortly after the pandemic broke out, one commentator suggested that Solberg could become a mother of the nation and lead the country successfully through the crisis (Nykvist Reference Nykvist2020). It is common for citizens to increase support for their political leaders during an acute crisis (Knudsen, Nordø, and Iversen Reference Knudsen, Nordø and Iversen2023), but Solberg maintained remarkably high credibility ratings throughout the pandemic, even following a misdemeanor that sparked a national debate. In February 2021, during restrictions on how many people were allowed to gather (a maximum of ten), Solberg celebrated her 60^th birthday with a total of 13 people. Although she was criticized for this, leading to her statement of “I should have known better” (Remen and Kalajdzic Reference Remen and Kalajdzic2021), she also received public support, such as in the opinion piece titled “A mistake must be forgiven, even though it is done by our prime minister” (Helle Reference Helle2021). Her popularity did wear off slightly in the spring of 2021, not simply because of the birthday party incident but also because of “pandemic fatigue” and “government fatigue” (Avisa Nordland 2021). Nevertheless, Solberg’s credibility remained high, and when national elections led to a change in government in October 2021, the result was attributed to broader political shifts, which were not directly linked to the public perception of the now former PM (Avisa Nordland 2021). In the case of Solberg’s motherhood persona, there is consistency between her own performance and how she is staged and perceived by the media and the public – a coherence that works to reinforce her authenticity and overall credibility, as will be detailed in the second part of the analysis.

Mette Frederiksen

On the 27^th of June 2019, Mette Frederiksen became the second Danish woman prime minister. Like the first woman to head the Danish government, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who was PM from 2011-2015, Frederiksen is a social democrat. And, as is usual in Denmark, Frederiksen’s governments have been minority governments or coalitions. Thus, her first government, which was in power during the pandemic (from June 2019 to December 2022), consisted only of her own party, whereas the second and current (as of Spring 2025) government is a coalition “across the middle” of Danish politics, joining forces with the Liberal Party and “the Moderates,” a newly formed center-right party.

Commentators had used the phrase “mother of the nation” in relation to Frederiksen prior to the pandemic. Notably, Frederiksen used her first new year’s speech (held on the 1^st of January 2020) to perform the role of “the children’s prime minister,” an epithet she and her team had also used during the election campaign of 2019. With this move, as one prominent commentator put it, Frederiksen sought to appear as an “inclusive mother of the nation who first and foremost protects the most vulnerable children of Denmark” (Mogensen Reference Mogensen2020a). During the election and in the first months of her incumbency, Frederiksen had not only positioned herself as “mother” to the children of Denmark, but also as “homey” and “of the people” in other respects. For instance, she posted pictures of her homemade lunch on Instagram, showing how she brought along open sandwiches of pate or fish on ryebread, which is traditional and basic food that most Danes have eaten throughout their lives during lunch breaks at school and work.

From the onset of Frederiksen’s incumbency, these social media posts became a source of often humorous, but also increasingly critical commentary. A year into the pandemic, in February 2021, for instance, one such post was coupled with critique of the pandemic strategy, as a commentator argued it showed Frederiksen was taking neither the situation nor the citizens seriously (Hultén Reference Hultén2021). A caricature that accompanied this comment linked the critique directly to the role of the mother with the caption saying: “Mom’s eating mackerel just like Mr. and Mrs. liver pate [a Danish idiom for ‘ordinary people’]” (Figure 2). The image indicates that Frederiksen uses the persona to assert her power by positioning the minister of health in the background and with a subdued expression. While this particular cartoon was published in a right-leaning newspaper, it is iconic of the Danish media’s critical representation of Frederiksen’s performance of the homey mother role. Thus, the sentiment that Frederiksen’s performance of political motherhood was an inadequate and insincere response to the pandemic became more and more pronounced in Danish public debate throughout the pandemic (Analyse & Tal 2021).

Figure 2. Caricature of Mette Frederiksen’s Instagram post. Drawing: Rasmus Sand Høyer (Hultén Reference Hultén2021).

The point here is that Frederiksen was not perceived as acting as a “nice” and “homey” mother during the pandemic, but rather was recognized for resolutely putting herself in charge of safeguarding the nation. Thus, she famously took responsibility for the harsh measures of lockdown as well as the broader pandemic strategy. When the first lockdown was announced on March 11, 2020, she said: “I would also like to say to the entire Danish population that we are in unknown territory in this situation. We haven’t tried it before. Will we make mistakes? Yes, we will. Will I make mistakes as prime minister? Yes, I will” (Frederiksen Reference Frederiksen2020). This willingness to take the responsibility for acting in a difficult situation was appealing to many, and Frederiksen’s approval ratings soared in the first phase of the pandemic, reaching a stunning 79 percent in April 2020 (Eller and Just Reference Eller and Just2023).

As already indicated, however, the image of the motherly protector did not maintain its credibility throughout the pandemic. Rather, commentators increasingly associated Frederiksen with a position of power, casting her as an authoritarian figure with a populist appeal rather than a sincere and benevolent guardian of public interest. At best, and early in the pandemic, the “mother of the nation” was framed as an adequate role for the “corona-commander-in-chief” (Mogensen Reference Mogensen2020b). This understanding found visual representation in a number of pictures from the press meetings that quickly became pivotal sources of information on pandemic developments (as was also the case in many other countries). Here, photographers used the visual constraints of the situation (a number of people standing in line behind pulpits and addressing an audience of journalists), to focus on Frederiksen even when she was not in the foreground of the picture (Figure 3). We take the proliferation of this imagery to indicate the media’s perception of Frederiksen’s position of power, as it suggests that even when other actors are speaking, she is the one to be reckoned with.

Figure 3. Mette Frederiksen during a press conference. Photo: Martin Sylvest/Ritzau Scanpix (Outzen Reference Outzen2020).

As the pandemic wore on, the critique of Frederiksen became increasingly harsh, culminating in accusations of being scrupulously power hungry, not least in relation to what has become known as “the mink scandal” – the decision to cull all Danish mink, which has been deemed unconstitutional and as of Spring 2025 continues to trouble Frederiksen and her current government (Fuusager and Molin Reference Fuusager and Molin2024). Frederiksen has explicitly called out the gendered public reactions to her handling of the risk of COVID-19 mutations in mink, arguing that a man would not have been as harshly criticized for the same actions ([email protected] 2022). We will return to this point in our final discussion but let us indicate here that Frederiksen’s claim became the subject of heated debate, with some media commentators supporting the argument while others denied that gender could influence the public perception of political action (Drivsholm Reference Drivsholm2022; Søe Reference Søe2022).

Unlike the consistency found in Solberg’s performance and the mediated representation of her as a mother of the nation, there is a lack of correspondence in Frederiksen’s case. She performs – or attempts to perform – in a motherly manner, as exemplified by her social media posts and the epithet of the children’s prime minister. However, this performance is not reflected in the media’s representation of her. Rather, it is made fun of (Figure 2) or replaced with a more authoritative persona (Figure 3). This lack of consistency hampers Frederiksen’s authentic performance of her public persona and negatively affects the public’s perception of her credibility, as will be detailed in the analysis of the perceived credibility of the two PMs to which we now turn.

Perceived Credibility

Interestingly, both PMs are directly referred to as “mother” or “mother of the nation” in our focus group material, Frederiksen repeatedly while Solberg only once. However, the manner in which the metaphor is used differs significantly. In Solberg’s case, it is used to bolster her credibility, in the sense that she is deemed to perform motherhood authentically. For Frederiksen, the reference is used to discredit her, as focus group participants deem that her performance of motherhood is strategic rather than sincere. We divide the analysis into stereotypically male traits (competence and toughness) and stereotypically female traits (empathy, nurture, and warmth), showing how the focus group participants negotiate the PMs’ credibility in relation to their performance of these traits.

Concluding Discussion

In this study, we asked the following research questions: 1) How is the “mother of the nation” persona performed and perceived in each of the cases of PMs Erna Solberg in Norway and Mette Frederiksen in Denmark during the COVID-19 pandemic? and 2) How does mediated negotiation of the PMs’ “mother of the nation” personas relate to public perception of their credibility as national leaders during a health crisis? As women leaders were claimed to have been more successful in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and as previous studies indicate that successful pandemic leaders utilized a feminine rhetorical style (Dada et al. Reference Dada, Ashworth, Bewa and Dhatt2021; Johnson and Williams Reference Johnson and Williams2020; Voina and Stoica Reference Voina and Stoica2023), we sought to detail how women leaders can harness feminine traits rhetorically (i.e., be perceived as credible) in a health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In this final section, we draw lines between the two types of analyses we conducted – the analyses of the PMs’ mediated performances and their perceived credibility as negotiated in focus group interviews – and discuss our findings in relation to the rhetorical and political contexts of each PM in their respective country.

In the case of Solberg, aside from some skepticism regarding the motives behind certain actions, we found that she was evaluated by the focus group participants as a highly credible prime minister during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was perceived to possess both the traditionally masculine traits of competence and toughness and the traditionally feminine traits of empathy, nurture, and warmth. There was consensus across the three age-groups on Solberg’s abilities as a political leader and her overall character as a “tough lady” who is capable of “taking a hit.” Simultaneously, we find a mirroring in the focus group data of the mediated image of her as a homey, down to earth, cute, and clumsy “mom,” which we identified in the first analysis. She is perceived as warm, likeable, and “making one feel safe” by putting politics aside and having the citizens’ best interest at heart. Politically, she avoided making highly unpopular decisions (like Frederiksen’s decisions during the mink case), and rhetorically, she utilized both sets of gendered traits, leading to a general perception that Solberg performed motherhood successfully in line with the “good mother” ideology of being selfless, naturally nurturing, and hard-working. She performed within the strategic frame that Schreiber (Reference Schreiber2016) identifies as “feminine toughness.” And although she was criticized – in media commentaries and in the focus group data – for breaking pandemic measures when celebrating her 60^th birthday, our findings suggest that the incident did not have as negative an impact on her credibility as could potentially have been the case, but rather supported the image of her as a well-meaning but fallible matriarch. Thus, Solberg was deemed credible due to the authenticity of her image as a “mother of the nation,” which was established through a clear consistency in the way that she performed and was portrayed by the media and how she was perceived by the focus group participants.

Moving to Frederiksen, we found that, like Solberg, she was perceived by the focus group participants to possess the masculine traits of competence and toughness but, unlike Solberg, to lack the feminine traits of empathy, nurture, and warmth. Instead, she was perceived as selfish and power-hungry, what Hays (Reference Hays1996) calls the “good professional” but “bad mom.” As showed in the first analysis, Frederiksen’s attempts to perform a motherly persona were not reinforced by the media. Instead, her own performance of the role of caring and homey motherhood was mocked for its insincerity, and serious media representation of her took on more traditionally masculine traits of competence and authority – a perception that was echoed directly in the focus groups. Thus, while Frederiksen attempted to use the feminine rhetorical style in ways that were quite similar to Solberg’s (such as by attempting to establish herself as “the children’s minister” and posting pictures of herself with homemade sandwiches), her performance was perceived as strategic and inauthentic.

As to the rhetorical situation of a health crisis – in our case the COVID-19 pandemic – our findings support the suggestion by Johnson and Williams (Reference Johnson and Williams2020) that in this situation women heads of state can benefit rhetorically from utilizing feminine traits to perform a more traditional gender role – materialized in a motherhood persona – than what is normally associated with political leadership. Whereas traditionally feminine traits can have a negative impact on women leaders’ credibility, reinforcing the double bind of either possessing femininity or competency (Jamieson Reference Jamieson1995), we find that a health crisis such as the pandemic offers a unique opportunity for women heads of state to take advantage of their feminine traits and gain credibility as national leaders – as shown in the case of Solberg – by activating what they would, arguably, need to downplay in “ordinary” times. Our findings support Davidson-Schmich, Jalalzai, and Och’s (Reference Davidson-Schmich, Jalalzai and Och2023) argument that the pandemic as a health crisis is the “right” type of crisis for women leaders to be able to benefit from social (gender) role congruency. At the same time, the analysis of Frederiksen shows how the appeal to feminine traits does not guarantee credibility, not even in the context of the pandemic. Frederiksen, who also attempted to perform the “good mother,” was not perceived as authentic – as her own performance and the media’s portrayal of her were inconsistent, our focus group participants perceived her as lacking credibility.

Despite her high credibility, Solberg was not re-elected in the 2021 national election. This has largely been explained by two factors that are not connected to her credibility per se: 1) how unusual it is for a leader to be re-elected for a third term in Norway, and 2) the public being “sick and tired” of the pandemic and wanting a change (Avisa Nordland 2021). Frederiksen, on the contrary, was re-elected as PM following the pandemic, despite having suffered a decrease in credibility. Arguably, this has more to do with the Danish proportional electoral system, which fosters a multiparty parliament with many possibilities for coalitions and compromises, than with Frederiksen’s rhetorical performance. Also, it speaks to Frederiksen’s political skills and, perhaps, reinforces public perceptions of her will to power, since she now heads a coalition government “across the middle.” While these developments may be interpreted as indicating the limited relevance of women leaders’ gendered performances, we understand them as highlighting the intricate relationships between political contexts, rhetorical situations, and enacted strategies. What works in one context and for one person, may have different outcomes for another; neither one’s performed or mediated persona can explain one’s success, but the interrelations of the two as negotiated by citizens to form public perceptions of one’s authenticity are always central to political as well as rhetorical performance.

This view, we find, is echoed in Agenda Magasin, a Norwegian political analysis magazine, in its comment on the Danish public perception of Frederiksen:

Although any politician would surely be criticized for the illegal handling of the mink case, our material indicates that media representations of Frederiksen’s gendered performance did impact the way in which she is perceived and described, negatively affecting her credibility. Specifically, she was criticized for her harsh actions and the negative economic effects they had on mink farmers, but concern for animal welfare was almost completely absent from the debate at the time of the decision (see Lantz, Feddersen, and Just Reference Lantz, Feddersen and Just2024). Meaning, the gendered critique of Frederiksen’s actions could have been even harsher.

In sum, rhetoric and gender alone cannot explain the successes and failures of women political leaders. In our two cases, the severity of specific misdemeanors (i.e., the mink scandal vs. the birthday party) and the practicalities of the political multi-party systems and coalition governments of the two countries must also be taken into consideration. Further, the national differences in gender equality and concomitant different evaluations of and approaches to feminism also play their part in explaining why Solberg succeeded whereas Frederiksen failed. The state of gender equality and feminism in Norway may provide a bigger space in which to maneuver gender performances, thereby making it easier to succeed as a “mother of the nation.” However, we do not think that the particular party affiliations of the two women leaders were central in this case, as the transcendent nature of the pandemic emergency was repeatedly highlighted by our focus group participants who set their evaluations of the leaders’ credibility apart from their own voting behavior.

Conclusively, we argue that the strong consensus on Solberg’s high credibility during the COVID-19 pandemic is related to the authentic performance of a “mother of the nation” persona, which she enacted in collaboration with the news media, facilitating a public perception that aligned with her performance. Frederiksen’s low credibility, to the contrary, is related to misalignments between her own performance and its mediation, which led to perceived incongruity and inauthenticity. The media ridiculed Frederiksen’s attempts at performing caring motherhood and, instead, presented her as calculating and manipulative, leading to negative public perceptions of her “mother of the nation” persona. Adding to existing literature on the gendered performance of political leadership in times of health crisis, we find that women leaders gain credibility when the performance of their persona is consistent with public perceptions of them, with mediated representations playing a major role in ensuring or destabilizing such consistency.