Let’s stop calling Doug Emhoff just “Doug”

***Things that Make Me Go “Hmm…” is a bonus series of posts in which I zero in on a moment or issue that exposes the gendered order of our world.***

A few days ago, I watched a clip from the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, which took place in Washington, DC earlier this year. The Saturday Night Live comedian Colin Jost served as emcee, and he opened his remarks by greeting the President, Vice President, and their spouses.

“Mr. President,” he began, turning to Joe Biden.

“Dr. Biden,” he said, smiling at Jill Biden.

Moving on to Kamala Harris, he nodded. “Madame Vice President.”

Then Jost gestured toward the far end of the table.

“Doug,” he said, simply. It was a predictable joke: Doug Emhoff has been known as “Doug” ever since Randy Rainbow made that jingle about Kamala Harris back during the 2020 campaign. (Remember “Kamala!”?)

But the audience guffawed all the same.

Jost went on, belaboring the point with a show of empathy. “As you can tell from all the comments about my wife, I’m also used to being the Second Gentleman.” The audience laughed then cheered. He didn’t name names, but he didn’t have to. As everyone in the crowd knew, Colin Jost is married to Scarlett Johansson.

The bit was funny, sort of.

Something in Colin Jost’s gentle ribbing belies a certain tension. The assumption that fuels the joke is that Vice President Harris’s husband deserves a certain sympathy from all men. Emhoff – I mean “Doug” – has ceded the spotlight to his wife, a hit (no doubt) to his masculinity, to his identity as husband, the man of the house.

Of course, Jost was being ironic. Wasn’t he? Maybe so. But comedy has a way of pointing out the trouble spots in our culture while seeming to deflect from them. Comedy works by making fun of the embarrassing and awkward. But in the process, the comedian actually exposes the very things that our culture finds so embarrassing and awkward.

And it seems that, even in the generally progressive and liberal space that is the White House Correspondents Dinner, playing the second-fiddle husband to a wife like Kamala Harris or Scarlett Johansson remains just a little bit embarrassing and awkward.

Incarnation of male embarrassment? (Doug Emhoff, official portrait. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

After all, husband to the female vice president is apparently awkward enough (read: emasculating enough) that we don’t even know what to call him: Mr. Emhoff? This is correct, but the last name is different from Harris’s, therefore confusing, and it points to a feminist practice that not everyone likes. Should it be Mr. Kamala Harris? That just isn’t done. How about Mr. Second Gentleman? Alas, the phrase is a mouthful. And for the moment, there is no “First Gentleman,” so the whole thing becomes nonsensical.

Moreover, “First Gentleman” or “Second Gentleman” sound so bizarre that the titles underscore just how moth-eaten and strangely aristocratic a title like “First Lady” actually is. Jackie Kennedy once quipped that calling her the “First Lady” made her sound like a saddle horse. Nevertheless, we have normalized the idea of “First Lady.” Not so much with “First Gentleman” or the like.

Because it’s simpler – and because it’s funny and memorable, which works for political branding - we’ve all settled on just “Doug.” This isn’t the same as when we called Mrs. Obama “Michelle.” That was a way of humanizing her, of magnifying a sense of empathy that Michelle Obama seemed to radiate. It had a certain purpose in the moment: magnifying her personable qualities was a political response to the racist and dehumanizing attacks that Michelle faced during Barack Obama’s campaign and presidency.

But Doug Emhoff is different. In his case, the “first-name-only” underscores all the ways in which he just doesn’t quite fit into our sense of the gendered order of things.

Colin Jost’s bit made me pause; I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I couldn’t help but feel that I was witnessing a kind of paradox: Jost was making fun of the breakdown of traditional gender roles, but in making fun of those roles, wasn’t he also reinforcing them?

Now that Kamala Harris is poised to be the Democratic candidate for President, maybe we should stop cracking these jokes. Because pointing out Doug Emhoff’s aberrance is just a way of pointing out the anomaly that is Vice President Harris. The joking and ribbing suggest patience with the state of things as they currently are more than acceptance – as if we are all willing to tolerate a powerful woman like Ms. Harris because we know that we will eventually return to the status quo: man in the top job, woman – helping and hosting – at his side.

It's true: Kamala Harris doesn’t fit in the scheme of how it’s always been. But that is a good thing. She is the mirror of the new America: new in terms of political visibility, perhaps, but, in fact, Kamala Harris reflects an America that has existed for quite some time. But as President of the United States, she would truly be a first in multiple ways – she will have to reinvent the rules.

As for her marriage to Doug Emhoff – interracial, interfaith, and most important of all, the woman in the top slot - that too would be a first in American politics. It would usher in a new vision for the “American President + spouse” framework that seems to define the Presidency.

All of it - the candidate, her husband, the marriage, the presidency - would break the mold. I am under no illusions that the mold would stay broken. Centuries of history suggests otherwise – feminism comes in waves because the old order of things always returns, albeit with some amendments.

But those amendments count. Every step nudges the framework just a bit in a new direction. Maybe we should stop calling Doug Emhoff just “Doug” and retire notions of “First Ladies” and “Second Gentlemen.” That would be one further step toward a new order of things.