In the era of Donald Trump, Republicans have increasingly made masculinity central to their campaigns.
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News coverage of gender in politics is overwhelmingly about women. But men have genders too, you hear? In the era of Donald Trump, Republicans have increasingly made masculinity central to their campaigns. NPR political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben kicks off a series of articles on politicians by looking at this change in the Republican Party.
DANIEL KUETZLEBEN, BYLINE: Since 1971, at NPR, we’ve produced more than 1,400 stories that included the term “women voters” or “women voters.”
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: …that’s certainly been true in the past, especially for female voters.
Sarah McCammon: Support among female voters was already very low last year…
Ari Shapiro, host:
…is his favorability among female voters.
KURTZLEBEN: As for male or male voters, less than 140. Women have always been vastly underrepresented in U.S. government, so their achievements have come under scrutiny, and women’s perspectives have been particularly salient in the post-Roe era. Moreover, this imbalance makes men the default choice, meaning their views are universal, and of course the experience of being a man is very much a part of modern American politics. This is a photo of Donald Trump during the 2016 primary debate.
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DONALD TRUMP: Look at those hands. Do they have small hands?
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Trump: He mentioned my hands – if they’re small, then everything else must be small. I assure you there is no problem. I promise.
Kurzleben: Trump has made masculinity central to his appeal from the beginning, especially as he took on Hillary Clinton, and his public references to masculinity could be interpreted as a disparagement of his A woman who became a presidential candidate. Masculinity remains a Republican focus. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote a book called “Manliness.” Tucker Carlson releases full-length documentary The End of Mankind for Fox News.
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Tucker Carlson: Decline in masculinity, masculinity, physical fitness, all of these things combine to threaten the demise of our civilization.
KURTZLEBEN: Former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka’s podcast has regular manliness time. At a meeting of the young conservative group Turning Point in Michigan last month, commentator Brandon Tatum had a message for these guys.
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Brandon Tatum: You young men need to stand your ground, lead your families, put God first, and lead this country to victory.
KURTZLEBEN: Women in the Republican Party have also paid homage to traditional masculinity, for example, by posing with large guns or denigrating male opponents as weak in their femininity. I asked former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, what happened? What is it about men like Hawley and Gorka that makes them so obsessed with masculinity?
KELLYANNE CONWAY: First of all, men want to talk about masculinity.
KURTZLEBEN: Okay, fair enough. But then she added.
CONWAY: But some people do see what they call the feminization of our young boys, which is not playing with trucks, not calling them “he or she” in the classroom, treating everyone the same.
KURTZLEBEN: This is a pervasive idea in conservatism right now – that progressives overemphasize gender, that their views are too extreme, and that touches on something important. This embrace of masculinity is partly a reaction to that. In other words, it is one of the many dimensions along which polarization is occurring. This has allowed a range of politicians to rally behind Donald Trump. For example, Hawley’s talk about masculinity focuses on Christianity. Meanwhile, Carlson is more concerned about physical fitness and sperm count, but their opponents are the same. This is Christine Kirby Doumez, author of “Jesus and John Wayne.”
KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: What unites these people is a common enemy – right? – Whether it’s pseudoscience, you know, your evidence, or, quote unquote, “biblical” or across the spectrum, you’re going to find that the enemy is the left.
KUZLEBEN: Dumez adds that while there are different masculinities in the current Republican Party, they share a common vision of what it means to be a good man.
Dumez: The dominant masculinity among conservatives today is rooted in white, working-class identity and a particular, unspoken “traditional vision” of what it means to be a man.
KUZLEBEN: Trump raises a chicken-and-egg question about masculinity. Is he the reason for the Republican focus on masculinity, or is he tapping into an existing cultural trend? Tim Miller worked on Republican presidential campaigns for John Huntsman and Jeb Bush. He said it was a little bit of both.
Tim Miller: I think Trump, like so many other things, just fueled a trend that was already happening, which was a bit of a reactionary male, you know, reaction to the increasing prominence of women.
KUZLEBEN: But Miller adds that Republicans may also be responding to political realities.
MILLER: You know, they looked at Latino and black men, particularly working class people, and found that they were soft on Democrats and potentially open to their messaging.
KUZLEBEN: Dumez adds that some men now have specific concerns that politicians may appeal to male voters on.
DU MEZ: This current construction of conservative masculinity is a response to reality. We are seeing worrying trends in depression, levels of suicide, educational attainment and levels of apathy among young people.
KURTZLEBEN: That’s what we’ll be talking about in the rest of this series – how politicians appeal to men, what problems men face and whether candidates offer any real solutions to those problems. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News.
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