Masculinity in Modern Context

    As American society continues to advance, a core issue has become masculinity, and more specifically toxic masculinity. The media has taught men from a young age that being a man means being strong, emotionless, and sometimes even violent. Movies, like “Rambo” and “The Terminator” or even more recent examples like “Fast and Furious” reinforce the idea that violence is manly. 25% of Americans have a negative view of men who are “manly or masculine”. 31% percent of people think neither negatively or positively of “manly or masculine” men, and 43% have a positive view (Parker and Horowitz). 45% of Republican men think that people have a negative view of masculine men, while that number decreases to 25% for Democratic men. According to Peter Kareithi, men facing “generational crisis”, can look towards music videos or movies to find “rebel” masculinity, which oftentimes includes “violent angers and resentment”. This subset of "rebel masculinity" is problematic because it makes men feel like they are in a constant struggle for power over every other group.  Sometimes they resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms to feel like they have some extra power against women or even the government. 

    The recent campaign, and now presidency of Donald Trump has used masculinity to appeal to voters and his policies. When referring to coal miners Trump said, "You could give them a penthouse on 5th Avenue and a different kind of a job and they’d be unhappy. They want to mine coal” and that coal miners “don’t want to build cell phones with their big strong hands” (Jones). This also follows much of Trump’s talk about “making America great again”, which involves rebuilding traditional family life, and in other words, straight, male led households. Much of Donald Trump’s playbook can be related to that of former president Ronald Reagan. Both successful in their careers pre-presidency, they ran on the idea of an ideal American traditional family. Reagan’s acting career led to him being an extremely charismatic figure, and Trump’s former business career made many Americans trust him when it came to economic policies. 

    A side effect of toxic masculinity in modern culture can be seen when women candidates have ran for president. During both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris' presidential campaign men (in the political world and outside) attempted to discredit them just based on their gender. While sometimes said as a joke "a woman can't be president" is dangerous rhetoric, a side effect of toxic masculinity. There is a clear drop in male voting support for the Democratic party when Hillary Clinton ran for president, and that trend continued with Harris. While there are only two elections to base this off of, Hillary Clinton had the least support since Bill Clinton in 1992, and Harris only had 2% higher of male voters this last election.