By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-07 00:02:48 | Updated at 2024-11-07 03:01:23
3 hours ago
Republicans think they’re manlier men than Democrats.
That’s according to a new poll from Pew Research, which found views on masculinity vary widely by party ideology and by generation.
The poll found that more than half (60%) of conservative men describe themselves as ‘highly masculine’ compared to less than a third (20%) of liberal men.
Differences were even starker when the question was split by generation. While 53% of those over 50 said they were highly masculine, just a quarter (25%) of men under 30 said the same.
No wonder young boys aren’t embracing their masculinity, after growing up under the weight of the left’s war on what it calls “toxic masculinity”. And no wonder men with a healthy sense of their manhood are shifting right as a result, too.
Richard Reeves, president of The American Institute for Boys and Men, says he’s unsurprised to see self-perceived masculinity correlates with conservatism.
“There’s been something of a fusion of the idea of being more conservative with the idea of being comfortable in your masculinity,” he told The Post.
“One of the markers of being on the right now is to actually just be unapologetic about being a guy and being masculine and not having to apologize for mansplaining and ‘toxic masculinity’ and manspreading and all of that.”
Pew surveyed 6,204 American men in September and found that, while a quarter of Americans believe masculine men are looked upon negatively by society, one group feels this most acutely: Republican men.
Forty-five percent of them said so, compared with just 20% of Democratic men. That’s perhaps a reaction to the left’s perception of masculinity and the way it talks about it.
“The progressive left sometimes thinks or talks about masculinity in this kind of toxic way, which I think creates an opportunity for the right to actually say, no, masculinity is a good thing,” Reeves said.
Indeed, messaging to men has been massively disparate in the last election cycle.
While Donald Trump made cameos at UFC events and invited Hulk Hogan to the RNC to rip his shirt in half at the podium mid-speech, Kamala Harris’s campaign ads were virtually devoid of men — with the exception of a remarkably preachy ad implying men who don’t vote for Harris aren’t “real men.”
Brad Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says this is causing a “push-pull dynamic” between the parties.
“More masculine men are attracted, especially today, to the Republican Party which presents a more masculine public image than the Democratic Party,” he said. “The messaging from the Democratic Party tends to be much more focused on women’s issues.”
The survey also found partisan differences in expectations by gender.
Republican men were less likely to say it’s acceptable to split the bill while out on a date, to be a stay-at-home dad, or to take a woman’s last name after marrying her (34% of Democrats okayed that).
But there was one thing that all men, regardless of party, agreed on: many of the traits associated with supposed “toxic masculinity” — including locker room talk, drinking heavily while out, and throwing fists — are, indeed, unacceptable.
It makes sense that men secure in their masculinity are gravitating towards a party that leans into traditionally masculine imagery and messaging unapologetically — and rejects wholesale a narrative about the patriarchy that makes them feel guilty for their immutable characteristics.
But it makes sense, too, that younger men who grew up in the era where “toxic masculinity” was an omnipresent boogeyman, would be distancing themselves from a masculine identity.
“There’s a lot of young men who have come to learn, right or wrongly, that there is something potentially problematic with the whole idea of masculinity,” Reeves said. “If the prefix toxic is always hovering close by with the word masculinity, then you can understand why someone might be reluctant.”
Wilcox agrees, and says institutions have failed boys: “In many workplaces and colleges and universities and public schools, there isn’t a clear understanding and appreciation for masculinity, and so a lot of younger males are just not getting a message that would be steering them in the direction of kind of cultivating a healthy masculinity.”
Some young men are feeling this very acutely.
“It feels like we’re being attacked and demonized and even dehumanized — at least for me, and I think for other young men,” Juan Llano, a 24-year-old conservative and student at Emory University, told The Post. “It feels like we’re being threatened.”
Over the past several decades, “girl power” has been emphasized in schools to lift up girls and make them believe they can be anything. Rightly so. More power to them.
But, all the while, little boys have been given the inverse messaging: that there’s something intrinsically toxic about their boyhood.
All the while, a blind eye has been turned to their collective plights — from worsening standardized test scores and plummeting college graduation rates to mass non-participation in the workforce.
This war on toxic masculinity left young boys between a rock and a hard place. Do they cower away and suppress their masculinity for fear of being labeled toxic? Do they reflexively lean into their masculinity and become hyper-reactionaries?
Some have opted for the latter. That’s what’s given rise to the sort of genuinely toxic and extreme “manosphere” influencers like Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist, who has said rape survivors “bear some responsibility” and has been charged with sex trafficking.
Like everything else in our society, masculinity itself has become polarized. But masculinity shouldn’t be a political issue. And no gender should be toxic.
For the sake of unity, and for the sake of boys, it’s time to tone down the rhetoric.
