I try to be non-political in this blog but gender is everywhere in the current presidential election. “Masculinity is front and center in a way that’s perhaps unprecedented,” said Jackson Katz, a scholar on gender and masculinity who this month released a new film, “The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power and the American Presidency.” According to polls there is more of a gender gap in candidate preference than ever before.
It appears that some men, especially those under 30, in their search for understanding masculinity, are reverting to old stereotypes of patriarchy and anti-feminism. In addition, many older white men without college degrees are also finding old stereotypes appealing.
Personally, after indulging in a binge of the TV series Yellowstone, I observed that many of the fictional men who work as cowboys on a modern huge Montana cattle ranch display qualities that go beyond traditional masculinity tropes. Yes, they have a tendency for excesive violence to solve probems yet they respect and treat women as capable equals. Although stoic on the surface these cowboys display a rich emotional life including tears and honest self-reflection. My takeaway is that for the most part the men in Yellowstone present a model of masculinity that maintains the best of masculinity without resorting to the often toxic male stereotypes of rugged individualism, gender superiority and emotional suppression.
Men, under 30 – including adolescents – have a choice on how they see themselves and act as men. The Yellowstone cowboy offers a model that combines confidence in being a man coupled with respect for women and a reasonable amount of emotional intelligence.
Hopefully, there will come a time when choosing a president will not be based on gender but on the quality and vision of the candidates. However, unless there is a greater effort to promote the best of masculinity as a society we will all experience a erosion of American democracy.