How American Politics REALLY Sees Men & MASKulinity

MASKulinity Podcast

As the 2024 election heats up, it’s easy to assume that hyper-masculine, even toxic masculinity, messaging is resonating across America. But a new Pew Research report tells a different story. After digging in with report creator Juliana Horowitz and Next Gen Men’s Trevor Mayoh, Samantha uncovers some surprising truths.

Here’s where Samantha reveals the real story behind Americans’ views on masculinity. Remoy was surprised, to say the least…

• First Juliana opens up to how the “How Americans See Men and Masculinity” report came out of a more general curiosity, but as the election shifted into a more gendered race, the importance of the research became increasingly clear.
• Using the report as a jump off, Samantha runs a few questions by Remoy:
  • First: Samantha asked Remoy what he thought when he heard of the association between the American public and the terms: caring, open about their emotions, soft-spoken, or affectionate?
  • Second: She asked him how Americans felt about men pursuing non “traditional” norms: staying home to raise the kids, women paying for the date, men taking a woman’s last name in marriage?
  • Third: How do Americans feel about actions that depict Toxic Masculinity?
  • Fourth: Do Americans feel like there’s a backlash against men who are manly or masculine?
  • The answers? They’re not so cut and dry as you may think with a lot more parity across the aisle. Why?
    • Juliana suggests that generally speaking there’s much more nuance to Americans’ beliefs and thinking. Especially in contrast to the loud political noise we constantly see and hear.
    • Trevor makes a point that it’s the sport of American politics, the tribalism of how it’s waged, that unfortunately may disregard a lot of that nuance.
      • Trevor shares what he’s experienced with men in his work as a diversity, inclusion and violence prevention consultant. How he encounters a lot of men who are hurting in a variety of ways: work anxieties, stress, expectations to meet the highest standards of what it means to be husband or father. And in the midst of all that, how the larger culture hasn’t given men the tools to ask for help to process all these intense expectations.
      • Then he goes on to unpack how that can be exacerbated in highly masculine spaces– how men could actually possess a lot of that nuance Juliana shared in her report –but there’s a pack mentality in those intense social environments that doesn't allow men to easily share their discouragements.
• Remoy wonders if all of this is what can create a culture of “Aggrieved Entitlement.”
  • Does Remoy know what that really is? Nope. Luckily Samantha helps guide the way, defining what that experience is along with how mens’ perceptions of women’s ascent plays a role in building that entitled foundation.
  • Juliana brings some light to it all by giving a better view of what Americans perceive of the progress women have made in the last 20 years and how that may be affecting the aforementioned entitlement.
  • Trevor reveals how that entitlement, yes, has become a tool for American players like Trump, but is also a larger global culture. How it’s more of a larger populist appeal that exploits men's insecurities amidst deeply entrenched gender norms.
• Trevor leaves Samantha and Remoy with one last take away about how maybe the greatest misunderstanding of all these political games, is that if anything, it may provide community, friendship, or just a person to share a laugh with. A rare commodity for men especially as they age.
  • Samantha and Remoy really take this information in to gather a better understanding of how vulnerable men may be and how if this is the most vulnerable area for predation, how sad the American political environment may be.
• Samantha then breaks off on her own to ask Juliana more questions about the importance of the “How Americans See Men and Masculinity” report. Along the way pursuing a deeper understanding with Trevor at how to better wade through all these layers of these findings amidst the visible political situation in America.
• Finally, Samantha and Remoy discuss how to hold all this nuance alongside knowing we’re in a fractured American political system; especially when facing the obligation to participate when the cracks are so apparent. Together they land on multiple ideas that empower each other to have faith and still fight back as part of their own civic duty.
  

Referenced on this episode:

• Want to dive into the actual report from the Pew Research Center? Read “How Americans See Men and Masculinity” in all its surprising, well dissected glory.
• Who’s Trevor Mayoh? Learn more about his role as an Equity Leader with Next Gen Men.
• Okay but really… What is “Aggrieved Entitlement”? The Conversation shows a recent example of what that looks like in Canada.
• Who’s Samantha’s favorite Boston Celtic, Jaylen Brown? And why? Read more about how he came to open up about his mental health challenges as a male pro-athlete, especially overcoming an upbringing surrounded by what he calls “over-masculinity”.
• Justin Baldoni makes it his mission to model a public, vulnerable, honest conversation of what patriarchy really does to men.

Companion pieces:

• It's Time to Loosen the Grip on Reproductive Freedom with Heidi Sieck
• Make America Great Again, How the dominant was left behind with Dr. Michael Kimmel