We Have A Man Problem

According to groups like the Proud Boys (now Leather Men?) white men built this country and therefore white men should rule over it. Let's start with the fact that white men didn't build the country, but even if we accept this position, the fact is that white men built a country that primarily served a section of white men. This is why conservatives don't want people to know actual history, because those old white guys were not, in fact, perfect.

Simply looking at which country has done well with Covid, there is a strong correlation between female leadership and a strong response. The only branch of the government that is functioning as intended is the House. The Senate can apparently only confirm judges and the Presidency is a lunatic.

Because men have dominated women for so long, they naturally assume that if women get control, they will dominate men. That this tends not to happen isn't really relevant. The important thing for our purposes is that we have a man problem in the US, and Donald Trump is its avatar.

Strength is, perhaps, a male attribute, but how that strength is put to use is important. As I've written before, a man (or really any adult) is someone who puts their strengths at the service of something besides themselves. Childishness is rooted in egocentrism. Removing yourself from the center of your universe is essential to the transition to adulthood. But I do believe that transition comes later for boys than for girls. (I also realize I'm butting up against a fair amount of recent gender studies and politics that argue for a more fluid understanding of gender, so this is for the majority of cisgendered people.)

When we look at some of the many problems unique to the United States, we can see this stunted masculinity at play. Mass shootings, Covid response, climate denialism...all of these are linked to a selfish, shrivelled view of being a man, that - once denied - leads to explosive anger. We are a nation in the thrall of toddleresque tantrums by middle aged men.  

This viewpoint is not exclusive to men. There are women who buy into this model of masculinity as well, otherwise Trump wouldn't be getting 42% of the vote. But watch the gender gap in this election. It will be huge, and while there are anti-Trumpers who will eventually slink back to the GOP, there will be solid core of women who are simply fed up with this model of leadership. 

Right now, Biden has a much more commanding leads than Hillary Clinton did. Some of this is that Trump has proven that everything Clinton said about him in 2016 is true. His disastrous, exhausting governance has reached its breaking point. But I have to think that of the Big Three events - the NY Times tax story, the debate and his Covid diagnosis - the debate looms especially large. His - and Pence's - incessant talking over Biden and Harris is something every woman knows deep in her lived experience. His Covid diagnosis is simply an amplifier of that blustering male co-worker every woman knows who is not only loud and bullying but also consistently wrong.