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Masculinity in American Politics

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View more figures from Fairleigh Dickinson University

View the page of Daniel Cassino

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Dan Cassino discusses how elements of masculinity manifest themselves in all aspects of American political life

Image courtesy of interviewee. September 12, 2024

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The conversation discusses the significance of masculinity in American politics, touching on its historical neglect in political discourse, particularly given that most candidates for high office have traditionally been men. It notes a shift in awareness since the 2016 election, where candidates like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump made masculinity a focal point of their campaigns. Dan, the speaker, emphasizes that masculinity isn't just a personal trait but influences political attitudes and behaviors among voters of all demographics.

He argues that masculinity contests have defined numerous elections and that this has complex implications, especially as societal views on masculinity evolve. The relationship between political candidates and perceptions of masculinity varies significantly among different groups, such as by age, education, and gender.

The discussion also highlights challenges in defining masculinity, with diverse interpretations across political, sociological, and psychological fields. Dan's research aims to unify these perspectives to better study how masculinity complicates and defines political interactions. He emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address and measure masculinity in political contexts effectively.

Looking ahead, he suggests future research should incorporate masculinity into discussions around political behavior and social issues, examining its pervasive influence in various spheres of politics and society. He concludes by calling for a more unified understanding of gender studies across disciplines to foster better political science research.

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Here are five key points from the video regarding masculinity in American politics:

1. **Historical Convideo of Masculinity in Politics**: The speaker highlights that masculinity has often been unacknowledged in political discussions, particularly in the United States, where most candidates for high office have been men. The significant shift began in 2016 with Hillary Clinton's candidacy and Donald Trump's embrace of traditional masculinity, which prompted a recognition of masculinity as a notable factor in politics.

2. **Complexity of Masculinity**: The video discusses the multifaceted nature of masculinity, emphasizing that it varies significantly across different demographics such as gender, race, sexual orientation, and ability. This complexity complicates the understanding and measurement of masculinity in political convideos.

3. **Impact on Political Behavior**: The speaker notes that masculinity influences the political behavior of voters, as many men engage in political activities to assert their masculinity. Candidates often emphasize their masculine traits to appeal to voters, leading to varying perceptions of masculinity within political campaigns.

4. **Research and Measurement Challenges**: The difficulties in defining and measuring masculinity in research is a central theme. Existing measures, some decades old, may not adequately capture contemporary understandings of masculinity. There is a call for interdisciplinary collaboration among political science, sociology, and psychology to develop more accurate and effective measurement tools.

5. **Current and Future Implications**: The discussion suggests that changes in societal views of masculinity will fundamentally reshape politics and society. As new definitions of masculinity emerge, particularly among younger and more educated demographics, this evolution will impact political messaging and voter behavior. The speaker encourages ongoing research to understand these dynamics better and to integrate insights from various academic fields.

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Here are some key quotes from the video that you , which discusses masculinity in American politics:

1. **On Ignoring Masculinity**:
"I think for a long time we'll be ignoring masculinity...and so we haven't thought about masculinity. It’s essentially the water we're swimming in."

2. **Impact of 2016 Election**:
"It's only really since 2016 when we had a female major party candidate, Hillary Clinton, and we had Donald Trump who really was basing his appeal entirely on masculinity...that people realized, wait, I think this masculinity thing is a big deal."

3. **Masculinity and Elections**:
"Once we started looking at it, it becomes clear that this is not just something that's been happening since 2016, that our elections for decades have been essentially masculinity contests."

4. **Complex Relationship with Masculinity**:
"We have men who are using their votes and their social political activities in order to prove their masculinity to themselves and to others."

5. **Diversity of Masculinity**:
"Masculinity means different things to men and women of course, but it also means different things to people of different races, to people who are disabled versus not disabled to... straight people versus gay people."

6. **Gender and Politics**:
"When we talk about gender and politics, we almost are always talking about women in politics... but masculinity is still kind of running everything."

7. **Defining Masculinity**:
"The biggest problem we have is that this is gender masculinity are terms that get thrown around a lot these days and everyone means different things by them."

8. **Current Crisis of Masculinity**:
"The roles we used to think define someone as being masculine... well that just doesn't make sense anymore."

9. **Generational Views**:
"This is I think one of the reasons we see this huge age gap in these elections with older voters versus younger voters seeing it very differently."

10. **The Need for Research**:
"What I want readers to take from this is really to see exactly the extent to which masculinity is mattering here... we can't look at just one aspect."

These quotes provide insight into the themes of how masculinity shapes political behavior, the complexity of its definition, and its relevance in contemporary politics.

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Here are some articles that explore themes similar to the discussion of masculinity in American politics from your video:

1. **"Masculinity in Political Discourse: A Forgotten Factor"**:
This article examines how masculinity has historically been overlooked in political discussions, particularly in the convideo of male-dominated political institutions and campaigns. It analyzes the impact of presenting masculine ideals on voter behavior and political outcomes.

2. **"The Gendered Nature of Political Campaigns"**:
This piece delves into the representation of gender in political campaigns, highlighting how candidates use their gender to appeal to various voter demographics. It discusses how both male and female candidates navigate traditional gender roles, especially in light of recent elections.

3. **"Reevaluating Masculinity in the Age of Populism"**:
This article reflects on the rise of populist leaders and how their portrayals of masculinity resonate with segments of the electorate. It assesses the implications of these portrayals for political engagement and voter mobilization across different groups.

4. **"Social Constructs of Masculinity and Political Identity"**:
This study explores how different social constructs of masculinity inform political identity and behavior. It discusses the intersection of masculinity with race, class, and sexual orientation in shaping political opinions and participation.

5. **"Changing Norms: Masculinity, Gender, and Political Participation"**:
This research addresses how evolving norms around masculinity are influencing political participation and activism, especially among younger voters. It looks at how a shift in understanding masculinity could affect future political landscapes.

6. **"The Politics of Gender: Masculinity and Political Leadership"**:
This article analyzes the implications of masculinity on leadership styles and political strategy. It discusses how leaders embody or challenge traditional masculine ideals and the impact of this on their legislative success and public perception.

7. **"Interdisciplinarity in Gender Studies: Bridging Politics and Sociology"**:
This article advocates for an interdisciplinary framework in gender studies, emphasizing the importance of integrating perspectives from sociology, psychology, and political science to understand complex issues like masculinity in politics.

These articles align with your video's themes by addressing the role of masculinity in political behavior, the evolution of societal perceptions, and the ongoing need for interdisciplinary approaches to study gender in politics.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Okay, so it's the 21st of August.

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We've just gone just coming up to three 30 in London.

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Uh, we're talking about masculinity in American politics.

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Dan, thanks for talking to faculty.

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Uh, Dan, why, why did you do that? But what, what motivated?

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So I think for a long time there has been,

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there's been, it it, sorry.

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I think for a long time we'll be ignoring masculinity

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and I think that's because at least in the us, almost all

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of our candidates have been men for the highest office.

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And so we haven't thought about masculinity.

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It's essentially the water we're swimming in.

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And it's only really since 2016 when we had a female major

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party candidate, Hillary Clinton.

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And we had Donald Trump

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who really was basing his appeal entirely on masculinity,

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saying he is more macho, he's more masculine.

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That people realized, wait,

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I think this masculinity thing is a big deal,

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something we need to start paying attention to.

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And once we started looking at it, it becomes clear

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that this is not just something

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that's been happening since 2016, that our elections

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for decades have been essentially masculinity contests

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and masculinity is happening not just on the level

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of elections, it's also structuring the political attitudes

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of individual voters who are,

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have a very complex relationship

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with masculinity, both men and women.

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So we have men who are using their votes

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and their social political activities in order

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to prove their masculinity to themselves and to others.

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We have candidates trying to show how masculine they are,

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which especially gets thorny when we've got female

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candidates trying to do it.

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This also interacts with all sorts of other things.

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Masculinity means different things to men

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and women of course, but it also means different things

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to people of different races, to people

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who are disabled versus not disabled to,

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straight people versus gay people.

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And all of these distinctions mean that we can't just say,

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masculinity does x

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masculinity does all sorts of different things.

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And I think it's really important, you know,

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when we talk about gender and politics,

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we almost are always talking about women in politics.

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Uh, the truth of matter is of course that matters.

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But you know, men still, at least in the US,

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kind of run everything.

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Masculinity is still kind of running everything.

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And if we wanna understand what's going on in our politics,

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we have to understand how masculinity

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is structuring those politics.

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Yeah, sweet. Probably it does as well in the uk.

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It runs everything. Okay. Let's ask you about the research.

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How did you go about doing the book?

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Oh, so one of the nice parts about this book was

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that it gives an opportunity to be really,

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really, interdisciplinary.

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So I'm a political psychologist.

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I study how people think about politics,

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but a lot of people study masculinity art.

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So a lot of the work I've done on masculinity politics

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actually winds up being published in sociology journals.

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And the sociologists

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who really were on the masculinity train

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before political science was

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that have very developed theoretical ideas in really

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interesting ways of studying masculinity.

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We also have a large group of psychologists

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who are studying masculinity basically

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as a personality trait, as someone that's structuring

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and interacting with other personality traits.

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And really what the main goals of this book was to bring all

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of this literature together.

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Too often the masculinity people in political science,

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the masculinity, people in sociology,

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the masculine people in psychology

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are all talking past each other.

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We're publishing in our own journals

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and we're not really sharing our ideas

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and really even coming to a common vocabulary, one

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of the big goals of this book was

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to bring in practitioners from all of these disciplines

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and to get us all on the same page.

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Not only in terms of common vocabulary. Yeah.

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Are we all using the word gender the same way?

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Does masculinity mean

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the same thing to everyone who's talking?

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Uh, but to say, alright, what can I take as psychologist,

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politic psychologist from the sociologists,

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from the psychologists,

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and what can psychologists take from us

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and get us all on the same page and turn this from a bunch

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of scholars who are working almost quasi independently on

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these questions to a group

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of scholars working in a unified field

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and having that real discussion with each other.

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So we didn't have a single approach for

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how we did the research.

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I do almost my research with surveys and survey experiments,

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but there's lots of people in here

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who are doing lab experiments or doing content analysis.

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Uh, one of my favorite studies in the book actually looks at

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school children, has school children's draw pictures of

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what candidates look like and what leaders look like.

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You know, five and six year olds with crayons, drawing.

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And then we code everything that's in those,

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in those drawings, see how gendered they are

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and what traits they're looking at.

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So the fact that we've got all these different approaches,

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but then we've brought them together in saying, alright,

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what's the commonality here?

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What can we take away from each other?

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That's the real strength of the book.

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It really does come from that diversity.

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So when that diversity comes together,

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then I'm just gonna, I know you've just said to the nuance,

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and I'm not asking you to give us a def a definition

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necessarily, but what are the challenges then

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of defining a a measured masculinity?

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Well, the biggest problem we have is

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that this is gender masculinity are terms that get thrown

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around a lot these days

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and everyone means different things by them.

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So we'll have people on the right saying no,

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there's only two genders.

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And as scholars that go, wait, what do you mean by gender?

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Right? Which is of course the most

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professorial answer you could possibly give.

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Let's define our terms for, we debate these things,

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but that actually is necessary.

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'cause the way I'm using gender, you know,

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when I talk about gender, I'm talking about personality

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traits of masculinity and femininity.

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And that's very different than some people use the word

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gender to mean sex,

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like something having to do with biology.

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Other people use it to mean something, having to do

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with sexuality, who you're attracted to

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or even whether you're trans or not.

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And these, this def this, you know, variety of definitions.

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Why is it being a big stumbling block?

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Because when we have that, we can't even talk to each other

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as scholars much less try

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and convince the public of

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the importance of what we're doing.

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So a lot of what we are trying to do here is make sure

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that everyone is using the same vocabulary.

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We say, no, no, when we say gender,

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darn it, this is what we mean.

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And I think we're very successful in that.

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Once we've got all our terms defined,

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then we do have real big fights over

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how exactly we supposed to measure this.

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What does it mean to be masculine?

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Now part of the problem with that is that we've got the,

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most of the measures we use are in many cases

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50 or 60 years old.

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The most commonly used scale

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to measure gender masculine and femininity.

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And social science is the bisexual inventory,

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which was made up based, yeah, made up in the 1970s.

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Does that still apply today?

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Well, people are still using it and using it fruitfully,

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but there's gonna be real debates about whether it,

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how useful that is, whether it still works as well

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as it used to, and what that definition

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of gender they use there.

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Where masculinity in that case means, you know, being active

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and being aggressive

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and femininity means having communal traits.

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Is that all we mean by this?

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You know, what exactly is meant by masculine femininity?

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And that's part of the debate we're having.

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This is not just debate about substance,

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it is also a debate about measurement.

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And we've got all sorts of new approaches, especially sense,

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former President Trump in the US to, you know, ran

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for office for the first time.

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We've had this real question like, alright, well

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how do we measure this now?

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We want to put scales of masculinity on surveys.

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Well, I can't put a 40 or 50 item to measure it on a survey.

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How can we actually do this? And we've got really an

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explosion of different ways of trying to measure this.

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And we're embracing all of that

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and saying, all right, do these measure,

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are they really measuring the same thing?

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And how can we talk to each other?

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Really good, really good For methodology then to politics.

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Can you tell us about how perceptions

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of masculinity shape in the US election year campaign

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messaging strategies?

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Sure. So we actually in the US in the 2024 election,

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have a great example

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of this in the Democratic vice president candidate Tim

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Walls, right?

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Who this is someone who, talks about his role

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as a soldier and as a football coach, you know,

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the most masculine things you can have, my gosh, you know,

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the paternal figure in American, in American,

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in American society is the football coach, right?

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We've got that. And then he's talking about what amount

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to essentially socialist policies,

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which are normally thought of as being about

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caring and femininity.

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So how does that messaging work

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and how does it go up against the very,

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very different version of masculinities being portrayed by,

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the Republican nominees Trump

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and his vice presidential candidate, Vance?

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We've got these very different views

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of masculinity arguments about what it means to be masculine

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and what the implications of that are masculinity.

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I think to some extent, largely in politics

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because of former President Trump has gotten a bad name

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that we don't want people to be masculine,

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but maybe we want people to be masculine in a different way.

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Maybe we wanna redefine it rather

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than trying to throw it out.

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So this, we also see this quite a bit in UK elections

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where we've got candidates

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who are talking about the importance of being tough

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and the importance of, you know, having these sort

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of paternal attributes.

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Well, all of that is masculinity.

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And the appeal of all of those,

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rhetorical arguments depends entirely on

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what the voters think masculinity means

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and how they define that for themselves.

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The other complicating factor here is

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that throughout the western world,

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we're in a crisis of masculinity.

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The roles we used to think define someone

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as being masculine, you know, for instance,

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being the breadwinner in the household.

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Well that just doesn't ma make sense anymore.

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I mean, the idea that a man is going to work at the factory

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or wherever, and therefore his sp

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his partner will not have to work.

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I mean, a single earner household is

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a occupation of the rich.

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It's like yachting or you know, polo, right?

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This is not something that we actually find

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anyone actually doing.

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So the roles of men and women of change, masculine

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and feminity of change, they changed the real world,

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but our concepts of them haven't

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necessarily caught up with that.

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And so we have to, men are figuring out what it means

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to be masculine in the 21st century

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and that complicates the way that responding

09:11.725 --> 09:13.125
to these different views of masculinity.

09:13.145 --> 09:15.165
Are we saying, no, no, no, we need to go back

09:15.165 --> 09:16.285
to the way things used to be?

09:16.785 --> 09:19.125
Or are we saying no, we need to find new ways to find it

09:19.185 --> 09:21.085
and those new ways, well that's scary.

09:21.145 --> 09:23.565
We don't have precedent and we also don't have ritual.

09:23.705 --> 09:25.325
We don't have ways where men prove their

09:25.525 --> 09:26.605
masculinity the way they did in the past.

09:26.865 --> 09:28.365
And as a result they're looking for different ways.

09:28.465 --> 09:31.885
And these sort of crises really are changing the way people

09:32.205 --> 09:34.845
interact with masculinity and with candidates

09:34.845 --> 09:37.125
and policies that are thought to be masculine and feminine.

09:37.845 --> 09:39.645
I mean, how are they, how are they

09:40.085 --> 09:41.285
interacting with those candidates?

09:41.285 --> 09:43.565
Because here in the UK we debunked, we got rid

09:43.565 --> 09:46.045
of our vicious sun who was tough on immigrants, et cetera,

09:46.145 --> 09:47.445
and questioned his masculinity.

09:47.585 --> 09:49.285
If you argument holds truth for him.

09:49.665 --> 09:52.765
How, how are people receiving Trump today and,

09:52.765 --> 09:55.165
and JD Vance compared to maybe, Harris,

09:55.465 --> 09:56.645
and Wallace and the other,

09:57.355 --> 09:59.495
It depends completely on what your views

09:59.495 --> 10:00.895
of masculinity are going into it.

10:00.895 --> 10:02.175
What does masculinity mean to you?

10:02.175 --> 10:06.055
If masculinity does just mean being tough, being in charge,

10:06.485 --> 10:08.935
perhaps disregarding the influence of women

10:09.075 --> 10:11.615
and saying No, the goal of men, the job of men is

10:11.615 --> 10:13.135
to be dominant in our society.

10:13.525 --> 10:15.575
Then the verse in masculine we see pushed

10:15.635 --> 10:17.895
by people on the right might be very appealing to you.

10:17.915 --> 10:20.655
And this is I think one of the reasons we see this huge age

10:20.675 --> 10:23.055
gap in these elections with older voters versus younger

10:23.055 --> 10:24.135
voters seeing it very differently.

10:24.135 --> 10:25.895
Even older men versus younger men.

10:26.275 --> 10:28.015
We also see that's also where this big gap

10:28.015 --> 10:29.095
in education comes from.

10:29.395 --> 10:30.735
We know less educated men,

10:30.735 --> 10:32.175
especially less educated older men,

10:32.285 --> 10:33.335
have these very different,

10:33.335 --> 10:34.815
very traditional views of masculinity.

10:34.875 --> 10:37.575
And those views are very much at odds with the view

10:37.575 --> 10:39.895
of masculinity get from younger and more educated men

10:39.895 --> 10:41.735
and especially of women who are going

10:41.735 --> 10:43.975
to really be embracing, no, no, no, masculinity has

10:43.975 --> 10:46.615
to change and here's what masculinity means to me

10:46.835 --> 10:48.255
and should mean to our society now.

10:48.675 --> 10:50.695
So there's not one effect, right?

10:50.845 --> 10:52.415
It's interacting with the individual.

10:52.955 --> 10:55.135
And that makes it fascinating to study.

10:55.315 --> 10:56.775
And again, I think it's important to study

10:56.775 --> 10:59.295
because this is the water in which we're swimming.

10:59.315 --> 11:01.175
And for a long time it was just invisible to us.

11:01.515 --> 11:02.415
You know, everyone's doing

11:02.655 --> 11:03.855
masculinity so we don't think about it.

11:04.125 --> 11:06.295
It's only now that we have real variance in this,

11:06.475 --> 11:08.055
we can actually study how it works.

11:08.555 --> 11:09.935
You know, people ask, well why are

11:09.935 --> 11:10.975
you studying men in politics?

11:11.475 --> 11:13.295
And the answer is that, well yeah,

11:13.295 --> 11:15.375
mean there's a whole field studying women in politics.

11:15.795 --> 11:16.815
I'm a middle-aged white guy.

11:16.915 --> 11:19.495
No one on earth needs me to tell women about women.

11:20.155 --> 11:23.725
But more importantly, we don't need to look just at women.

11:24.285 --> 11:25.685
'cause men are plenty weird

11:25.685 --> 11:27.005
to start with and we don't see it.

11:27.165 --> 11:28.605
'cause we say whatever men do well that's normal.

11:28.945 --> 11:30.205
But once you take a look at men's behavior,

11:30.255 --> 11:31.885
men's political behavior, especially the behavior

11:31.885 --> 11:33.925
around masculinity, things start getting very

11:33.925 --> 11:35.125
strange very quickly.

11:35.225 --> 11:36.405
And I think it's fascinating.

11:36.905 --> 11:38.525
Do you want people to share that fascination?

11:38.525 --> 11:39.965
What do you hope readers take from your

11:40.995 --> 11:44.455
So what I want them to do is take, what I want reader

11:44.455 --> 11:47.415
to take from this is really to see exactly the extent

11:47.415 --> 11:48.855
to which masculinity is mattering here.

11:49.215 --> 11:50.295
'cause we really are tracing it

11:50.295 --> 11:52.135
through all the levels of the political process.

11:52.545 --> 11:53.885
We're looking at individual voters,

11:54.255 --> 11:55.605
we're looking at socialization,

11:55.815 --> 11:57.125
we're looking at candidate behavior,

11:57.125 --> 11:58.125
and then we're looking at response

11:58.125 --> 11:58.925
to those candidate behavior.

11:59.345 --> 12:00.765
You know, masculinity, we think

12:00.765 --> 12:02.125
of it even as something that people have.

12:02.265 --> 12:04.565
It turned out people believe institutions have it.

12:04.745 --> 12:08.045
So for instance, healthcare, the NHS, that's feminine as far

12:08.045 --> 12:09.525
as people are concerned, but national defense

12:09.545 --> 12:10.925
is masculine, right?

12:12.085 --> 12:14.885
Masculinity, you know, suffuses our political systems.

12:15.345 --> 12:17.765
And as a result we can't look at just one aspect.

12:17.845 --> 12:19.205
I wanna look at it from every aspect.

12:19.205 --> 12:21.405
And I want people to take away from this the idea that yeah,

12:21.725 --> 12:24.405
masculinity is mattering in all of these different areas and

12:24.405 --> 12:26.965
therefore changes in masculinity are gonna fundamentally

12:27.205 --> 12:29.205
reshape the way our politics and our society work.

12:30.025 --> 12:31.965
That's superb. And I mean we could leave it there,

12:31.965 --> 12:34.205
but we, we ask you this final question in case you're doing

12:34.205 --> 12:35.725
something following up on this

12:35.725 --> 12:37.525
and well, where should future research lay?

12:38.195 --> 12:41.495
So what we really have to do I next is

12:42.165 --> 12:45.295
incorporate these measures into all of the work we're doing.

12:45.755 --> 12:48.295
You know, whenever we're studying politics

12:48.455 --> 12:51.735
or society, every questionnaire we use, every time we talk

12:51.735 --> 12:54.375
to people, we are talking about, the partisanship.

12:54.595 --> 12:58.055
Are you a Democrat or Republican or labor or conservative?

12:58.605 --> 13:00.455
It's just a matter of course you have to ask these things

13:00.615 --> 13:02.015
'cause we know they matter for everything else.

13:02.595 --> 13:04.375
It turns out masculinity is one of those things.

13:04.735 --> 13:06.055
Masculine emity, gender matters

13:06.115 --> 13:07.495
for all of these things as well.

13:07.875 --> 13:10.055
So we need to start incorporating it into our

13:10.255 --> 13:12.175
questionnaires, into the way we talk about politics.

13:12.395 --> 13:13.615
The only way we're gonna see it though,

13:13.615 --> 13:15.615
we're gonna understand it, is if we measure it.

13:15.715 --> 13:17.855
So we have to start measuring it everywhere.

13:18.075 --> 13:20.775
We have to be conscious of where, how masculinity,

13:20.775 --> 13:24.295
how gender is being suffused into our politics

13:24.295 --> 13:25.375
and into our social issues.

13:25.715 --> 13:27.295
And once you start looking for it,

13:27.315 --> 13:29.615
you start finding it absolutely everywhere.

13:29.995 --> 13:32.455
So we need to turn it from something that we're ignoring

13:32.615 --> 13:34.575
'cause we're swimming to it into something we can really

13:34.785 --> 13:35.895
study and try.

13:35.895 --> 13:36.975
That has to do with better measures

13:37.045 --> 13:38.455
agreement on those measures.

13:38.755 --> 13:39.975
And we also, I think have

13:39.975 --> 13:41.295
to start talking to each other more.

13:41.795 --> 13:44.615
You know, there's a lot that we can get out of reading,

13:44.755 --> 13:46.735
you know, sociological theory about gender.

13:46.835 --> 13:47.935
And unfortunately I think a lot

13:47.935 --> 13:49.335
of people doing the political science work

13:49.395 --> 13:51.775
and the, psychology work haven't read that stuff

13:51.775 --> 13:53.455
because it's sociology.

13:53.525 --> 13:54.575
They don't have some

13:54.575 --> 13:56.295
of the people doing the work don't have data.

13:56.295 --> 13:57.335
They're just kind of talking,

13:57.435 --> 13:58.535
you know, they're doing theoretical work.

13:58.915 --> 14:00.375
But I think we need to take, read that stuff

14:00.395 --> 14:01.815
and I think we need to take it very seriously

14:01.815 --> 14:03.295
and it's a different type of research than

14:03.295 --> 14:04.415
oftentimes that we're used to doing.

14:04.835 --> 14:06.735
But I think it's vital that we actually go back

14:06.735 --> 14:07.895
and say, let's talk

14:07.895 --> 14:09.455
to the people who've been talking about this for 30

14:09.475 --> 14:11.615
or 40 years and see what insights we can get from them

14:11.795 --> 14:15.215
and really start to draw from that, you know, very deep well

14:15.435 --> 14:17.455
of sociological theory about gender.

14:17.645 --> 14:19.215
Once you incorporate that into our research,

14:19.815 --> 14:21.255
I think we're gonna find a lot more

14:21.275 --> 14:22.175
and have a lot more

14:22.335 --> 14:23.375
interesting results than we do right now.

14:24.105 --> 14:25.875
Yeah, really good political science be better fit.

14:25.875 --> 14:27.235
Thank you for taking time, Dan. Lemme.

00:11 - Okay, so it's the 21st of August. We've just gone just coming up to three 30 in London. we're talking about masculinity in American politics. Dan, thanks for talking to faculty. Dan, why, why did you do that? But what, what motivated? So I think for a long time there has been,

00:26 - there's been, it it, sorry. I think for a long time we'll be ignoring masculinity and I think that's because at least in the us, almost all of our candidates have been men for the highest office. And so we haven't thought about masculinity. It's essentially the water we're swimming in. And it's only really since 2016 when we had a female major party candidate, Hillary Clinton. And we had Donald Trump who really was basing his appeal entirely on masculinity,

00:49 - saying he is more macho, he's more masculine. That people realized, wait, I think this masculinity thing is a big deal, something we need to start paying attention to. And once we started looking at it, it becomes clear that this is not just something that's been happening since 2016, that our elections for decades have been essentially masculinity contests and masculinity is happening not just on the level of elections, it's also structuring the political attitudes

01:11 - of individual voters who are, have a very complex relationship with masculinity, both men and women. So we have men who are using their votes and their social political activities in order to prove their masculinity to themselves and to others. We have candidates trying to show how masculine they are, which especially gets thorny when we've got female candidates trying to do it. This also interacts with all sorts of other things.

01:33 - Masculinity means different things to men and women of course, but it also means different things to people of different races, to people who are disabled versus not disabled to, straight people versus gay people. And all of these distinctions mean that we can't just say, masculinity does x masculinity does all sorts of different things. And I think it's really important, you know, when we talk about gender and politics,

01:54 - we almost are always talking about women in politics. the truth of matter is of course that matters. But you know, men still, at least in the US, kind of run everything. Masculinity is still kind of running everything. And if we wanna understand what's going on in our politics, we have to understand how masculinity is structuring those politics. Yeah, sweet. Probably it does as well in the uk. It runs everything. Okay. Let's ask you about the research.

02:16 - How did you go about doing the book? so one of the nice parts about this book was that it gives an opportunity to be really, really, interdisciplinary. So I'm a political psychologist. I study how people think about politics, but a lot of people study masculinity art. So a lot of the work I've done on masculinity politics actually winds up being published in sociology journals. And the sociologists

02:37 - who really were on the masculinity train before political science was that have very developed theoretical ideas in really interesting ways of studying masculinity. We also have a large group of psychologists who are studying masculinity basically as a personality trait, as someone that's structuring and interacting with other personality traits. And really what the main goals of this book was to bring all of this literature together.

02:58 - Too often the masculinity people in political science, the masculinity, people in sociology, the masculine people in psychology are all talking past each other. We're publishing in our own journals and we're not really sharing our ideas and really even coming to a common vocabulary, one of the big goals of this book was to bring in practitioners from all of these disciplines and to get us all on the same page.

03:17 - Not only in terms of common vocabulary. Yeah. Are we all using the word gender the same way? Does masculinity mean the same thing to everyone who's talking? but to say, alright, what can I take as psychologist, politic psychologist from the sociologists, from the psychologists, and what can psychologists take from us and get us all on the same page and turn this from a bunch of scholars who are working almost quasi independently on

03:38 - these questions to a group of scholars working in a unified field and having that real discussion with each other. So we didn't have a single approach for how we did the research. I do almost my research with surveys and survey experiments, but there's lots of people in here who are doing lab experiments or doing content analysis. one of my favorite studies in the book actually looks at school children, has school children's draw pictures of

04:02 - what candidates look like and what leaders look like. You know, five and six year olds with crayons, drawing. And then we code everything that's in those, in those drawings, see how gendered they are and what traits they're looking at. So the fact that we've got all these different approaches, but then we've brought them together in saying, alright, what's the commonality here? What can we take away from each other? That's the real strength of the book.

04:23 - It really does come from that diversity. So when that diversity comes together, then I'm just gonna, I know you've just said to the nuance, and I'm not asking you to give us a def a definition necessarily, but what are the challenges then of defining a a measured masculinity? Well, the biggest problem we have is that this is gender masculinity are terms that get thrown around a lot these days and everyone means different things by them.

04:45 - So we'll have people on the right saying no, there's only two genders. And as scholars that go, wait, what do you mean by gender? Right? Which is of course the most professorial answer you could possibly give. Let's define our terms for, we debate these things, but that actually is necessary. 'cause the way I'm using gender, you know, when I talk about gender, I'm talking about personality traits of masculinity and femininity.

05:04 - And that's very different than some people use the word gender to mean sex, like something having to do with biology. Other people use it to mean something, having to do with sexuality, who you're attracted to or even whether you're trans or not. And these, this def this, you know, variety of definitions. Why is it being a big stumbling block? Because when we have that, we can't even talk to each other as scholars much less try

05:26 - and convince the public of the importance of what we're doing. So a lot of what we are trying to do here is make sure that everyone is using the same vocabulary. We say, no, no, when we say gender, darn it, this is what we mean. And I think we're very successful in that. Once we've got all our terms defined, then we do have real big fights over how exactly we supposed to measure this.

05:45 - What does it mean to be masculine? Now part of the problem with that is that we've got the, most of the measures we use are in many cases 50 or 60 years old. The most commonly used scale to measure gender masculine and femininity. And social science is the bisexual inventory, which was made up based, yeah, made up in the 1970s. Does that still apply today? Well, people are still using it and using it fruitfully,

06:06 - but there's gonna be real debates about whether it, how useful that is, whether it still works as well as it used to, and what that definition of gender they use there. Where masculinity in that case means, you know, being active and being aggressive and femininity means having communal traits. Is that all we mean by this? You know, what exactly is meant by masculine femininity? And that's part of the debate we're having.

06:27 - This is not just debate about substance, it is also a debate about measurement. And we've got all sorts of new approaches, especially sense, former President Trump in the US to, you know, ran for office for the first time. We've had this real question like, alright, well how do we measure this now? We want to put scales of masculinity on surveys. Well, I can't put a 40 or 50 item to measure it on a survey. How can we actually do this? And we've got really an

06:50 - explosion of different ways of trying to measure this. And we're embracing all of that and saying, all right, do these measure, are they really measuring the same thing? And how can we talk to each other? Really good, really good For methodology then to politics. Can you tell us about how perceptions of masculinity shape in the US election year campaign messaging strategies? Sure. So we actually in the US in the 2024 election,

07:12 - have a great example of this in the Democratic vice president candidate Tim Walls, right? Who this is someone who, talks about his role as a soldier and as a football coach, you know, the most masculine things you can have, my gosh, you know, the paternal figure in American, in American, in American society is the football coach, right? We've got that. And then he's talking about what amount to essentially socialist policies,

07:34 - which are normally thought of as being about caring and femininity. So how does that messaging work and how does it go up against the very, very different version of masculinities being portrayed by, the Republican nominees Trump and his vice presidential candidate, Vance? We've got these very different views of masculinity arguments about what it means to be masculine and what the implications of that are masculinity.

07:55 - I think to some extent, largely in politics because of former President Trump has gotten a bad name that we don't want people to be masculine, but maybe we want people to be masculine in a different way. Maybe we wanna redefine it rather than trying to throw it out. So this, we also see this quite a bit in UK elections where we've got candidates who are talking about the importance of being tough and the importance of, you know, having these sort

08:15 - of paternal attributes. Well, all of that is masculinity. And the appeal of all of those, rhetorical arguments depends entirely on what the voters think masculinity means and how they define that for themselves. The other complicating factor here is that throughout the western world, we're in a crisis of masculinity. The roles we used to think define someone

08:35 - as being masculine, you know, for instance, being the breadwinner in the household. Well that just doesn't ma make sense anymore. I mean, the idea that a man is going to work at the factory or wherever, and therefore his sp his partner will not have to work. I mean, a single earner household is a occupation of the rich. It's like yachting or you know, polo, right? This is not something that we actually find

08:54 - anyone actually doing. So the roles of men and women of change, masculine and feminity of change, they changed the real world, but our concepts of them haven't necessarily caught up with that. And so we have to, men are figuring out what it means to be masculine in the 21st century and that complicates the way that responding to these different views of masculinity. Are we saying, no, no, no, we need to go back

09:15 - to the way things used to be? Or are we saying no, we need to find new ways to find it and those new ways, well that's scary. We don't have precedent and we also don't have ritual. We don't have ways where men prove their masculinity the way they did in the past. And as a result they're looking for different ways. And these sort of crises really are changing the way people interact with masculinity and with candidates and policies that are thought to be masculine and feminine.

09:37 - I mean, how are they, how are they interacting with those candidates? Because here in the UK we debunked, we got rid of our vicious sun who was tough on immigrants, et cetera, and questioned his masculinity. If you argument holds truth for him. How, how are people receiving Trump today and, and JD Vance compared to maybe, Harris, and Wallace and the other, It depends completely on what your views

09:59 - of masculinity are going into it. What does masculinity mean to you? If masculinity does just mean being tough, being in charge, perhaps disregarding the influence of women and saying No, the goal of men, the job of men is to be dominant in our society. Then the verse in masculine we see pushed by people on the right might be very appealing to you. And this is I think one of the reasons we see this huge age gap in these elections with older voters versus younger

10:23 - voters seeing it very differently. Even older men versus younger men. We also see that's also where this big gap in education comes from. We know less educated men, especially less educated older men, have these very different, very traditional views of masculinity. And those views are very much at odds with the view of masculinity get from younger and more educated men

10:39 - and especially of women who are going to really be embracing, no, no, no, masculinity has to change and here's what masculinity means to me and should mean to our society now. So there's not one effect, right? It's interacting with the individual. And that makes it fascinating to study. And again, I think it's important to study because this is the water in which we're swimming. And for a long time it was just invisible to us.

11:01 - You know, everyone's doing masculinity so we don't think about it. It's only now that we have real variance in this, we can actually study how it works. You know, people ask, well why are you studying men in politics? And the answer is that, well yeah, mean there's a whole field studying women in politics. I'm a middle-aged white guy. No one on earth needs me to tell women about women.

11:20 - But more importantly, we don't need to look just at women. 'cause men are plenty weird to start with and we don't see it. 'cause we say whatever men do well that's normal. But once you take a look at men's behavior, men's political behavior, especially the behavior around masculinity, things start getting very strange very quickly. And I think it's fascinating. Do you want people to share that fascination?

11:38 - What do you hope readers take from your So what I want them to do is take, what I want reader to take from this is really to see exactly the extent to which masculinity is mattering here. 'cause we really are tracing it through all the levels of the political process. We're looking at individual voters, we're looking at socialization, we're looking at candidate behavior, and then we're looking at response

11:58 - to those candidate behavior. You know, masculinity, we think of it even as something that people have. It turned out people believe institutions have it. So for instance, healthcare, the NHS, that's feminine as far as people are concerned, but national defense is masculine, right? Masculinity, you know, suffuses our political systems. And as a result we can't look at just one aspect. I wanna look at it from every aspect.

12:19 - And I want people to take away from this the idea that yeah, masculinity is mattering in all of these different areas and therefore changes in masculinity are gonna fundamentally reshape the way our politics and our society work. That's superb. And I mean we could leave it there, but we, we ask you this final question in case you're doing something following up on this and well, where should future research lay? So what we really have to do I next is incorporate these measures into all of the work we're doing.

12:45 - You know, whenever we're studying politics or society, every questionnaire we use, every time we talk to people, we are talking about, the partisanship. Are you a Democrat or Republican or labor or conservative? It's just a matter of course you have to ask these things 'cause we know they matter for everything else. It turns out masculinity is one of those things. Masculine emity, gender matters for all of these things as well. So we need to start incorporating it into our

13:10 - questionnaires, into the way we talk about politics. The only way we're gonna see it though, we're gonna understand it, is if we measure it. So we have to start measuring it everywhere. We have to be conscious of where, how masculinity, how gender is being suffused into our politics and into our social issues. And once you start looking for it, you start finding it absolutely everywhere. So we need to turn it from something that we're ignoring

13:32 - 'cause we're swimming to it into something we can really study and try. That has to do with better measures agreement on those measures. And we also, I think have to start talking to each other more. You know, there's a lot that we can get out of reading, you know, sociological theory about gender. And unfortunately I think a lot of people doing the political science work

13:49 - and the, psychology work haven't read that stuff because it's sociology. They don't have some of the people doing the work don't have data. They're just kind of talking, you know, they're doing theoretical work. But I think we need to take, read that stuff and I think we need to take it very seriously and it's a different type of research than oftentimes that we're used to doing.

14:04 - But I think it's vital that we actually go back and say, let's talk to the people who've been talking about this for 30 or 40 years and see what insights we can get from them and really start to draw from that, you know, very deep well of sociological theory about gender. Once you incorporate that into our research, I think we're gonna find a lot more and have a lot more interesting results than we do right now.

14:24 - Yeah, really good political science be better fit. Thank you for taking time, Dan. Lemme.

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