The US election was not nearly Donald Trump v Kamala Harris, Republicans v Democrats. In a easy sense it was additionally about males v ladies. The outcomes present that extra males voted for Trump, and extra ladies for Harris.
The discrepancies are significantly notable amongst younger voters. Within the 18-29 age group, 58% of ladies voted for Harris, whereas 56% of males voted for Trump. This displays the rising partisan divide in gen Z, the place research counsel younger males have gotten extra conservative, whereas younger ladies have gotten extra liberal.
Gender performed a major position within the marketing campaign itself, with Harris and the Democrats focusing their message on ladies’s rights and reproductive well being. Trump, alternatively, courted younger males who really feel disenfranchised and disillusioned in a altering society.
The president-elect represents a selected kind of masculinity: he’s seen as brash and straight-talking, and may seem domineering or patronising round ladies – for instance when he famously lurked behind Hillary Clinton throughout a debate in 2016. For some ladies who voted for him, this is perhaps a well-known persona that they’ve seen of their fathers and husbands.
For males, Trump represents “hegemonic masculinity”, the exalted place of males on the prime. On this view, aggression, management and dominance are all admirable traits and extremely socially valued.
As my analysis has highlighted, oppressing and subordinating others shouldn’t be the one method of proving masculinity. However it’s definitely one of many extra apparent methods, and it’s significantly harmful for ladies’s rights.
Trump has surrounded himself with males who promote the stereotype of the alpha male, demean childless ladies and promote a model of household values that takes away from ladies’s autonomy.
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The ‘Misplaced Boys’ of Gen Z: how Trump gained the hearts of alienated younger males
In the course of the marketing campaign, Trump vowed to guard ladies “whether or not they prefer it or not”. This means that girls aren’t thought of to be males’s equals and that males are answerable for every little thing, together with ladies themselves.
This sort of “protecting masculinity”, and the concept that ladies should be protected by males has had a resurgence in US society over the previous few a long time. This was recognized by political scientist Iris Marion Younger within the early noughties.
“The stance of the male protector … is one in every of loving self-sacrifice, with these within the female place because the objects of affection and guardianship,” she wrote in a paper on the topic. “Chivalrous types of masculinism categorical and enact concern for the wellbeing of ladies, however they accomplish that inside a construction of superiority and subordination.”
This construction of superiority and subordination is clear in in style tradition and social media actions. Concepts of safety are espoused by “manosphere” influencers who promote this very conventional type of masculinity, similar to Andrew Tate (who has been charged with rape and human trafficking, which he denies).
Well-liked concepts round courting, holding doorways for ladies, paying for meals and common submission to males hark again to a time when ladies have been much less capable of work or earn as a lot cash, and had fewer rights.
This view of masculinity can be dangerous for males, whose emotional and psychological well being and relationships with ladies are constrained by its stringent views of gender.
What ladies are involved about now
The American feminist Susan Faludi argued in her 1992 e book Backlash that all through historical past, ladies’s positive aspects in private and non-private life have later been used in opposition to them.
It may very well be argued that this phenomenon is clear within the rise of Trump. Girls, significantly younger ladies, have made notable positive aspects in schooling, employment, politics and different rights in recent times.
After the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade – the courtroom ruling that established the precise to an abortion within the US and which represented freedom and rights for a lot of ladies – and the election of Trump, it is vitally tough to see how there will likely be any strengthening of ladies’s rights within the US within the coming years.
Within the week for the reason that election, blatant misogyny in opposition to ladies has unfold on social media in response to Trump’s victory. One of the vital viral posts has been from far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, who wrote “Your physique, my selection. Endlessly”, on X (previously Twitter).
And Trump ally John McEntee joked in a video that the nineteenth modification, which granted ladies the precise to vote, “might need to go”.
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Girls all over the world have expressed feeling scared, offended and saddened by his victory. One purpose behind that is, in fact, Trump’s personal behaviour.
All through his profession, Trump has made numerous derogatory feedback about ladies. Final yr, he was discovered liable in a civil trial for sexually abusing the author E. Jean Carroll in 1996, and of defaming her forward of the trial. He additionally faces accusations of two dozen incidences of sexual harassment and assault together with rape, which he has denied.
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Undertaking 2025: what’s it and why does Trump say he is aware of nothing about it?
However a few of the responses to Trump’s victory additionally converse to the broader issues and fears about private security and bodily autonomy that girls have tried to precise for years, solely to not be taken critically by males.
Girls all over the world are sexually harassed, raped and killed every single day. Girls are afraid to exit at nighttime, and at all times have been.
There may be proof that even when males do take into consideration ladies’s fears, that they assume these fears are exaggerated or unfounded. Arguably, some males solely appear to precise concern about ladies once they have daughters.
What ladies want from males now shouldn’t be their safety – they want males to take heed to their issues.
