In a July 2020 poll conducted by Civiqs, 82% of Democrats polled said that they wear a mask whenever they leave the house, compared to only 27% of Republicans. In general, about two-thirds of women polled said they always wore a mask, while just less than half of the self-identifying men said the same. It seems obvious on one level as (mostly) white males are more conservative and Republican-leaning than any other general demographic. But we are in a goddamn pandemic! This isn’t like asking some guy about whether or not he wants to defund the police. The police actually work to protect white males and what white males consider their property, whereas the COVID-19 virus is a threat to everything and everyone.
Vox writer Alex Abad-Santos published a piece on Monday highlighting the need for male leadership (i.e., Donald Trump and Mike Pence) to be more consistent in their modeling of public mask-wearing. The reason being that while it is all well and good to try and create more masculine-seeming masks in order to lure conservative manly men into taking care of themselves and those around them, it isn’t nearly as effective as having the male figures they look up to like Donald Trump and, say, sports figures, wear the masks in public as opposed to attacking people for wearing masks in public.
It’s easy to make fun of men whining about how hard it is to be a man. A considerable amount of what I write is in some form or another criticizing the pig-headed attributes of fragile masculinity. However, it should be said that being human is difficult for most people and how one sees oneself, and their relationship to the group at large, is rough stuff that most of us struggle with at various points for most of our lives. Being a “man” is difficult. Is it more difficult than being a trans man, a Black man, a gay man? No. But it is difficult.
Like many issues facing us all, it is this truth that is hard to gibe with the conservative movement of our country. It is an example in some respects of how the “toxic” in “toxic masculinity” isn’t so much a gender construct as much as a political construct. Conservative political operators in our country have pushed back hard against things like gender fluidity and the trans movement. There are numerous reasons for this, but one of the places this bigotry has been able to maintain a hold is among cisgender male Americans. This is because being a “man” in the world is a position of “precarious social status.”
The irony, of course, is that part of “being a man” for most cisgender male Americans is that their whole life consists of making decisions on what aspects of their masculinity they can synchronize with their internal wants and personal psychology. For example, I am totally fine wearing masks outside. I am fine wearing nitrate gloves when I walk around shopping for food. In fact, I wear an N95 mask with my unicorn-printed DIY mask over top of it when I go into places.
Now, I know I look a little bit like a fraidy-cat (being a man means you shouldn’t show fear), or someone with a more intense phobia of germs than, say, another guy. But by wearing a mask and protective gear I’m protecting my family and those around me, which one could easily attribute to some paternalistic masculinity construct I picked up back in late 1970s, early 1980s Washington Heights, NY. One could also argue that I’m wearing a unicorn print made from extra fabric from my daughter’s pajamas, and in so doing, I’m signaling to the world that I have procreated and I have a daughter and I’m totally alpha, y’all! Maybe wearing a unicorn print means I don’t give a fuck what you think is masculine, which makes me double masculine! Maybe it makes me masculine to the power of masculine?
I could also be doing it because it’s the smart thing to do and my mother-in-law sewed a ton of cloth face masks for our family unit and others and I like other people and want them to feel safe and comfortable the way I want to feel—and the masks are reusable.
And yet in those versions of masculinity, and subsequent rationalizations of masculinity, the human contradictions are ever present. Masculinity is protecting and caring and taking responsibility for others in your life while also being singularly egotistical in your personal opinions and impulses towards others, and the world writ large. The problem with conservative masculinity and toxic masculinity is that they champion the latter quality with virtually no meaningful acknowledgment of the former. The only “actionable” thing pushed by Trump and his ideology of masculinity is blundering forward with every whim and reaction to the world. Because they must be singularly right, they must never admit to making mistakes and therefore never waver in their support of every truly unconscionable thing Trump says—or fake does.
Growing up the way I grew up, in the neighborhood I did, at the time I did, with the father I had, gave me a lot of options as to what I thought “masculinity” meant. Being able to fight, or not be afraid to throw hands, was one of those things. But I was and continue to always be terrified of fighting. I have had only a handful of fights in my life and they were all terrifying—regardless of the outcome. I was good at sports, and so I could check that box off, but my father was a theater guy and so I knew (and know) all kinds of musicals—and love them. For most people, it is the concepts of masculinity (or conversely femininity) that they push and pull at in developing their identities. The way one feels, the impulses and desires one has, and the way one finds themselves in accepting communities all create what kind of cisgender male or cisgender female one becomes.
This is why the trans movement is, like race is to justice and COVID-19 is to our crumbling social contract, very revealing in how it incites people. At its essence it’s a call to end systemic sexism and homophobia because the kind of sexism we live under is based in a very specific set of masculine constructs that have to do with power, and the homophobia connected to it all is a political religious construct. When you see men like Trump and Pence and others forgoing masks as a public stunt to show masculine strength and the like, remember it is the exact same bogus masculinity you see when men wearing masks carry guns into the public sphere to protest on behalf of their Second Amendment rights, or right-wing operatives go after trans rights once again to create a subterfuge for their failed policies. It’s about politics. It has very little to do with “being a man.”
There are of course layers upon layers, and my sweeping generalizations are clearly generalizations, and of course I can only speak for myself as a cisgender man. A cisgender man with ever-evolving ideas on masculinity and what makes a man a man.