Who’s Your Daddy, America?
Make America Masculine Again.
Election day, Florida: a woman waits in line, her eyes fixed on the horizon. She’s there for a glimpse of Trump, her “Big Daddy.” “We’ll wait for him any day of the week,” she gushes, with the awe of a kid waiting for Santa. “Under him, we had peace, our crime was down, our economy was better, our gas prices were down.”
Of course, none of that starry-eyed nostalgia checks out. America is not at war (although it may feel like it). Crime — murder, rape, assault, and robbery — dropped again this year. (It was the highest in 2020, partly due to the Covid lockdowns.) Inflation aside, the U.S. economy is strong, with the GDP up and unemployment at the lowest in 50 years.
Unfortunately, facts were the aborted fetus in this election. Now, we must endure the aftermath of this fiction. Despite Trump’s unfiltered bluster, he has one undeniable skill — stabbing America’s soft, vulnerable underbelly.
That underbelly is masculinity in crisis.
We should all know the scary statistics by now. Four decades ago, women surpassed men in education. Now, women comprise 60% of undergraduates and 69.6% of students in full-time graduate programs. With rising education, Gen Z women closed the wage gap and now make more than men in some cities. Women own more property, while…
