No Difference for Men and Boys?
Even though we sorely need some?
Kamala Harris has assiduously avoided saying she would have done or will in the future do anything differently from what President Biden has done. That might be hurting her with people who want to see at least a glimmer of light and distance between her and him.
Ms. Harris has also steadfastly avoided making the point that there is going to be anything different about a female president. That might be hurting her with people — especially men wondering What is she hiding? What is she denying? Isn’t the whole idea of the Democrat drumbeat of diversity that it is different?
More importantly… What do her most ardent supporters expect? What will they demand?
I can attest for myself that I fear a stream of even more sexist, anti-male policies emanating from what might come to be a nightmarish Pink House. Things are bad enough for men and boys now, without a woman at the top. Though it is abundantly clear that the last thing traditional men in traditional seats of male power can talk about is their own — and other men’s — problems, women have their rhetoric polished enough to excuse just about anything, even if justified only as crudely as, “Oh, you guys are complaining? As if you haven’t run the world for millennia.”
There is more than a little tincture of Pinkture in the White House already — in the Gender Policy Council, the sexist and horribly gender non-diverse successor to Obama’s White House Council on Women and Girls.
A president for everyone? Those of us who know how deeply entrenched is the most sexist idea of all — the belief that only one sex is ever sexist and only one sex is ever harmed by sexism — have good reason to worry that one of the main reasons she denies that a female president will be different is that she intends to be very different indeed — and not in a good way for men and boys. My mind struggles to avoid the specter of 300,000 pussy-hatted women on January 20 roaring their approval at Harris’s joyful assurance, “I am your vengeance!” Or more likely the same idea couched in less deplorable terms.
Harris is going to need every vote she can get and she is recognizing belatedly that catering to women has left men’s votes on the table. Tone-deaf and out of touch might be the best description of what her campaign lately thinks men want and need to hear. Here is a message that would resonate far more deeply in men’s lonely hearts than “Tim Walz was a football coach! He likes to shoot pheasants! And trust us when we say we can get a package through Congress to boost Black male entrepreneurs!”
”You know,” she could instead say on any of a hundred media outlets who would eagerly have her, “there is one thing I know I will do differently. And it’s not because what President Biden did was wrong and I am right. It’s because Joe couldn’t do what I can do.
“When we think of gender issues in our country, we almost automatically and reflexively think of the problems that women face, and President Biden needed to make clear that that he cared a lot about that. Why? Because he’s a man. He needed to staff his Gender Policy Council with personnel, almost all of whom are women, who focus on the gender issues of women and girls.
“But I can change that. And I will.
“You know the saying that only Nixon could have gone to China as he did in 1972 — when it was still called Red China? Why could only he do that? Because he was well-known to be a staunch anti-communist.
“In the same way, there is no doubt that I understand and care about women’s issues. So I can and I will add new personnel, including men, to my White House Gender Policy Council to help me understand the complexities and nuances of how gender issues are impacting men and boys today.
“My male appointees won’t be Hulk Hogan or the head of any kind of worldwide wrestling smackdown. They will be thoughtful people with male-aware expertise and male-friendly experience who understand that there is a whole world of synergies waiting for us when we make sure that women and men, boys and girls, both and all, are doing their best.”
Messaging like that would ring a whole lot truer to men than pretending there will be nothing new about having a female president, especially insofar as Harris in the White House would have the truly ground-breaking ability to banish the notion that the last thing powerful people can talk about is men’s issues.
There is still time for Harris and her strategists to read and take quick action on the leading book about the gender gap in the 2024 election, How Democrats Can Win Back Men, by Mark W. Sutton.
Cool piece here Jack. Good and clever idea to point out how Harris, being a woman, would be uniquely enabled to bring in concern for boys and men.