In our culture, masculinity is not thought of as inherent, a part of a male’s birthright, but rather as something that needs to be demonstrated and proved, to both women and other men, again and again. This phenomenon is known as fragile masculinity and is demonstrated to produce a good deal of insecurity and a host of other problems in men. Men often defend against this insecurity by exaggerating their stereotypically masculine behaviors and attributes in order to present a machismo, hyper-masculine picture of themselves to others, also known as toxic masculinity.
In our culture, the loud and angry endorsement of particular conservative political views has been a time-honored way to demonstrate one’s masculine credentials.
For example, researchers found that men who were given the suggestion that they were less masculine subsequently expressed more support for war, homophobic attitudes, a greater need to advance and dominate in social hierarchies and belief in male superiority.
President Trump is a national figure who regularly engages in displays of hypermasculinity, from publicly bragging about the size of his penis (Krieg, 2016) to his high levels of testosterone (Moraes, 2016). If toxic masculinity is a defense against the culturally induced insecurities of fragile masculinity, it would follow that men who are drawn to the appeal of the president’s hypermasculine posturing would be men who feel less secure about their own masculinity.
Researchers measured men’s level of anxiety about their own masculinity by counting the number of times those men did internet searches for topics such as “erectile dysfunction”, “hair loss”, “how to get girls”. After analyzing the results of the 2016 presidential election, they found that President Trump did better in districts in which men searched more often for these terms. Again, in the 2018 mid-term elections, support for the Republican candidate was higher in districts in which Google search data suggested that men had higher levels of fragile masculinity. This data supports the work of earlier writers who have suggested that hyper-masculine displays of toxic masculinity are one of the most effective strategies for winning elections in this country.
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