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For the longest time, the 2016 election was expected to be nothing more than Hillary Clinton’s coronation. After being defeated by an upstart candidate in 2008, she served dutifully as his secretary of state, gaining the kind of foreign policy experience she lacked beforehand. That, combined with her time in the Senate, made her an almost unimpeachable candidate.
That probability of her winning became even more likely when everyone saw the lackluster field of Republicans who would challenge her. There was almost no doubt a Clinton would be back in the White House in 2017.
Then Donald Trump joined the race, with a bravado, swagger, and insouciance unseen from a national candidate and he developed, almost instantly, an ardent base of support.
It’s looking more and more like the election will be between the two of them, and an interesting question now is how will the male vote break? Will they actively support a woman candidate for the highest office in the land, especially when running against a man’s man who when questioned about the size of his dick told you how big his dick is?
You know, just like you would do, because your dick is big, too. How could you even accuse me of having a little dick, are you kidding my dick is the biggest dick. I would show it to you, but we are in public, so I can’t, but I promise you, it’s big.
A new study from Farleigh Dickinson found that men, when faced with threats to their masculinity, will vote for a man over a woman.
Now, keep in mind, this isn’t real threats to their manhood, such as things like mandatory castration, enforced eunuchism, or the imprisonment and forced subservience of every male in America. This is just mild statements like, “Hey, is it okay if a woman in your house gets a raise?”
We react … we react … embarrassingly bad to that.
Volumes of research in sociology have shown how men respond to perceived threats to their masculinity: in the face of personal or societal threats to their masculine identity, some men become more likely to endorse anti-gay stances, pro-gun policies, or anti-abortion views.
For instance, men who feel that their gender role is threatened by a wife who earns more money than they do may become more likely to embrace religious justifications for male superiority, or play up their role as the protector of the household.
“Honey, I know you got a great, great, great job offer here, but Allah said that a woman’s role is in the kitchen. What, it doesn’t matter that we are Episcopalian. Why are you even bring that up right now?”
How that relates to the election is that, if prompted with a mild gender threat, a man was more than likely to change his vote from Clinton to Trump.
In the study, a randomized experiment was embedded in an otherwise normal political survey of likely voters in New Jersey. Half of the respondents were asked about the distribution of income in their own households – whether they or their spouse earned more money – before being asked about their preference in the Presidential general election. The other half were only asked about the distribution of income in their household at the end of the survey. This question was designed to remind people of disruption to traditional gender roles, without explicitly mentioning Clinton or a female president, and simulate the sorts of subtle gender-based attacks that can be expected when Clinton is a general election candidate.
The effects of the gender role threat question are enormous… men who weren’t asked about spousal income until after being asked about the Presidential election preferred Clinton over Trump, 49 to 33. However, those who were reminded about the threat to gender roles embodied by Clinton preferred Trump over Clinton, 50 to 42. Concerns about gender role threat shifted men from preferring Clinton by 16 to preferring Trump by 8, a 24 point shift.
Hold on to me while I die of embarrassment over the state of masculinity in 2016.
“Well, If I can’t have a big old dick, at least I can keep a bitch out of the White House.”
Good, good work guys.
[H/T The Cut]