What Trump Can't Do For Men
hey friends! thanks as always for being here. I’m teaching another virtual satire class 2/16 at 1 EST. Sign up now, the last two sold out! AND I’m doing my new stand up hour SAVE THE MEN in NYC 2/2, it’s free!
xo
Ginny
I’ve been worried about men for a while, often in public. I’ve satirized what needed to be satirized while also acknowledging the very real problem. Men are doing poorly relative to woman across nearly all metrics – educational achievement, professional success, mental health, life satisfaction. We are beating men at everything except convincing them we’re people, but it takes time. And this is still true today. It’s all too easy, now that Trump is the President, to conclude that something has flipped. That the men won, they’re back in charge, that’s that. That we don’t have to worry about them anymore.
It is the men saying just that (JUST the men saying it – not all men!!!) that concern me. Like many women on social media, I’ve noticed a stark uptick in angry comments from these men on my posts since November 6th. This is best characterized by the refrain “your body my choice,” but the sentiment is everywhere. Men who want women to know that times are changing.
I believe what’s happening to some of these Trump-supporting men is best summarized in this quote, which recently went viral:
Again, a clear encapsulation of what (some) men expect out of another Trump era. Gone are the Facebook fact-checkers, gone are the DEI policies, gone are the…actually, idk. I was going to say “the human resources person who would reprimand someone for saying ‘pussy’ at work,” but I don’t think that’s true. Still, I understand what this man is saying. There has been a vibe shift. We’re not doing 2020-style cancellations anymore, and this man thinks he’ll benefit.
I fear he won’t. The man is anonymous (which seems to contradict the optimism of the quote), but I don’t have a hard time picturing him. It is, in fact, very easy for me to imagine this specific sequence of events:
the man uses the term “pussy” around a woman, maybe at work, maybe on a date
the woman expresses disgust
the man expresses anger, since he believes he’s now allowed to use the term, but he’s not getting the desired reaction from her
I’m just guessing. But it’s based on interactions I’ve had that were identical to this. Ultimately – does a man like this want not to get cancelled, or do he want to be liked? If he’s anything like anybody else, probably the latter. It’s a real “be careful what you wish for” situation. Any woman who’s ever told a man not to use the term “pussy” has been helping him get laid. In fact, she’s probably done more for him than Trump ever will.
This is what Trump can’t do for men. He can’t guarantee that men will be likable regardless of what they say. He can’t make “your body my choice” charming. He can’t make a woman give the time of day to a man wearing a MAGA hat. Or, if he could, he’s not going to.
But I understand why a man might be confused. Trump – I hate to – is likable, regardless of what he says. Well, to many people. Personally, I find him annoying, but I can acknowledge it’s not his good looks or intelligence or supportive family or deep knowledge of national security that got him elected President twice. He has a charisma that pervades even his most disgusting comments. And in these comments, he’s setting a bad example. Other men who try what he tries will not get his results. It’s kinda like how it’s hot when Cameron Diaz farts. That doesn’t mean farting is hot.
Despite what the anonymous banker claims, society’s standards don’t automatically adjust just because there’s a new president. The technical rules may change (though I would be careful – I’m doubtful that their HR teams are all of a sudden not afraid of sexual harassment lawsuits), but what people think of a particular kind of behavior is relatively static. If something was unlikeable yesterday, it’s unlikable today, too.
But it’s not just that Trump can’t make his male supporters likable. He also can’t make them rich. And I can see why this is confusing, because Trump himself is rich, and also, says he’ll make people rich. And if you perfectly timed your buying and selling of his Memecoin, you may have made money. But you probably didn’t do that unless you were already a rich crypto guy. Trump can make rich people richer, and that’s about it. His major legislative accomplishment in his first term was a tax cut for rich people and corporations. After watching the Scott Bessent hearings last week (very dry, don’t recommend), I’m willing to bet that’s about what we can expect this time, too.
To all the men expecting big changes from the Trump presidency: I’m sorry. He can’t get you laid. He can’t make you popular. He can’t make you attractive to women. He can’t make you successful, no matter how many immigrants he deports. Idk what to tell you. If your masculinity is threatened by people checking "X" as their gender on passport applications, then people checking "X" as their gender on passport applications are not the issue. You may think things are changing for you because they’re changing at the top. But before you make any big changes to the way you behave and interact with the rest of society, before you take that risk, ask yourself: am I at the top?