Feeling protected: protective masculinity and femininity from Donald Trump and Joe Biden to Jacinda Ardern
This article emphasises the role that political leaders’ discourse plays in evoking positive emotions among citizens in uncertain times, such as feeling protected, secure and proud in addition to the leaders’ (often interconnected) role of encouraging negative feelings such as fear, resentment and anger. The article argues that such discourse frequently involves performances of gendered leadership. It cites examples from a range of countries to illustrate the points being made, but focuses on the 2020 US presidential election which saw a contest between two forms of protective masculinity: Trump’s exclusionary, macho, hypermasculinity versus Biden’s more socially inclusive, empathetic and softer version. Trump’s protective masculinity failure over managing the COVID-19 pandemic was arguably one of the factors contributing to his electoral defeat, while Biden aimed to make voters feel safer and more protected than under Trump. The article also provides examples of protective femininity, with a particular focus on the discourse of New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern.
-
Appelbaum, A. (2020) Il Donald, The Atlantic, 7 October, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/trump-pays-mussolini-like-attention-his-own-image/616626/.
-
Archer, R. (2010) Why Is There no Labor Party in the United States?, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
-
Ardern, J. (2017) Jacinda’s speech to campaign launch, Auckland Town Hall, 20 August, www.labour.org.nz/jacindas_speech_to_campaign_launch.
-
Ardern, J. (2018) Parliamentary debates, Hansard, Parliament of New Zealand, 17 May, www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20180517_054450000/ardern-jacinda.
-
Ardern, J. (2019) PM house statement on Christchurch mosques terror attack, Wellington, 27 March, https://beehive.govt.nz/release/pm-house-statement-christchurch-mosques-terror-attack.
-
Ardern, J. (2020a) COVID-19 alert level increased, www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/prime-minister-covid-19-alert-level-increased.
-
Ardern, J. (2020b) Facebook video, 25 March, www.facebook.com/jacindaardern/videos/147109069954329/.
-
Ardern, J. (2020c) Prime Minister’s comments on royal commission of inquiry into Christchurch terror attack, www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/prime-minister%E2%80%99s-comments-royal-commission-inquiry-christchurch-terror-attack.
-
Ardern, J. (2021) Government action reduces child poverty, www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-action-reduces-child-poverty.
-
Baccini, L., Brodeur, A. and Weymouth, S. (2021) The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election, Journal of Population Economics, 34(2): 739–67. doi: 10.1007/s00148-020-00820-3
-
Baragona, J. (2020) Don Jr’s closing argument for Dad’s re-election: ‘Make liberals cry again’, Daily Beast, 2 November 2020, www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-jrs-closing-argument-for-dads-re-election-is-to-make-liberals-cry-again.
-
Barraclough, E.C. (2020) The emotion Kamala Harris is forbidden from showing during the US election, Vogue, 26 October, www.vogue.com.au/culture/features/the-emotion-kamala-harris-is-forbidden-from-showing-during-the-us-election/news-story/b0f21bba299615e62cc95579e3abd5ed.
-
Bennet, B. and Berenson, T. (2020) How Donald Trump lost the election, Time, 7 November, https://time.com/5907973/donald-trump-loses-2020-election/.
-
Biden, J. (2020) Campaign remarks transcript Pennsylvania October 26, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-campaign-remarks-transcript-pennsylvania-october-26.
-
Biden, J. (2021) Remarks by President Biden on the senate passage of the American rescue plan, 6 March, www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/06/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-senate-passage-of-the-american-rescue-plan/.
-
Biden, J. and Obama, B. (2020) Joe Biden and Barack Obama held a campaign event in Flint, Michigan on October 31, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-barack-obama-campaign-event-speech-transcript-flint-mi-october-31.
-
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2019) Feeling race: theorizing the racial economy of emotions, American Sociological Review, 84(1): 1–25. doi: 10.1177/0003122418816958
-
Bradner, E. (2020) Biden blasts Trump for mocking face masks, CNN, 27 May, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/joe-biden-cnn-interview-trump-face-masks. https://abc13.com/jill-biden-joe-speech-dnc/6376443/.
-
Brescoll, V.L. (2016) Leading with their hearts? How gender stereotypes of emotion lead to biased evaluations of female leaders, The Leadership Quarterly, 27(3): 415–28. doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.02.005
-
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.
-
Butler, J. (2020) Is the show finally over for Donald Trump?, The Guardian, 6 November, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/05/donald-trump-is-the-show-over-election-presidency.
-
Cheney, L. (2021) I will vote to impeach the President, 12 January, https://cheney.house.gov/2021/01/12/cheney-i-will-vote-to-impeach-the-president/.
-
Clark, S., Hoggett, P. and Thompson, S. (eds) (2006) Emotion, Politics and Society, Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
-
Clinton, H.R. (2017) What Happened, London: Simon and Schuster.
-
Connell, R.W. (2005) Masculinities, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
-
Cooper, F. (2009) Our first unisex president? Black masculinity and Obama’s feminine side, Denver University Law Review, 86(3): 633–61.
-
Currell, S. (2019) ‘This may be the most dangerous thing Donald Trump believes’: eugenic populism and the American body politic, Amerikastudien / American Studies, 64(2): 291–302. doi: 10.33675/AMST/2019/2/9
-
Curtin, J. and Greaves, L. (2020) Gender, populism and Jacinda Ardern, in J. Vowles and J. Curtin (eds) A Populist Exception? The 2017 New Zealand General Election, Canberra: ANU Press, pp 179–212.
-
Dawsey, J. (2020) Trump presented with grim internal polling showing him losing to Biden, The Washington Post, 30 April, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-presented-with-grim-internal-polling-showing-him-losing-to-biden/2020/04/29/33544208-8a4e-11ea-9759-6d20ba0f2c0e_story.html.
-
Demertzis, N. (2014) Political emotions, in P. Nesbitt-Larking, C. Kinnvall, T. Capelos, and H. Dekker (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Political Psychology, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 223–41.
-
Demertzis, N. (2020) The Political Sociology of Emotions: Essays on Trauma and Ressentiment, London/New York: Routledge.
-
Diamond, J. (2016) Trump: ‘We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country’, CNN, 2 May, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/01/politics/donald-trump-china-rape/.
-
Di Gregorio, M. and Merolli, J.L. (2016) Introduction: affective citizenship and the politics of identity, control, resistance, Citizenship Studies, 20(8): 933–42. doi: 10.1080/13621025.2016.1229193
-
Fabrizio, Lee & Associates (2020) Post election exit poll analysis 10 key target states, December 2020, www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-6046-de2d-a57f-7a6e8c950000.
-
Fairclough, N. (2000) New Labour, New Language?, London/New York: Routledge.
-
Feldman, O. (ed) (2020) The Rhetoric of Political Leadership: Logic and Emotion in Public Discourse, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
-
Fitzduff, M. (2017) Introduction: all too human: the allure of Donald Trump, in M. Fitzduff (ed) Why Irrational Politics Appeals: Understanding the Allure of Trump, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, pp 1–24.
-
Flinders, M. (2020) Why feelings trump facts: anti-politics, citizenship and emotion, Emotions and Society, 2(1): 21–40. doi: 10.1332/263168919X15761256384386
-
Foucault, M. (1988) The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom: an interview with Michel Foucault on January 20, 1984, conducted by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Helmut Becker and Alfredo Gomez-Muller, J.D. Gauthier and S.J. (trans) in J. Bernauer and D. Rasmussan (eds), The Final Foucault, Cambridge: MIT, pp 1–20.
-
Franceschet, S., Piscopo, J.M. and Thomas, G. (2017) Motherhood and politics in Latin America: continuity and change, in M. Thomas and A. Bittner (eds) Mothers and Others: The Role of Parenthood in Politics, Vancouver: UBC Press, pp 64–86.
-
Grillo, M.C. (2017) Nationalist politics: the role of predispositions and emotions, in M. Fitzduff (ed.) Why Irrational Politics Appeals: Understanding the Allure of Trump, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, pp 87–106.
-
Haberman, M. and Thomas, K. (2020) Trump calls his illness ‘a blessing from God’, The New York Times, 3 November, www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-blessing.html.
-
Harris, K. and Biden, J. (2020) Harris and Biden victory/acceptance speech transcripts, 7 November, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-kamala-harris-address-nation-after-victory-speech-transcript-november-7.
-
Hart, R.P. (2021) Why Trump lost and how? A rhetorical explanation, American Behavioral Scientist, Article first published online 3 March: 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764221996760.
-
Healy, P. and Haberman, M. (2015) 95,000 words, many of them ominous, from Donald Trump’s tongue, New York Times, 5 December, https://nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/politics/95000-words-many-of-them-ominous-from-donald-trumps-tongue.html.
-
Hochschild, A.R. (2016a) Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, New York: The New Press.
-
Hochschild, A.R. (2016b) The ecstatic edge of politics: sociology and Donald Trump, Contemporary Sociology, 45(6): 683–89. doi: 10.1177/0094306116671947
-
Hochschild, A.R. (2019) Introductory essay, Emotions and Society, 1(1): 9–13. doi: 10.1332/263168919X15580836411805
-
Hunnicutt, T. (2020) Biden says Trump has no ‘sense of empathy’ for US middle class, Reuters, 24 October, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden/biden-says-trump-has-no-sense-of-empathy-for-u-s-middle-class-idUSKBN1X225J.
-
IMF (International Monetary Fund) (2021) Policy responses to COVID-19, policy tracker, updated 5 February, www.imf.org/en/Topics/imf-and-covid19/Policy-Responses-to-COVID-19#G.
-
Ipsos (2021) Ipsos/Reuters poll: the big lie, 21 May, www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-05/Ipsos%20Reuters%20Topline%20Write%20up-%20The%20Big%20Lie%20-%2017%20May%20thru%2019%20May%202021.pdf.
-
Jaffe, A. (2020) At DNC, Jill Biden gets personal about family’s challenges, 19 August [video], https://abc13.com/jill-biden-joe-speech-dnc/6376443.
-
Jaimungal, C. (2020) The greatest achievements and failures of the Trump administration, according to voters, YouGov, 28 October, https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/10/27/greatest-achievements-and-failures-trump-administr.
-
Johnson, C. (2000) Governing Change: From Keating to Howard, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
-
Johnson, C. (2010) The politics of affective citizenship: from Blair to Obama, Citizenship Studies, 14(5): 495–509, doi: 10.1080/13621025.2010.506702.
-
Johnson, C. (2019) Social Democracy and the Crisis of Equality: Australian Social Democracy in a Changing World, Singapore: Springer.
-
Johnson, C. (2020) Gender, emotion and political discourse: masculinity, femininity and populism, in O. Feldman (ed) The Rhetoric of Political Leadership: Logic and Emotion in Public Discourse, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 16–33.
-
Johnson, C. and Williams, B. (2020) Gender and political leadership in a time of COVID, Politics & Gender, 16(4): 943–50, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X2000029X.
-
Katz, J. (2016) Man enough? Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the Politics of Presidential Masculinity, Northampton, MA: Interlink Books.
-
Kimmel, M. (2010) Misframing Men: The Politics of Contemporary Masculinities, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
-
Koschut, S. (2020) Emotion, discourse and power in world politics, in S. Koschut (ed) The Power of Emotions in World Politics, London: Routledge, pp 3–27.
-
Lasco, G. (2020) Medical populism and the COVID-19 pandemic, Global Public Health, 15(10): 1417–29, doi: 10.1080/17441692.2020.1807581.
-
Löfven, S. (2020) In English: prime minister Stefan’s address to the nation, The Local, 22 March. https://www.thelocal.se/20200322/in-english-prime-minister-stefan-lfvens-address-to-the-nation/
-
Mahbubani, K. (2008) The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, New York: Public Affairs.
-
Mahbubani, K. (2019) Has the West Lost It?, London: Penguin.
-
Marin, S. (2020) Prime minister Sanna Marin’s new year’s message, 31 December, https://vnk.fi/en/-/prime-minister-sanna-marin-s-new-year-s-message-31-december-2020.
-
Merkel, A. (2020) Overcoming the pandemic with a concerted effort, Speech in Bundestag on new restrictions, October 2020, www.bundeskanzlerin.de/bkin-en/news/government-statement-1805880.
-
Messerschmidt, J.W. (2019) The salience of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, Men and Masculinities, 22(1): 85–91. doi: 10.1177/1097184X18805555
-
Messner, M. (2007) The masculinity of the governator: muscle and compassion in American politics, Gender and Society, 21(4): 461–80. doi: 10.1177/0891243207303166
-
Mills, S. (2003) Michel Foucault, London: Routledge.
-
Milmann, O. (2021) ‘I’m facing a prison sentence’: US capitol rioters plead with Trump for pardons, The Guardian, 17 January, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/us-capitol-rioters-donald-trump-pardons.
-
Mudde, C. (2017) Introduction to the populist radical right, in C. Mudde (ed.) The Populist Radical Right: A Reader, London: Routledge.
-
Murray, T. (2020) Merkel calls for ‘solidarity’ as Germany prepare for partial lockdown, GGTN News, 30 October, https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-30/Merkel-calls-for-solidarity-as-Germany-prepare-for-partial-lockdown-UZvf32aOw8/index.html.
-
Mutz, D. (2018) Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(19): E4330–9, doi: org/10.1073/pnas.1718155115.
-
National Public Radio staff (2020) Understanding the 2020 electorate: AP VoteCast survey, 3 November, www.npr.org/2020/11/03/929478378/understanding-the-2020-electorate-ap-votecast-survey.
-
Nissen, W. (2021) How prime minister Jacinda Ardern takes care of herself (and us), Thrive Magazine, https://thrivemagazine.co.nz/people/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-takes-care.
-
Obama, B. (2008) Remarks following the Iowa caucuses 3 January, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-following-the-iowa-caucuses-2.
-
Obama, B. (2020) Obama spoke in Miami, Florida on October 24, campaigning for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/barack-obama-florida-rally-speech-transcript-for-joe-biden-october-24.
-
Olson, G. (2020) Love and hate online: affective politics in the era of Trump, in S. Polak, D. Trottier and M. Williams (eds) Online Vitriol: Violence and Trolling on Social Media, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
-
Parker, A., Dawsey, J., Viser, M. and Scherer, M. (2020) How Trump’s erratic behavior and failure on coronavirus doomed his reelection, The Washington Post, 7 November, www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2020/trump-pandemic-coronavirus-election/.
-
Pelosi, N. (2021) Floor speech on H.Res. 24, Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for incitement of insurrection Jan 13, 2021, Press release, https://pelosi.house.gov/news/press-releases/floor-speech-on-hres-24-impeaching-donald-john-trump-president-of-the-united.
-
Phillips, M. (2016) Embodied care and planet Earth: ecofeminism, maternalism and postmaternalism, Australian Feminist Studies, 31(90): 468–85. doi: 10.1080/08164649.2016.1278153
-
Piscopo, J.M. (2020) Women leaders and pandemic performance: a spurious correlation, Politics & Gender, 16(4): 951–59, doi: 10.1017/S1743923X20000525.
-
Purkayastha, S., Salvatore, M. and Mukherjee, B. (2020) Are women leaders significantly better at controlling the contagion during the COVID-19 pandemic?, Journal of Health and Social Sciences, 5(2): 231–40.
-
Reddy, W.M. (2001) The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions, New York: Cambridge University Press.
-
Redlawsk, D. (2006) Feeling politics: new research into emotion, in D. Redlawsk (ed) Feeling Politics: Emotion in Political Information Processing, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 1–10.
-
Rosen, C. (2020) Joe Biden prioritizes empathy in scorching Trump takedown: ‘the president had no sense’, the former VP and presumptive democratic candidate for president told James Corden Tuesday, Vanity Fair, 22 April, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/04/joe-biden-trump-empathy-coronavirus-james-corden.
-
Roseneil, S. (1995) Disarming Patriarchy: Feminism and Political Action at Greenham, Buckingham: Open University Press.
-
Rucker, P., Dawsey, J., Parker, A. and Costa, R. (2020) ‘Invincibility punctured by infection: How the coronavirus spread in Trump’s White House’ The Washington Post, 2 October, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-virus-spread-white-house/2020/10/02/38c5b354-04cc-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html.
-
Salmela, M. and von Scheve, C. (2017) Emotional roots of right-wing populism, Social Science Information, 56(4): 567–95, https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018417734419. doi: 10.1177/0539018417734419
-
Schreiber, R. (2016) Gender roles, motherhood, and politics: conservative women’s organizations frame Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 37(1): 1–23. doi: 10.1080/1554477X.2016.1115319
-
Shepherd, B. (2020) ‘It just won’t be so exhausting’: Obama debuts his closing argument for Biden, Yahoo News, 22 October, https://news.yahoo.com/it-just-wont-be-so-exhausting-obama-debuts-his-closing-argument-for-biden-230923932.html.
-
Smith, A. (2018) Gender, Heteronormativity and the American Presidency, London/New York: Routledge.
-
Sokmensuer, H. (2021) Trump supporter charged in capitol riots says she ‘Bought into a lie,’ now regrets ‘Everything’, 10 February, https://people.com/crime/trump-supporter-charged-in-capitol-riot-says-she-bought-into-a-lie-now-regrets-everything/.
-
Solender, A. (2020) Trump repeatedly calls Kamala Harris ‘nasty’ and ‘horrible’ in White House briefing, Forbes, 12 August, www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/08/11/trump-repeatedly-calls-kamala-harris-nasty-and-horrible-in-white-house-briefing/?sh=6aca0dd44570.
-
Spence, M. (2011) The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
-
Stevenson, A. (2015) Affect, in A. Stevenson (ed) Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Trump, D. (2020a) Campaign rally in Macon, Georgia, October 16, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-macon-georgia-rally-speech-transcript-october-16.
-
Trump, D. (2020b) Erie, PA rally transcript, October 20, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-erie-pa-rally-transcript-october-20.
-
Trump, D. (2020c) Michigan rally speech transcript October 17, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-michigan-rally-speech-transcript-october-17.
-
Trump, D. (2020d) Rally speech transcript Lansing, Michigan October 27, www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-rally-speech-transcript-lansing-michigan-october-27.
-
Trump, D. (2020e) Rally speech transcript Lititz, PA October 26, https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-rally-speech-transcript-lititz-pa-october-26.
-
Trump, D. (2020f) Statement by the president, law & justice, June 1, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-by-the-president-39/.
-
Trump, D. and Biden, J. (2020a) Debate transcript: Trump, Biden final presidential debate moderated by Kristen Welker, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/23/debate-transcript-trump-biden-final-presidential-debate-nashville/3740152001/.
-
Trump, D. and Biden, J. (2020b) Transcript first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/30/presidential-debate-read-full-transcript-first-debate/3587462001/.
-
Twitter Inc. (2021) Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by Twitter Inc., 8 January, https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html.
-
Vescioa, T.K. and Schermerhorna, N.E.C. (2021) Hegemonic masculinity predicts 2016 and 2020 voting and candidate evaluations, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 118(2): e2020589118, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2020589118.
-
Westen, D. (2007) The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, New York: Public Affairs.
-
Windsor, L.C., Yannitell Reinhardt, G., Windsor, A.J., Ostergard, R., Allen, S., Burns, C., Giger, J. and Wood, R. (2020) Gender in the time of COVID-19: evaluating national leadership and COVID-19 fatalities, PLoS ONE, 15(12): e0244531, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244531.
-
Winter, N.J. (2010) Masculine republicans and feminine democrats: gender and Americans’ explicit and implicit images of the political parties, Political Behavior, 32(4): 587–618. doi: 10.1007/s11109-010-9131-z
-
Yates, C. (2019) ‘Show us you care!’ The gendered psycho-politics of emotion and women as political leaders, European Journal of Politics and Gender, 2(3): 345–61. doi: 10.1332/251510819X15646233470674
-
Young, I.M. (2003) The logic of masculinist protection: reflections on the current security state, Signs, 29(1): 1–25, https://doi.org/10.1086/375708
| May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Full Text Views | 71 | 71 | 62 |
| PDF Downloads | 43 | 43 | 36 |
We are a leading social science publisher
committed to making a difference.
Bristol University Press and
Policy Press
bristoluniversitypress.co.uk