Why The Vance-Walz Debate Boils Down To Contrasting Versions Of Masculinity

Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance and Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick Tim Walz — set to debate each other Tuesday — embody different versions of masculinity in an election that is dividing American men and women like never before.

Vance, on the Republican ticket, has a conservative definition of family.

The Ohio senator has been criticized for denouncing “childless cat ladies” who have no “direct interest” in the welfare of the country, he alleged, because they have no children.

As a former soldier from a lower-class family, Vance sees himself as the spokesman for the downtrodden Americans with whom he grew up.

Stringently opposed to abortion, Vance also criticizes progressive ideas of family which, in his view, encourage “people to shift spouses like they change their underwear.”

On the other side, Democrat Tim Walz strives to project a different image of the good family man — one who does not hesitate to show a more vulnerable side of himself, like when discussing the fertility problems he faced with his wife Gwen.

“I can remember praying each night for a phone call,” he recounted at the Democratic National Convention.

“The pit in your stomach when the phone would ring, and the absolute agony when we heard the treatments hadn’t worked.”

The Minnesota governor, a former teacher, also frequently retells the story of how he helped create the first LGBTQ student club at the high school where he taught, long before gay rights were widely socially accepted.

‘Toxic masculinity’ alternatives

Walz, who also coached high school football and served 24 years in the National Guard, still plays into a classic male archetype, whether he is discussing his favourite hardware store on TikTok or boasting about his hunting skills.

In reference to Vance, for instance, Walz said: “I guarantee you he can’t shoot pheasants like I can.”

“The Harris campaign is offering alternatives to the ‘toxic masculinity’ that has captured the Republican party,” said Karrin Vasby Anderson, a communications studies professor at Colorado State University.

And Walz isn’t alone, she added.

Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, enthusiastically supports his wife and has no problem making himself the butt of the joke, including when he describes the awkward voicemail he left her after their first date.

The posturing is a far cry from Donald Trump’s “macho man” stance — one that he references by playing the Village People hit of the same name to open his rallies.

Anderson argues that societal gains by women and people of colour have “required white men to make adjustments to how they speak, what jokes they tell, how they comport themselves in romantic relationships, how they conduct themselves at work.”

“Some men don’t like having to change,” she added.

Gender divide

According to recent polls, a growing number of young men are throwing their support behind Trump, whose rhetoric centres on strength, authority and even violence.

The Republican is capitalizing on this well of support by increasing the number of events he holds with influencers involved in cryptocurrency, video games and combat sports, many of whom have followings in the tens of millions.

In the extremely close race for the White House, Trump hopes to motivate an electorate that historically has not had a strong turnout at the polls.

Harris, on the other hand, often says that “the true measure of strength is based on who you lift up, not who you beat down.”

The Democrat, who fiercely defends abortion rights, is banking on mobilizing women, who vote in greater numbers than men in the United States.

The 2020 election saw 82.2 million women go to the polls, compared with 72.5 million men, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.