The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity

305 Pages·2005·1.68 MB·English

by  Stephen J. Ducat

The Wimp Factor

The Wimp Factor
Gender Gaps, Holy Wars,
and the Politics of
Anxious Masculinity
Stephen J. Ducat
Beacon Press, Boston
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Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
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are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 2004 by Stephen J. Ducat
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
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Back cover image:Joan Thornton
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ducat, Stephen.
The wimp factor : gender gaps, holy wars, and the politics of anxious masculinity /
Stephen J. Ducat.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8070-4345-1 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Masculinity—Political aspects. 2. Politicians—United States—Psychology.
3. Sex role—Political aspects—United States. 4. International relations—
Psychological aspects. I. Title.
HQ1090.D83 2004
305.31—dc22 2004004809
Credits: p. 107, Mike Thompson cartoon from the National Forum,is used by permis-
sion of Copley News Service and Mike Thompson. p. 86, OLIPHANT cartoon is used
by permission of the Universal Press Syndicate. pp. 11, 106, 132, The American Spectator
images are used by permission of The American Spectator.pp. 154, 164, “American
Pathetic” and “Serving His Party!” are used by permission of the Rochester Initiative/
Spotlight Magazine. p. 140, Spymagazine cover is used by permission of Sussex
Publishers, Inc., © 1995. pp. 104, 151, reprinted by permission of Tom Meyer. p. 234,
Surviving the Feminization of Americacover is used by permission of Rich Zubaty.
Contents
Preface vii
Fear and the Phallus: 1
An Introduction
1. From Mama’s Boy to He-Man: 24
Developmental and Cultural Paths to Anxious Masculinity
2. The Miss Nancy Man in Nineteenth-century America: 60
Historical Roots of Anxious Male Politics
3. The Wimp Factor: 84
Performing Masculinity in the Presidential Career
of George Herbert Walker Bush
4. Vaginas with Teeth and Castrating First Ladies: 115
Fantasies of Feminine Danger from Eve to Hillary Clinton
5. Permutations of the Presidential Phallus: 150
Representations of Bill Clinton, from Emasculated
Househusband to Envied Stud Muffin
6. Voting Like a Man: 168
The Psychodynamics of the Gender Gap in Political Attitudes
7. Gender in a Time of Holy War: 208
Fundamentalist Femiphobia and Post-9/11 Masculinity
Notes 246
Acknowledgments 273
Index 274
Afterword to the Paperback Edition 292

Preface
Observers of contemporary politics, especially those who followthe
high drama of presidential campaigns, are plagued by many ques-
tions. Most vexing, perhaps, are those concerned with the role of
gender in public life. Why is testosterone the coveted elixir of po-
litical power? More specifically, what anxieties have made the “wimp
factor” one of the most important variables in determining the out-
comes of elections? First coined in 1988, this phrase, which denotes
a male candidate’s deficient manhood, came to haunt the presi-
dency of George Herbert Walker Bush. It is now an issue that dogs
most men who run for political office, to such a degree that armies
of spin doctors and handlers are hired to inject unseemly quanti-
ties of Viagra into their candidate’s rhetoric, and stage baroque ma-
cho photo opportunities. Even a relatively liberal presidential candidate,
John Kerry, in November of 2003 felt compelled to drag reporters and
an AP photographer out to a chilly field in Iowa, the first caucus state
in the Democratic primary, to watch him blow pheasants away with his
twelve-gauge shotgun. Apparently, Mr. Kerry wanted to reassure the
male electorate that even though he supports a ban on assault weapon
sales, he still likes to kill things.
Do the same anxieties drive the ever-widening gender gap in voting
behavior? Many people do not realize that this phenomenon, first ob-
served in 1980, has been marked by men’s growing conservatism, not by
an increase in liberalism among women. As the 2004 presidential elec-
tion looms, this disparity between male and female voters is once again
on everyone’s lips, and has become one of the guiding obsessions of po-
litical consultants. “Soccer moms” and “office park dads,” and, more
currently, “security moms” and “NASCARdads,” are now seen as the
demographic groups that decide elections.
There is another demographic influencing politics in the U.S. and
around the world—religious fundamentalists. A question many polit-
viii preface
ical observers have pondered is: Why are fundamentalist men every-
where so concerned about questions of gender? For all the differences
in their respective theologies, holy warriors across the globe, domestic
and foreign, seem to be driven by nearly identical misogynist visions.
This is just as discernible in their idealization of selfless motherhood
and wifely servitude as it is in their fear and hatred of female sexuality.
Politics for these authoritarian priests of patriarchy appears to be largely
a means of achieving with the powers of the state or the dread of ter-
rorist weaponry what they cannot accomplish with the force of their
arguments.
If we are to understand the link between these three seemingly
unrelated phenomena—fear of the wimp factor, the gender gap in po-
litical attitudes, and the holy wars of fundamentalists—we must un-
derstand the powerful role that unconscious fears and fantasies play in
politics; we must turn to psychology. But focusing on men’s inner world
does not diminish the importance of their outer world. Economics,
class conflict, cultural traditions, and the historical residues of white
supremacy are all powerful determinants of American political behav-
ior. And each of these intersects in complex ways with psychological
motives. My interest here is to focus on dynamics that are typically less
evident than the more obvious socioeconomic factors, and thus rarely,
if ever, get attended to by newscasters and political pundits.
While delimited to the psychological, this study draws on many
kinds of data, including the results of my own research, in which I was
able to demonstrate a direct association between the magnitude of a
man’s terror of being feminine (femiphobia) and his tendency to em-
brace right-wing political opinions. The Wimp Factor also takes a close
look at aspects of popular culture, such as editorial cartoons, political
advertisements, movies, and the slips of the tongue made by public fig-
ures. The book shows how these apparently disparate elements reveal
much about the effects of femiphobia in politics. And, because men’s
fear of the feminine has been a powerful motive force in political strug-
gles for centuries, the book includes in-depth case studies from various
historical periods.
preface ix
Chief among the more current events examined here will be the re-
cent war in Iraq. I will show how the rhetoric and diplomatic posturing
on the part of right-wing politicians and pundits leading up to, during,
and after the invasion have exemplified the anxious preoccupation with
affirming manhood that is described throughout the book. Also ana-
lyzed will be the striking gender gap in public opinion on the war,
which has been even greater than it was during the Vietnam War, with
45 percent of men having “strongly” supported the military assault on
Iraq, as compared with 21 percent of women (according to a Zogby In-
ternational poll). The postwar events in Iraq are still unfolding (if in-
deed one can regard the daily carnage as postwar), and the long-term
political aftermath cannot be predicted at this point. Nevertheless, the
domestic and global consequences of the current administration’s swag-
gering unilateralism are already making themselves apparent, and are
examined through a psychological lens in the final chapter.
While the book looks squarely at the psychological dynamics be-
hind a number of deeply disturbing political phenomena, such as war,
fundamentalist terrorism, environmental devastation, homophobia,
and racism, it may be reassuring for both genders nevertheless, for dif-
ferent reasons. Women are profoundly affected by the way men defend
themselves against their insecurities, in politics as well as personal rela-
tionships. An understanding of the rationale behind their thinking and
behaviors may be illuminating, as well as heartening. As for men, the
extent to which they are conscious of their fear of being feminine varies.
No man, however, is completely unaffected. In addition, most men have
no idea why they suffer from femiphobia and, as I have observed in
many of my male patients, are likely to regard their anxieties as a per-
sonal weakness. Understanding the cultural, historical, and develop-
mental origins of an insecure sense of masculinity may not only be
reassuring; it may enable men to challenge notions of manhood that
seem to animate so much political iniquity in the world.