The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power & the American Presidency is a masterful exposé of the portrayal of gender roles in electing presidents.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ dramatic entry into the presidential race in July—including selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate—put a new twist on the already gendered nature of the election. A woman was now at the top of the ticket.
Instead of Donald Trump’s and JD Vance’s misogynous manhood solely driving the media narrative, there was now a new storyline: Not only was a Black, south Asian woman the nominee—but there also was a counternarrative: the egalitarian expression of manhood embodied by Walz and Doug Emhoff.
From the GOP convention theme song, “It’s a Man’s World,” to Hulk Hogan’s ridiculous tribute to old-school manhood, the Trump campaign gambled that their brand of “tough” masculinity would be a winning strategy against President Biden’s perceived “weak” portrayal of manhood. But Trump was caught off guard when—just three days after his convention ended—he was facing a woman.
Into this fraught political moment comes a thought-provoking film exploring presidential masculinity. The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power & the American Presidency is rich with content and context for voters to make sense of the gender politics playing out in the election. (Watch the trailer.)
Created by cultural theorist, educator and author, Jackson Katz, The Man Card was originally released before the 2020 election. The updated and expanded 2024 version crackles with renewed urgency now that Harris is Trump’s opponent.
Katz cowrote the script with Jeremy Earp, longtime writer-producer of social issue documentaries at the Media Education Foundation. The film is directed and produced by award-winning filmmakers Peter Hutchison and Lucas Sabean. (Full disclosure: Katz and I are friends and colleagues. He served on the board of and frequently contributed to Voice Male, a magazine I edited for three decades.)
The Man Card demonstrates how presidents and the presidency have historically been linked in the American imagination with traditional ideas about men. The film exposes how the right has long used stereotypical, one-dimensional ideas about manhood to portray Democrats as weak to attract working-class white men.
“Over the past 50 years, presidential elections have become a proxy for culture war debates about the state of American manhood,” Katz told me recently, “especially about the status of white men in the family and society.”
In less politically volatile times, a full-on review of the film would make sense. But writing about The Man Card weeks before the election invites viewers to assess the film through an activist lens. “This is not the moment to screen it solely in U.S. history, political science, or film classes,” Katz says. “It’s an urgently needed organizing tool in an election with democracy on the line.”
Viewers should ask themselves: What can I do to get the film into a local union hall, before groups of younger, working-class men, broadcast on community access television, streamed in battleground states?
Presidential Masculinity
According to a recent USA Today article on the “bro vote,” the Trump campaign says it had identified undecided male voters under 50—they make up about 11 percent of the electorate across the battleground states—according to an analysis in The Washington Post. The group is mostly white.
Polls suggest Trump isn’t winning young male voters by the same margin Harris is leading female voters. The Man Card positions younger male voters to better understand how they are being manipulated to support policies that undermine their best interests.
Polls also suggest the gender gap is wide among young voters. In a recent Harvard poll, it reached 30 percent. This is both because Harris is enormously popular with young women voters—and because young men support her only slightly more than they support Trump.
The Young Men Research Initiative, which Katz cofounded earlier this year, is urging the media to cover the male side of the gender gap. They have also advised the Democratic Party to reach out to young men, who typically get their political information from influencers in the online, misogynous manosphere and social media, rather than from traditional media sources.
The Man Card uses both archival and contemporary footage to illustrate the ways in which presidential masculinity is portrayed, ranging from a cowboy hat-wearing Ronald Reagan cutting brush on his Santa Barbara ranch, to George W. Bush decked out in a fighter pilot’s uniform landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln to (wrongly) declare, “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq.
There’s an asterisk. As the first man/person of color to compete in a general election for the presidency, Barack Obama’s candidacy provoked a vicious racist reaction that helped give rise to the Tea Party. Right-wing extremists cultivated the ground that Trump later fertilized, triggering what CNN commentator Van Jones called “a whitelash against a changing country.”
The Prosecutor Versus the Criminal
For the second time in eight years, a man whose political identity is rooted in both misogyny and reductive ideas about manhood is running against a woman. This time though, instead of a white woman, the opponent is Black and south Asian. And, she’s a prosecutor; he’s a felon.
“The election is shaping up as a referendum on core American beliefs about feminism and masculinity, as well as racial equality and justice.” Katz said. “The outcome will tell us a lot about whether we’re still willing to grant wealthy and powerful white men the license to engage in sexist and racist behavior and get away with it.”
The Man Card asks the question of how white male voters, especially in the swing states, will judge the Harris-Walz ticket. Will they throw their support behind a right-wing movement (MAGA) that promises a restoration of men’s former glory? Or will they reject long-established voting patterns and help usher in a new era, redefining the highest office in the country, and with it our national identity ?
Voters are being offered a stark choice. Trump and Vance promote a rigid masculinity infused with both misogyny and Christian nationalism. They have used bigotry and fear of the other, including lies about Haitian immigrants, to gin up their base. Meanwhile, Harris and Walz represent an evolving expression of leadership—championing women as leaders at the highest level—more suited to the 21st century.
The election “offers voters an opportunity to fundamentally rethink how we define political strength and toughness,” Katz said, “as well as the role gender and masculinity play in our expectations around leadership.”
Until now, the loudest voices in the struggle over which version of gender and power will prevail are those promoting traditional masculinity as key to solving societal problems—including some on the far right who believe violence is both acceptable—and necessary.
Meanwhile, other voices are beginning to be recognized: those of antisexist men who have worked to transform conventional masculinity over the same half-century covered in The Man Card. They’ve been redefining manhood, fatherhood and brotherhood. It’s time they add white male presidents.
To better understand the deeply gendered social, cultural and political forces that Kamala Harris is up against, here’s an idea: Set aside an hour and a quarter and watch The Man Card. Then, take to heart Michelle Obama’s challenge and “do something.” Maybe begin by sharing what you learned with men you know—especially young men.
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