When Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2016, there were many Twitter posts from celebrities and influencers describing poignant reactions from their young children. The posts were too on-the-nose, and people called bullshit. This time, it’s “Just So” stories purported to have been written by high school girls or teachers.
These first popped up on Reddit, and discussed it here.
Now, “Just So” stories are appearing in corporate media. This one in the Guardian is typical.
Guardian: Boys are different now that Trump has won.
This is allegedly written by a high school senior. Since I have taught smart high school seniors for 25 years, this commentary didn’t seem authentic. If there isn’t enough actual oppression to go around, we can invent some.
When we walked into school on the morning of 6 November, we exchanged quick glances with the other girls in our social circle – looks filled with uncertainty and dread about the future. Because we are applying to colleges all around the country and about to leave our homes in the Hudson Valley, political issues suddenly have begun to feel a lot more personal.
When girls walk in to school each morning, the quick glances are too see what the other girls are wearing, and judge how they measure up. Early admissions for college happens in November. Smart girls are writing college essays and personal statements, not writing to the Guardian.
Access to abortion and contraception, protection of the environment, and the growing hate and violence toward marginalized groups all have the potential to greatly impact our lives. We had only brief conversations about why Trump’s victory felt so defeating, but our shared disappointment stuck with us as we walked to our first period classes.
High school students are very self-centered. They should be. In six months, they will graduate and enter the real world. Not really, smart kids are going to college, but it a different world. What they do now, can effect their path in life. They know that, and don’t feel prepared.
Young adult women are interested in abortion. High school girls are wondering if boys will be allowed into the girls locker room. They have friends who are promising athletes, who may be pushed aside by an unpromising boy who chooses to compete in their sport.
But as we sat down at our desks, we noticed a very different attitude among our male peers. Subtle high-fives were exchanged and remarks about the impending success of the next four years were whispered around. It didn’t make much sense. We live in a mostly liberal town in the Hudson Valley where Harris-Walz signs were posted outside of most of our friends’ houses. This is not to say that families with dissenting opinions don’t live in our town. But the boys that were the most vocal in their enthusiasm about the election results have progressive parents just like ours.
I don’t know what a subtle high-five looks like. High school boys don’t really high-five like elementary school children. High school boys also don’t whisper.
The author spends no time wondering why boys from progressive families might be thrilled about Trump’s election. Most parents of boys, are wondering if their kid is too active, or not active enough. Progressive parents want boys to be more like girls. Hearing about toxic masculinity from your mom for 17 years can be very discouraging.
As these startling observations made us look back on the last couple of years, we started to realize that maybe this wasn’t as unexpected as we thought. An increased interest in pursuing the ideal masculine appearance by going to the gym and the creation of new male-dominated social activities like the infamous exclusive poker nights had seemed innocent and had been easy to write off as typical boyhood behavior.
It isn’t clear who the ‘we’ is in this paragraph. Obviously the author switched to a collective perspective to not sound like a single, crazy person.
People only go to high school once. It may take longer than expected or it may be at several schools, but students don’t have the perspective to see how high school students now, are different than they were ten years ago.
The peculiar behavior of boys can be explained by the completion of puberty and the acquisition of a driver’s license. The smart nerd stereotype doesn’t hold up. About half of my AP students were varsity athletes. There is nothing sinister about high school boys hitting the gym. When students get a driver’s license, they have more opportunity to choose their social activities. Why wouldn’t boys want exclusive poker nights to escape the furtive glances and perpetual dread of socially aware girls?
But now all that seemed as if it was just the beginning of a new wave of male conservatism that was infiltrating our school. Obsession with achieving a more muscular body through excessive exercise and intense dieting fueled by ridiculous social media campaigns fell far outside the realm of healthy self-care. And the desire to socialize only with other boys stood in stark contrast to the co-ed activities we were accustomed to since childhood.
With the election of Trump, the mundane behavior of boys was now seen as an ominous portent of male conservatism. The author’s perspective has changed, not the boys. The author continues to reframe all of her prior experience with boys.
It hadn’t taken long for this focus on machismo to creep into these boys’ mindsets and conversations. Seemingly harmless disrespectful comments with witty undertones toward girls became commonplace, and feelings of traditional male dominance started to sneak back into our friend groups. Upon reflection, we both recall speaking about stereotypically masculine interests or topics and then hearing snickering exchanges between the boys in the room followed by targeted belittling retorts disguised as trivial jokes. It genuinely felt as though they viewed us as unintelligent or even inferior. During science lab our male lab partners read the directions aloud to us, and we had to remind them that we could actually read.
Boys can be jerks, but they are overt. Girls can be mean, but are more cunning.
I have no idea why a boy acting as a responsible and helpful lab partner, is objectionable. It isn’t. In Physics, we did a lab a week. Boys are more likely to start touching stuff, before reading the lab procedure. Had the author complained about that, it would have sounded more plausible.
What we saw now was that all this was the result of an obsession – perhaps somewhat subconscious – with preserving an idea of traditional masculinity that both Biden and Harris threatened, in different ways. As an older, frail individual, Biden was an easy target for Trump’s aggression. While Trump’s comments seemed like an attack on Biden’s age and mental competence, they also incorporated indirect attacks on his masculinity that influenced this impressionable demographic of young men. And when contrasted with Trump’s pumping fist after the assassination attempt in July, Biden was appearing weaker and weaker while Trump was solidifying his representation of traditional male heroism.
The author keeps using the word, “traditional”, with no insight or understanding. Traditional masculinity may be inherent male characteristics. In every animal species, males and females have different roles, instincts and behavior. Why would that not be true of humans?
Biden is a frail and weak man. He attempts to overcome this with strong words like bragging that he is a “pretty damn good athlete” and saying that, “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”
Trump’s reaction to the first assassination attempt was truly illuminating. Trump was shot in the ear, then dog-piled by Secret Service agents. He had the presence of mind to stand up and give a short comment to the crowd. If it wasn’t witnessed by everyone, that scenario would read like a masculine fantasy. It happened, and is inspiring.
Similarly, when Kamala Harris replaced Biden as Trump’s opponent, his goal of making his adversary seem “weak” was much more straightforward, exacerbated further by Harris’s prioritization of women’s rights in her campaign. Still, because our town is considered such a progressive bubble, we never thought the tone of the election was connected to the changes we were observing in our male peers. But Trump’s calculated direct focus on young boys was strong enough to win them over.
Harris and other progressives demonize men and White folks. It would be helpful if the author backed up her claim that Trump focused on young boys. They can’t vote. Looking at exit polls, the only groups that Trump didn’t win over is Blacks, queers and single women.
While these are just observations within our own high school, we believe that this is happening across the country. Young, well-off white boys from liberal families are being tempted by conservatism simply to protect an archaic idea of masculinity that guarantees them inherent power. It is not as if they are against abortion, or care much about the economy or immigration, or even feel remotely attracted to the rest of conservative dogma. But clearly, a shift back toward traditional gender roles is resonating with them now as progression toward female empowerment threatens their already delicate self esteem.
Why would well-off white boys have delicate self-esteem? They are constantly told that we live in a patriarchy, so they should be pleased with their future prospects. Perhaps they are told that their masculinity is archaic, but they are given nothing to replace it with.
So how do we address this, going forward? How do we ensure that young boys practice critical thinking instead of falling victim to Trump’s rhetoric with its focus on recommitting to gender stereotypes that we believed had finally been eradicated?
The author doesn’t have any idea what critical thinking means. If boys naturally triumph in the old, eradicated system, why wouldn’t they prefer that? The author is wondering why boys won’t sit down, shut up and accept their subservient position in society.
Parents, we urge you to be aware of this growing phenomenon and teach your children about the dangers of calculated political movements designed to further one politician’s agenda. Until we do so, it is likely this pattern will continue. Boys in our school as young as eight are beginning to exhibit these same misogynistic tendencies that we never remember noticing when we were their age. And the most dangerous aspect of this is how little it’s talked about in mainstream media and how easily it has been overlooked in progressive communities. In fact this is an epidemic that will continue to spread rapidly until we start talking about it.
If an eight year-old girl is noticing misogynistic tenancies in eight year-old boys, a whole bunch of shit has already gone wrong. An eight year-old boy has no idea what the hell he’s doing or how the world works. He is beginning to figure it out. If an eight year-old girl is expected to observe, judge and condemn the behavior of other children, she has been manipulated by feminist dogma.
So look closely because these boys will be among the voters responsible for deciding our future elections.
The author gives the impression that perhaps men can’t be trusted to vote. That would be the simplest solution. It isn’t clear that the author has a problem with tyranny, as long as she is the tyrant.