What do 
men want?

A few days before the election, one of the US’s most respected pollsters announced that a gender chasm had opened in Iowa. Women appeared to support Kamala Harris in previously unimaginable numbers. The news sent a shiver through the pundits, from whom the public had learned to recite the list of “swing states” blindfolded. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania (the “blue wall,” for which Democrats nurtured hopes) and Nevada, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia (the objects of Republican aspiration), were, we had been told, the only ones that mattered in this election; and that was a list from which Iowa – a solid Republican stronghold – was conspicuously absent. If even Iowa was in play because of the women’s vote, could it be that women would save the Republic from Donald Trump and his acolytes? Could it be that women mattered so much that the gender gap would actually swing the election?

There were reasons to believe this might be the case. First, there are more women than men in the US electoral rolls. Second, women have a greater propensity to vote than men. Third, women consistently favor democratic candidates more than men. Fourth, it had become clear that the Supreme Court’s abolition of constitutional protection for abortion rights had galvanized the electorates of even conservative states into demanding protection for women’s reproductive autonomy. So, it was not unreasonable for Kamala Harris’ supporters to tune in to the news, as the results began to roll in, in a cautiously optimistic mood. “She could pull this off”, my friends and I repeated to each other. “It’s not wishful thinking; remember Iowa”. But I turned off the lights before 11.00 PM; the outcome already distressingly clear. Unlike eight years ago, when Donald Trump’s sudden victory took the country (and, it seems, Trump himself) by surprise, this time I was ready. I woke up in the early hours of November 6 to his meandering speech of self-congratulation, believing that the gender gap had not delivered.

I was wrong. The gender gap did deliver, or at least helped to do so, but not in the direction in which I had hoped. As has been the case for many elections, men once again favored the Republican party more than women. Exit polls revealed a ten-point difference between men’s support for Trump (55%) and that of women (45%), but more women voted for Donald Trump than they had in 2020, leading many to wonder why women had veered away from the female contender for the country’s highest office. But the shift was small, and though in the future we will know if we are facing a trend (are women becoming more like men?), in the immediate the gender gap remained significant. Across almost all the major ethnic/racial groups a majority of men supported the Republican candidate. Ironically, Black men proved an exception. While their apparent rightward drift occasioned a stern rebuke from Barack Obama and an impassioned plea from Michelle Obama for empathy, at 78%, Black men provided the strongest male support to Harris. Contrast that with 37% of white men and 44% of Hispanic/Latino men. 

Yes, white college-educated women supported Harris while white women without a college degree voted for Trump. Indeed, as a result, since there are more white women without a college degree than with one, this led to an overall Republican white female vote. Nonetheless, there were signs that the present trends might not portend future results: young women decidedly eschewed Trump. Of those between the ages of 18 and 29, 61% chose Harris, but – in a worrying indication of the state of social relations – only 47% of young men did so. Overall, then, the male gender gap carried the day for Donald Trump while the women’s gender gap could not save Kamala Harris’ candidacy.

Theories of what happened to the Democrats (and, thus of what can or will be two, four, ten years from now) are hotly debated. Many have chided the Democratic party for its putative catastrophic inability to connect with the “ordinary” mass of Americans (somehow glossing over the fact that millions of what must have been ordinary people voted for Harris). The fault is especially said to lie in three directions. First, the economy. The rate of non-core inflation, which concerns staples such as food, does not correspond to the rate of so-called core inflation, which experts generally take as the measure of the health of the economy. At grocery store counters and in gas stations, consumers continued to be hit by bills significantly higher than those they had to pay prior to Biden’s election. 

Whatever the cause – Covid’s impact on supply lines; the Biden administration’s policies – most Americans experienced a decline in their purchasing power of goods on which they count to maintain their everyday lives. The cost of shelter, for example, remained stubbornly high. And although the rates of inflation of food – to take another example – declined shortly before the election, the recollection of the sharp spikes of previous months could well have lingered, accentuating Americans’ pervasive distrust in the Democratic leadership of the economy. 

But, once you consider gender, the explanatory power of this theory is limited. Following a pattern set in previous elections, although white women without college educations – alone amongst all groups of women – voted in the majority for Trump, the majority of non-white women in all ethnic/racial groups (which generally record higher levels of economic disadvantage), did not. It is hard to make a convincing argument about class that ignores a large part of the class about which one is making the argument. While inflation may account for some of Trump’s overall support, it fails to account for the proportionately larger number of women’s votes that Harris’ obtained. (A different economic explanation, centering on Trump’s promise to use tariffs to return manufacturing – and hence manufacturing jobs – to the United States may help explain why Black and Hispanic/Latino working class men supported Trump in unprecedented numbers).

Immigration is often also cited as a cause for the Republican victory. Actually, only 11% of the voters polled considered it the most important issue in the race. While it is notable that 90% of those who indicated immigration as a major concern were Trump voters (as opposed to only 9% of Harris’ electorate), it is difficult to see that this issue was actually determinative. More voters considered abortion their top issue, and again the divide between Trump and Harris supporters was stark. But the most interesting datum regards the referenda supporting abortion rights that passed in seven states, of which four voted for Trump. Perhaps these ballot initiatives allowed the electorate to split their vote – defending abortion as a single issue, but preferring Trump (with his ambiguous stance on abortion) in general. It’s impossible to say whether, had these ballot initiatives not allowed voters such leeway, supporters of abortion rights would not have voted for Harris, who made reproductive rights a key issue in her campaign.

Abortion links to the third factor that is consistently pointed to: sex (or, rather, gender). Democrats not only ran ahead of the people but violated their core beliefs when they ignored deep-seated fears regarding sex and gender. That children might begin to transition in schools without their parents being informed; that girls and women would have to compete in sports against once-biologically male but now gender-identified females; that males would share locker rooms and bathrooms with women: with the help of some wild bogeys that then ex-President Trump liked to agitate, such as that your child goes to school a girl and returns a boy (or vice-versa), Republican rhetoric translated potent but abstract fears about trans rights into Americans’ everyday experiences. 

According to data cited by the New York Times, every time future voters saw an ad that agitated fears of trans people, Trump’s support increased by 2.7%. Further corroboration for this analysis might be thought to come from one of the most interesting data points we have: how parents voted. Indeed, mothers voted for Harris a full 4 points less than women without children. But it was the fathers’ vote that really stood out. Whereas 52% of men generally voted for Trump, 60% of fathers did so. So, more than parental status, this aspect of the vote, too, again highlighted the male-to-Trump gender gap. In fact, 60% of married men (versus 51% of married women), voted for Trump, suggesting that married men’s political gravitational pull towards the Republican candidate was especially strong.

Was this, then, a men’s election? Obviously, not only. It couldn’t be for a simple mathematical reason: there are more women in the electorate, and more vote. Women vote; they do not necessarily vote for women. And, the way they evaluate issues, does not necessarily line up along gender lines. But one thing is clear. This electoral result was led by men.

The Trump campaign assiduously courted the “manosphere”. We will need to understand this extraordinary efflorescence of aggrieved masculinity; in 2024, it helped men ensure the victory of a champion of masculine prerogative. Trump vowed to protect women “whether they like it or not.” “Your body, my choice”, the men of the manosphere, who by now number in the millions, chant, in obvious counterpoint to feminists’ historic “my body, my self.” It is precisely women’s assertion of a right to self-determination that fuels rage in the manosphere, and that rage binds them all as one. They love to hate together.    

But there are indications that the will to return to conventional values is not merely a street-level phenomenon, that feeds on grievance and violence. In the United States and elsewhere, “trad wives” claim immense followings on social media. “New York’s hottest club is the Catholic Church”, an opinion writer for the New York Times reported, recounting trendsetting young influencers who publicize their new-found religiosity. Can the manosphere and trad wives and new found passions for religion all be interpreted as a desire to break the rules of liberal decorum? The willingness to shock – indeed, shock as strategy – that Trump manifested in his campaign has become all the more evident in his nominations to key government positions. A certain respect for the rights of women had become part of the rules of civility; a disregard for them is also a statement of disregard for the politics by which they were informed. 

But, perhaps even more importantly, a willingness to break the rules is essential to Trump’s appeal. “Whether they like it or not”, as he said of his determination to protect women, is the ultimate transgression of liberal norms; it is, also, a hallmark of Trump’s charisma. A charismatic leader, Max Weber long ago pointed out, is such precisely because he disdains convention. To the contrary, he manifests, and maintains, his authority by flouting the rules – and situating all rule-making authority within himself.  Charisma, all liberals know, is dangerous to the politics of reason, respect, and toleration. At the moment, it is men who seem most drawn to a politics of personal magnetism.

In sum, the gender gap in 2024 is a gender gap of men. Whether it will stay that way remains to be seen. There are many pathways to becoming a Trump supporter. Each of the explanations outlined above – the economy, immigration, sexual/gender identity-related norms – plays a role. Why each seems to exert a stronger appeal for men than for women remains to be understood. Perhaps someone will write an essay they will title “what do men want?”. It will provide the solid gender analysis of the recent election we all hope for.