The joyful Minnesota governor is a valuable spokesperson for Harris whose background and personality can help the Democratic ticket undermine Trump’s efforts to woo America’s men.
Tim Walz’s first official speech on the Democratic ticket displayed all the reasons that Kamala Harris has been lauded for picking the Minnesota governor as her running mate. Personally, I think one outshines all the rest.
Walz’s military background and his work as a high school teacher and football coach, along with his palpable joy and open expressions of compassion for people in need, offer America a vision of what manhood can look like — he’s a “joyful warrior” offering a vision in contrast with what’s being offered by Donald Trump’s bravado-driven campaign.
And he’s clearly willing to challenge Team Trump on that front. He displayed that even before he received the call to join Harris’ campaign, using public appearances to refer to Trump and his allies as “bullies” who are truly weak at heart and by mocking the GOP ticket for “running for He-Man Women Haters Club or something.”
It doesn’t assume that they are “typically manly” it observes that they are traditionally considered manly. A statement over which there isn’t an argument to be had.
It presents traditionally manly things as a “vision of what manhood can look like” as if it’s revolutionary. It’s trite.
Quite the opposite, it’s a strong and brave position to take when the most visible champions of “manhood” are people who view it as a synonym for mean and dominant— see the current GOP ticket.
People like Gov. Walz stand in distinct and deliberate contrast to this. It’s not trite at all it’s earnest and inviting.
And yet I still think Pete Buttigieg would not get to be a vision of manhood if he were the Vice candidate.
He absolutely would, strong mayor who grew up in the Midwest doing the same sort of stuff Walz did. Pete has a very impressive military career and is a proud father and husband. He’s not a football coach, but has often talked about his love of the game (hard not to love it when you’re the mayor of South Bend). And he’s downright vicious in his “Midwest nice” approach to media hits. Dude’s an amazing picture of all that masculinity can be.
Between their username and playing the Buttigieg Card (I have no problems with Pete) I think you are wasting your time
If the root commentor is being serious, then I think it might be a trauma thing. Their profile specifically calls out being queer, and I can imagine many scenarios in someone’s past where conversations about being “masculine” or “manly” were… un-fun, let’s say. I know I felt some uneasiness as I initially read the headline and article summary due to my own childhood experiences. I’ve been told to “grow a pair” and “be a man” too many times for conversations around masculinity to be easy, and that’s as a bi cis man (I can sometimes appear to conform to the societal norms while being true to myself). I’m sure that it’d be much harder for someone who is gay, nonbinary, or a trans woman.
I dunno. I see trauma in so many things nowadays. Maybe it’s there in this case, maybe it’s not, but I figured I’d call it out. Their trauma and the responsibility for managing it and healing from it belongs solely to them if it exists. If they’re being a bad faith actor, then they can fuck off.
I sympathize, but we are on the same team. They are lashing out at a strawman
You’re probably not wrong, but I’m not busy today.
Don’t you see how your vision of what masculinity can be still focuses on his military service and his love of football?
Maybe he could be accepted by patriarchal heterocisnormative society as an example of masculinity. Maybe. I don’t think it would go that way. I think he’d be treated like a model minority and “one of the good ones”, used to denigrate other gay men for not being sufficiently masculine. His traditionally masculine qualities would be played up and anything that subverted that would be downplayed and ignored.
Play up his role as husband and father, play down his actually existing husband, etc.
I think he would. He’s a gay man who served in the military and is currently starting a family. And he’s been doing that. He’s been doing the TV circuit railing against JD Vance trying to be who defines what masculinity and family values are and emphasizing that all it takes to be a man is to self identify as one, and all it takes to be a family is love
Most media outlets wouldn’t treat him that way because he has a husband, sexist coverage would ensure people only focus on how he’s violating masculine norms instead of portraying his masculinity as legitimate.
That’s probably true. But he’s doing it anyway. I don’t even like the guy but that’s pretty manly going in the face of adversity like that.
And the outlets he’s going on aren’t challenging him. They’re just giving him a platform. It seems like for the most part (except when he goes on Fox, but that’s not “mainstream”) the media outlets are totally accepting Pete Buttigieg is a form of manly. I think we’re actually having a national dialog right now about what it means to be manly. Even this years big pop culture moment of Kendrick v Drake has centered around what it means to be a man (at least in part) with the winning side saying what it means to be a man is to live authentically and not to perform masculinity. I get where the thread starter is coming from that we shouldn’t need this national dialog, because we should be treating people as people and not as totems, but American politics and media culture are intrinsically totemic in nature and so we have to have these national dialogs every so often even if the majority is already advanced beyond that. The fact is that people awaken to truths slower than others because of the cultural context they exist in, and right now the feminist and men’s liberation movement have a major opportunity to take center stage and show what preferred pronouns, gender identity, and acceptance are about.
It’s positive but he isn’t being portrayed as manly or daddy the way Tim Walz is, though, and I do think that comes down to sexism - specifically patriarchal heterocisnormativity. He’s gets to be a model minority, that’s it.
Lacking originality is exactly what one might argue “traditional” means.
It’s trite to decent people of the world, sure. But for maga types who associate traditionally manly things with asshole behavior, aggression, anger, bigotry, being emotionally distant, and ignoring one’s own flaws rather than working on them? They could learn a thing or two if they actually paid attention.
You’re still missing the point. The “vision of what manhood can look like” isn’t his military service or his football coaching. It’s everything that isn’t that. It’s realizing that things that traditionally have or haven’t existed in the commonly accepted vision of what manhood is don’t have to be. It’s recognizing that Tim Walz self identifies as man, and he lives an authentic life that includes all manner of interests and cares that aren’t “traditionally manly.” The first step to realizing that manhood is socially constructed is celebrating men who are vast pools beyond that. You and I already know that, but America at large doesn’t. It’s like how Auntie Diaries is an extremely progressive rap song while being basically where we’ve been since at least a decade. It’s not so much about where everyone is, but about where everyone is.
You’re missing my point, which is that he is recognized for his military service and coaching as a way to justify his other qualities.
If he was a professional dancer and long time peace activist he would not be celebrated as manly or daddy.