Jen Psaki: Kamala Harris' husband Doug Emhoff 'reshaped the perception of masculinity

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On “Positive Masculinity”

Does Tim Walz represent a new “enlightened archetype” of men?

Newsweek published “Tim Walz, the Kelce Brothers and a New Era of ‘Positive Masculinity’”:

Many know the term “toxic masculinity” and think of the overly dominant, often aggressive personality that shapes the discourse… But now, it seems as though we’re headed toward a softer kind of masculinity, with politicians talking about fertility, football players dancing to Taylor Swift and a renowned Paralympic athlete cheering on his wife as she won Olympic gold.

[Positive masculinity] is thought to have been co-created in the early 2000s by Matt Englar-Carlson, founder and director of the Center for Boys and Men at California State University, Fullerton. He told Newsweek that the idea “creates space to realize that there’s multiple ways to be a man.”

I looked up Englar-Carlson and found him speaking in a webinar called “Introducing Positive Masculinity.” It was led by Dr. Ray Swann, host of something called, no kidding, the Understanding Boys podcast. Take down those Scarface posters; here’s your introduction to the new masculine ideal:

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The idea that Harris-Walz is a home for a new “positive” or “healthy” masculinity is everywhere. “Tim Walz, Doug Emhoff, and the Nice Men of the Left,” is the inevitable Rebecca Traister headline in New York. In The Bulwark, Mona Charen’s The Man Child vs. the Man’s Man asserts the Harris candidacy is “honoring the positive side of masculinity,” while the Washington Post hails Walz as “America’s Dad,” the man you want under the hood when “Masculinity’s check-engine light” goes on. Author Monica Hesse exults that Walz represents “tonic masculinity,” a “Confident. Decent” man who’s been seen “gleefully holding a piglet at a fair,” but who once can also imagine “wearing a headlamp up in the attic fixing some old wiring.” Quoting a meme:

Tim Walz beeps at you at a red light, motions for you to put your window down, and tells you that your right rear tire could use some air.

No man with a spine would go near the term “positive masculinity,” since it implies there’s something wrong with masculinity. A woman who agreed to bask in cheers of men calling her an example of “positive femininity” would rightly be viewed as pitiable if not an outright traitor to her sex by other women. While the spectacle of Walz fawned over by a gaggle of female columnists fantasizing about him being led in a choker cradling a pig and wearing a hardhat is hilarious, it mostly makes men cringe, or want to organize an Entebbe rescue. Are Democrats so scarred by Bill Clinton that they have to put tank traps around anything with testes?

Republicans may not have the archetype nailed, but at least “man”isn’t a bad word over there.

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Didn’t he frick the babysitter in his last marriage?

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