man to be reckoned with. Trump was a real man. Clinton? A nasty woman.
No doubt working-class men felt threatened by the change that Clinton symbolized and
promised more of. As working-class people, they value stability and tradition—including
gender traditions—rather than gender flux. Moreover, men in general, and working-class
men in particular, tend to ramp up displays of manliness when their masculinity is
threatened.^194 This effect will emerge to the extent that working-class men feel
embattled as breadwinners and belittled as men. Many feel both.
Does Trump’s victory signal that working-class men are sexist? It’s not as simple as that.
When it comes to gender equality, elite men tend to talk the talk but don’t walk the walk;
working-class men walk the walk but do not talk the talk. For example, the average
working-class man is less likely to espouse egalitarian than his professional-class
counterpart; but he spends more time caring for his children than does his elite
counterpart.^195
In one study, blue-collar emergency medical technicians were far more involved in family
life than were white-collar physicians. They shared children’s daily care in ways the
doctors did not: they picked up kids from school, fed them dinner, stayed home when
they were sick. Some turned down overtime completely: “Family comes first for me,”
said one, repeating the common working-class refrain. Many regularly consulted with
their wives before accepting overtime, and turned down shifts when their wives objected,
in sharp contrast to the physicians. Emergency medical technicians regularly swapped
shifts to accommodate their family demands, and many “seemed happy with their
schedules because they allowed the EMTs to participate in childcare.”^196
Jennifer Sherman also found shifting attitudes toward gender roles among the working
class in the rural California community she studied. Being a good man had been redefined
as jobs left the community. Back when the mill was going strong, being a good man
meant providing for your family; if you went out and drank with the guys and slapped the
wife around a bit—not a problem. No longer. As jobs became scarcer, and more and
more men were permanently unemployed, families redefined being a good man as being a
good father, which was defined in terms of contributing to children’s care, and keeping
off drugs and alcohol. Domestic violence was no longer tolerated.^197
At the other end of the class spectrum, a survey of Harvard Business School MBAs found
that elite men still have fairly traditional views of whose career should take precedence.
Robin Ely, Pamela Stone, and Colleen Ammerman summarized their research thus:
- Is the Working Class Just Sexist?