Remembering the macho: yes supporting Iraq was all about manly men and the women who drooled over them

The American Enterprise Institute recently invited six spirited women to come to our offices to talk about the condition of the male species.

For comparison’s sake, we asked many of the same questions we posed to the male panelists in our previous symposium (see “Men on Men” on pages 24-27). Karina Rollins moderated the discussion.


The participants:

Mona Charen, nationally syndicated columnist
Jessica Gavora, author of Tilting the Playing Field and new mom
Charlotte Hays, editor of The Women’s Quarterly
Kate O’Beirne,Washington editor of National Review
Naomi Schaefer, fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Erica Walter, at-home mom and Catholic writer

KARINA ROLLINS: What is your overall assessment of masculinity today?

KATE O’BEIRNE: Generally positive--as it always has been, despite the efforts of the elites. And September 11 made it more difficult for liberals to criticize traditional male characteristics and virtues.

ERICA WALTER: Manliness has experienced a renaissance for two reasons: The Bush/Cheney administration has set the tone for the political culture. And 9/11, of course. Why did America fall in love with soldiers and firemen and traditional male occupations? Because we realized we’re at risk. The comeback of manliness is here to stay as long as national security is an issue.

JESSICA GAVORA: I am distressed by the degree to which feminism still carries political weight. Even under the current administration there is a continuing belief that groups like the National Organization for Women speak for women. And men are discriminated against in public policy, as in federal legislation like Title IX, the program to bolster female athletics in college. In the private realm we’re in better shape.

MONA CHAREN: Women used to rely on gentlemen to protect them from louts and predators. Then feminists decided that sisterhood will protect women and give them power in the world, and they dumped all men into the “bad” category. That made it much harder for men to perform their traditional role of protectors of women. I was in college when feminism was reaching its apex. In the1970s at Barnard College, the kinds of young men one met there were confused. They had no idea what they were doing or supposed to be doing in regard to women. After college, I went to work at National Review and found that conservative men were not confused.

CHARLOTTE HAYS: The modern-day loss of respect for manliness is an aberration. Men and their virtues have always been prized. The great epics aren’t about women and their virtues. The post-9/11 love affair with police, firemen, and soldiers is a return of normal relations between men and women. Most people today never needed to be carried out of a burning building. But once they see 3,000 people that need to be rescued, they know it takes men.

O’BEIRNE: We were reminded on 9/11 and again during the military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq that we depend on manly characteristics to keep us safe. Every single one of the dead firemen heroes on 9/11 were men. This was one group where liberals didn’t ask why there wasn’t a more pleasing gender balance. Because the Upper West Side is not fireproof. What happens in combat in some distant field is abstract to Upper West Side liberals, but they can understand the need to have strong, brave, reckless men in their fire department.[...]

ROLLINS: Are today’s parents raising warriors or wimps?

SCHAEFER: When men aren’t inculcated with manly virtues they don’t become wimps, they become hoodlums. Recently I found myself walking around Manhattan in the aftermath of the Puerto Rican Day Parade: hordes of post-adolescent men wandering around, leering at women, making rude comments. That’s what happens when you don’t have fathers. It’s not that boys become gay and effeminate and go work for the New York Times.

O’BEIRNE: Pat Moynihan warned us about predatory males being raised by single moms.

ROLLINS: What is your definition of virility? Does it have a role in political leadership?

WALTER: It’s a nebulous quality for a political leader. Bill Clinton was virile—in a very sleazy way. There’s also the sex appeal of someone like Don Rumsfeld. President Bush possesses this intangible something—you really saw it on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Testosterone and camaraderie—many people responded to it. In George W. Bush, people see a contained, channeled virility. They see a man who does what he says, whose every speech and act is not calculated. Bill Clinton showed a lot of outward empathy and he was very articulate but I don’t think many of us would have trusted him with our daughters.

GAVORA: If virility equates with strength, then there is no question that Bill Clinton lacked it completely. Bush has shown that he has it. His willingness to go after terrorism root and branch despite the widespread opposition among our European allies and even some at home, and to withstand that pressure, is strength. Bill Clinton made surface gestures. He refused to go against the media, popular opinion, the pinstriped boys at the State Department, because he lacked that strength.

HAYS: The most masculine man I ever knew was my grandfather, who supported seven children and never failed to stand when a woman came into the room. Bill Clinton is virile, but he’s not masculine or mature. He never became a grown man.

O’BEIRNE: When I heard that he grew up jumping rope with the girls in his neighborhood, I knew everything I needed to know about Bill Clinton. There’s no contest between Clinton and Bush on masculinity. Bill Clinton couldn’t credibly wear jogging shorts, and look at George Bush in that flight suit.

ROLLINS: But why do so many American women love Bill Clinton?

SCHAEFER: You can learn a lot jumping rope with girls. It won’t make you sexually attractive, but it will make you a more effective, patient listener.

O’BEIRNE: Bill Clinton did understand, from the matriarchy he grew up in, how to appeal to women in that modern way.

HAYS: Clinton could feel your pain like one of your girlfriends. But he could never make a decision like Bush has had to make. He would still be trying to negotiate with the terrorists. The use of force, which until recently was passé, has come back. Clinton couldn’t use force except in a motel room.