Free Form Friday: Be a Doug, not a Ken
Free Form Friday is my weekly non-Bowie post. Come back tomorrow for more David Bowie.
—-
How can a man play second-fiddle to a woman without losing his own masculinity, purpose or relevance? In 2024, this should be an absurd question, but sadly it isn’t. Interestingly enough, the recently concluded Democratic National Convention set out to provide an answer. And to that end, I think it succeeded.
This occurred to me while watching the speech of Doug Emhoff, the first Second Gentleman in American history. Doug gave the kind of speech I’d aspire to give if I was in his shoes. He was bursting with pride and support for his best girl. He talked about how he fell in love. He talked about how she became part of his family, which already included two children. I don’t know everything there is to know about the Emhoff family dynamic, but the message was that he was a responsible father despite a divorce, and that the Harris-Emhoff relationship was about more than Kamala and Doug.
Doug Emhoff is professionally accomplished in his own right, but he didn’t spend much time talking about his own career. In not doing so, he projected to me a kind of confidence that he didn’t need to do so. The night was Kamala’s, and Doug was secure enough in his masculinity to keep the focus on her and their partnership. So, right off the bat, he demonstrated love, self-confidence, responsibility, modesty and a willingness to help. These, to me, seem like good traits for a man.
They are good traits for a woman, too, but the question is more urgent for men considering two alternate models. The first and most immediate is the model presented at the Republican convention. Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and Hulk Hogan. Domineering, demeaning, violent, mean. You know the score. It would be the easiest thing in the world to list out all the stereotypical paleo-masculine tropes these guys, and really everyone I saw during that convention, were trying to personify. If this isn’t obvious or needs more explanation—- I don’t know where you’ve been living for the past ten years or so.
The other model comes from a different place— the Barbie movie. Barbie did not promote the ideal of the MAGA man (Cro-MAGA man?) Indeed, the Cro-MAGA men hated Barbie as anti-male. And in a sense, I kinda get it. Ken in the Barbie movie is depicted as a useless accessory, who when given the slightest opportunity to exert authority, ruins the world in a pastiche of the very type of macho cliches that were actually celebrated at the Republican convention. Ken was insecure, lusted for validation and was overshadowed by Barbie. He struggles with his identity, seeking recognition and a sense of purpose. The world was only made right when the female doll-people regained dominion and put the men in their place. Though it was a zero sum game, the wrongs of patriarchy could only be overcome by placing the single shoe on the other foot. Ken is not a model. I found Barbie to be amusing— but what was a little boy to make of it?
A little boy— or fully adult man— would have a lot more to make of the messages coming out of the DNC.
Doug Emhoff was not the only male role-model at the convention. Tim Walz — coach, veteran, hunter, marksman, father, governor, straight white guy— he willingly accepted the role of number two. In the days since taking that role, he’s shown no sign of trying to steal Harris’s thunder. But neither has he resigned himself to be a Ken-like accessory. Instead he’s once again demonstrated familiar responsibility, commitment to public service, and civic engagement.
President Biden, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be nominated for re-election himself, presented his decision to pass the torch to Harris as the ultimate act of leadership. Some observers of the 1968 race suggest that Lyndon Johnson subtly tanked his Vice President— Hubert Humphrey’s campaign to replace him. Tensions between Al Gore and Bill Clinton probably helped elect George W. Bush. Biden hasn’t stopped being president or being relevant, but he’s demonstrated how to continue being useful while promoting a successor who just so happens to be a woman.
And then there were the Clintons, the Obamas and Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. The six of them spoke on totally equal footing. Alongside their individual messages, these couples demonstrated mutuality.
All this is great. In the end, the DNC offered a version of masculinity that contrasts sharply with the chest-thumping faux-machismo celebrated by the other guys, or the simpy uselessness of a male doll literally made to be the the plaything of little girls. The men of the DNC demonstrated that there is male strength to cultivate, but it comes not from domination but from collaboration, humility, and self-assurance. In this model, men are neither accessories nor tyrants but partners who find fulfillment in shared success. It’s a vision that moves beyond the insecurities of Ken or the insecurity-masking bravado of Cro-MAGA men, offering a better way.