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ABSTRACT
This essay explores how ageism and youth supremacy have informed the anti-masking attitudes and actions of toxic white masculinity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I argue that because elderly populations have been particularly vulnerable throughout the pandemic and because face masks often connote this vulnerability, white masculinity has sought to maintain power by resisting masking, and therefore, avoiding being perceived as old. By analyzing Donald Trump’s anti-masking rhetoric from his 2020 U.S. Presidential campaign, I show how toxic white masculinity’s resistance to masking is an effort to present itself as youthful, with youth tied to notions of power, whiteness, and health.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Marina Levina and Robin Boylorn for their constructive, encouraging, and insightful feedback on previous drafts of this essay.
Notes
1 Arwa Mahdawi, “Men are Less Likely to Wear Masks-Another Sign That Toxic Masculinity Kills,” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/16/men-masks-coronavirus-protests-masculinity-kills (accessed June 9, 2021).
2 Savannah Smith, “Unmasked: How Trump’s Mixed Messaging on Face-Coverings Hurt U.S. Coronavirus Response,” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/calendar-confusion-february-august-trump-s-mixed-messages-masks-n1236088 (accessed May 22, 2021).
3 Meredith Neville-Shepard, “Masks and Emasculation: Populist Crisis Rhetoric and the 2020 Presidential Election,” American Behavioral Scientist (2021): 11.
4 Rachel Alicia Griffin, “Black Women’s Intellectualism and Deconstructing Donald Trump’s Toxic White Masculinity,” in Interrogating the Communicative Power of Whiteness, Eds. Dawn Marie D. McIntosh, et al. (New York: Routledge, 2019), 69–93.
5 Deborah K. van den Hoonard, “Aging and Masculinity: A Topic Whose Time Has Come,” Journal of Aging Studies 21 (2007): 280.
6 Josep M. Armengol, “Aging as Emasculation? Rethinking Aging Masculinities in Contemporary U.S. Fiction,” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 59, no. 3 (2018): 363.
7 Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 2017).
8 “Older Adults,” CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html (accessed May 22, 2021).
9 Rebecca J. Gorges and R. Tamara Konetzka, “Factors Associated With Racial Differences in Deaths Among Nursing Home Residents With COVID-19 Infection in the US,” JAMA Network Open, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776102 (accessed November 1, 2021).
10 Marc Lamont Hill, We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, & Possibility (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2020): 48.
11 Sofiat Akinola, “COVID-19 Has Worsened Ageism. Here’s How to Help Older Adults Thrive,” The World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/covid-19-has-worsened-ageism-here-s-how-to-help-older-adults-thrive/ (accessed May 22, 2021).
12 Adrianna Rodriguez, “Texas’ Lieutenant Governor Suggests Grandparents are Willing to Die for US Economy,” USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/24/covid-19-texas-official-suggests-elderly-willing-die-economy/2905990001/ (accessed May 25, 2021).
13 Gullette, Ending Ageism.
14 For example, see: Helaine Olen, “President Trump and the Age of the Grumpy Old White Man,” The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/06/13/president-trump-and-the-age-of-the-grumpy-old-white-man/ (accessed January 2, 2021).
15 Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Aged By Culture (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2004).
16 Donald J. Trump, “Joe Biden is SLIPPING.” Video, 0:30, June 19, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=567240220641329 (accessed June 1, 2021).
17 Jack Shafer, “Is Joe Biden Too Old?," Politico, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/02/joe-biden-age-media-227499/ (accessed May 25, 2021).
18 Shafer, “Is Joe Biden Too Old?”
19 Crystal Hill, “Trump Mocks Biden for Wearing Masks: ‘Every time you see him, he’s got a mask,’” Yahoo! News, https://news.yahoo.com/trump-mocks-biden-for-wearing-masks-every-time-you-see-him-hes-got-a-mask-022635582.html (accessed May 22, 2021).
20 Neville-Shepard, “Masks and Emasculation,” 8.
21 Gabriela Spector-Mersel, “Never-aging Stories: Western Hegemonic Masculinity Scripts,” Journal of Gender Studies 15, no. 1 (2006): 76-77.
22 David C. Oh, “Elder Men’s Bromance in Asian Lands: Normative Western Masculinity in Better Late than Never,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 35, no. 4 (2018): 353, emphasis in original.
23 Jacqueline Howard, “Biden and Trump: Why Doctors Say Attacks on Age Can Be ‘Dangerous,’” CNN Health, https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23/health/biden-trump-age-attacks-doctors/index.html (accessed May 25, 2021).
24 Liz Plank, “Trump Leaves Hospital Amid Covid Treatment, Revealing Dangers of Toxic Masculinity,” NBC News THINK, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-leaves-hospital-amid-covid-treatment-revealing-dangers-toxic-masculinity-ncna1242066 (accessed May 22, 2021).
25 Melissa Quinn, “Trump says, ‘Don’t be afraid of COVID’ as US Death Toll Tops 210,000,” CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-covid-19-dont-be-afraid-death-toll-210000/ (access June 10, 2021).
26 Dawn Marie D. McIntosh, et al., “Introduction: Introducing Twenty-first Century Whiteness or ‘Everything Old is New Again,’” in Interrogating the Communicative Power of Whiteness, 5.
27 Art Paiper, “To Begin Addressing Racial Bias in Medicine, Start with the Skin,” STAT News, https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/20/to-begin-addressing-racial-bias-in-medicine-start-with-the-skin/ (accessed October 13, 2021).
28 Helen J. Hutchins, et al., “COVID Mitigation Behaviors by Age Group—United States, April-June 2020,” CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6943e4.htm (accessed October 13, 2021).
29 Abby Haglage, “CDC: Young People are Most Unlikely to Wear a Mask,” Yahoo! News, https://www.yahoo.com/now/cdc-young-people-most-likely-not-wear-mask-190030605.html (accessed October 13, 2021).
30 DeMicia Inman, “Trump Campaign Running Ads That Make Biden Look Older,” Yahoo! News, https://news.yahoo.com/trump-campaign-running-ads-biden-192740020.html (accessed June 6, 2021).