NEW RELEASE! The Man Card gives context to how gender and power are shaping the 2024 presidential race
When Kamala Harris squared off against Donald Trump on the presidential debate stage last week, she wasn’t just taking on a man who has built his political career on amped-up displays of hypermasculine aggression and bravado.
As only the second woman ever to win her party’s nomination, she was also up against nearly 250 years of history in which presidential leadership, and the office of the presidency itself, have come to be linked in the American imagination with traditional ideas about manhood and masculinity.
If you’re interested in taking a closer look at these dynamics, don’t miss our new film The Man Card: 50 Years of Gender, Power & the American Presidency, a fully revised update of our 2020 film of the same title.
We’re thrilled to announce that the The Man Card is now available, just in time to make sense of the explosive gender politics shaping the 2024 race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Created and co-written by acclaimed author and political analyst Jackson Katz, and directed by award-winning filmmakers Peter Hutchison and Lucas Sabean, The Man Card takes account of Harris’s unexpected entry into the race and explores the deeply gendered cultural and political forces that confront women who run for high office. Ranging across five decades of presidential campaigns, the film also shows how the Right has weaponized regressive ideas about manhood for decades to cast their opponents as “soft” and appeal to working-class white male voters at the level of identity rather than policy. The Man Card is required viewing for anyone who wants to understand why it’s been so hard for a woman to be elected president, and why outmoded ideas about masculinity and power have become central features of American presidential politics.
Praise for The Man Card
“A vitally important and timely new film.”
— Jean Kilbourne | Senior Scholar, Wellesley Centers for Women
“Fast-paced and compelling … Sure to generate a lively discussion about politics and masculinity in gender studies and American government courses.”
— Dr. Valerie Sperling | Co-author of Trumping Politics as Usual: Masculinity, Misogyny, and the 2016 Elections
“Essential viewing for not only every gender and politics course, but for any and all students of American politics….Raises important questions about the inherent and not-so-subtle masculinity of the American presidency and what that means for women seeking the office.”
— Dr. Lori Cox Han, PhD | Author of Women, Power, and Politics
“Shows how Presidential politics in the U.S. has been driven not just by dog-whistle messages against people of color and women, but also by overt endorsements of narrow, destructive and unhealthy conceptions of white men’s masculinity.”
— Dr. Michael A. Messner | University of Southern California | Author of Guys Like Me: Five Wars, Five Veterans for Peace
“Methodically shows that Trump’s strategy to connect masculinity to presidential politics is nothing new. This is a must-see documentary for anyone interested in American politics and contemporary democratic struggles.”
— Dr. Farida Jalalzai | Professor of Political Science, Associate Dean of Global Initiatives and Engagement, Virginia Tech University
“A vitally important documentary to more completely understand the gendered and racialized ideologies shaping political polarization in the U.S.”
— Dr. Tristan Bridges | Associate Professor of Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara and co-editor of Men and Masculinities journal
“The history lesson we need!”
— Jason Rogers | Writer, Olympic medalist, LA-based writer
