Emasculation Politics: What's Wrong With 'Manning Up'?

— Oct. 15, 2010 -- "Man up, Harry Reid," declared Sharron Angle, facing off Thursday night in a Nevada campaign debate against the senate majority leader.

The sound bite of Angle challenging Reid's manhood was the defining moment of an otherwise unremarkable debate where both candidates repeatedly stumbled over their words.

Many Republicans have declared this the year of the Republican woman, and a number of Republican women have suggested that their opposition would be better at politics if they acted more like men.

To "man up" has become a catch-phrase this year, after Newsweek's provocative cover story about modern manhood, which asserted that the whole country needs to "re-imagine masculinity" and men should abandon traditional perceptions of the man as breadwinner and worker, and adopt a more co-parenting model.

On the campaign trail, women candidates have used those old perceptions to criticize their male opponents.

"Female candidates have traditionally been stereotyped as being less aggressive," said Jennifer Lawless, Director of the Women in Politics Institute at American University. "That can be perceived as weak. When she asserts that he's not as assertive, as aggressive, then she is in a way shoring up her aggressive credential."

She said there is a tacit societal problem when the ideal candidate is a manly candidate.

"This stereotypical notion of masculinity embodied by aggressive politicians is the bar by which we judge who is fit for office," Lawless said.

Angle's challenge was not the first time in this election year that a strong female candidate essentially told their opponent to "be a man."

In Colorado, Republican Attorney General Jane Norton used a TV ad to accuse her opponent, former Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, of running ads against her financed by outside interest groups.

"You'd think Ken would be man enough to do it himself," Norton said in the ad.

Buck responded to the ad several days later by telling a group of supporters, sort of tongue in check, to "vote for me. I don't wear high heels."

Norton's questioning of Buck's manhood didn't seem to raise anyone's alarm bells. But Buck's high heels comment put him on defense through the rest of the primary. He eventually won.

"My opponent has said a number of times on the campaign trail that people should vote for her because she wears high heels, because she wears a skirt, because she's a woman. ... She ran a commercial that said Ken Buck should be man enough to do X, Y, and Z. ... I made a statement, it was a lighthearted statement that I'm man enough, I don't wear high heels and I have cowboy boots on." Buck told CBS.