This is why it was important to listen to women (though a lesson that won't be learned). I can tell you that a lot of men that other men perceive as stoic and tough are actually big, fat, whiny babies — because that's how they react to women challenging their authority. https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1264893063480127489

Nichols descriptions of middle American men as stoic, humble, or honorable is a fantasy, not reality. But again, I'm a woman, so I see how so many men subsist on a steady diet of flattery and placation from women.

This is why, in more conservative parts of the country, men tend to fall apart more after a divorce than women. Women have each other — but men only have women for emotional support. And unfortunately, that support is often provided in the form of constant ego-fluffing.

My mother has often joked with me about how many men back home seem rattled by my very presence, even though I'm unfailingly polite. But I know what it is. It's because I look at them like they're just men, not demigods who need constant worship.

I'm polite, but not deferential. And so I see the Trump in a lot of men: That flash of anger, that annoyance that I'm not playing the role expected of me. And so I'm not remotely surprised that such men see themselves in Trump.

You see this in the fight over masks. Are male Trump fans stoically embracing their duty to protect others by donning masks? Or are they acting like vain, whiny babies who throw tantrums at having to show consideration for others?

The stoic American white man who does his duty without complaint or expectation of gratitude has always been a myth. Men may play-act that role for each other, but it takes very little to expose the male fragility that's actually the beating heart of toxic masculinity.