Sharmila Parmanand is a PhD candidate in Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Gates Scholar.
Pandemics are political. Decisions around framing the problem, prioritising solutions, and increasing state powers need scrutiny. I contribute to the conversation on the politics of public health emergencies by using a feminist lens to examine the performance of masculinity in several national leaders’ responses and suggest the ways in which this may structure the public conversation and the possibilities for action. United States President Donald Trump, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who are known for their bravado, coarse language, and aggressive political styles, responded to initial reports about COVID-19 with strong confidence and denialism. Their responses evolved as death tolls rose and public pressure mounted. I also examine the differences and shifts in their performance of masculinity.
Stage 1: The Invincible Man
On March 11, the World Health Organisation characterised nCOV as a pandemic. Despite this, Trump and Bolsonaro complained about media “hysteria” over nCOV. Trump kept shaking hands, even during the press conference in which he declared a national emergency over nCOV. On March 15, Bolsonaro held a large rally and defiantly shook hands and took selfies, despite being asked by the health ministry to self-isolate after being exposed to nCOV after a presidential trip to the US, where he met Trump, and they both made a show of shaking hands. In early March, the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson declared that he was shaking hands with everybody in hospitals, including nCOV patients. He has since acknowledged the gravity of the pandemic. However, Bolsonaro in early April continued to describe the coronavirus as a “little flu” and walked around the capital to visit markets and shake hands with supporters.
Their stubborn attachment to the handshake, even as it violates public health warnings, is not accidental. The handshake is an essential visual ritual in the performance of male strength. In business, handshakes are gendered: a firm handshake is a sign of confidence and a limp one is a sign of weakness.[1] Despite the virus proving dangerous for people within their age range, Trump, 73 and Bolsonaro, 65, are defiantly shaking hands, signaling courage and confidence in their own virility, unlike their “weaker critics” who are too scared of a virus. As Cauterucci writes, “Rejecting an outstretched hand, or failing to proffer one, would make Trump look like a scaredy cat, a sissy cowering in the face of a microscopic threat.”[2] Submitting to health precautions in a very public way would be emasculating as it implied an admission of personal vulnerability.[3] Trump’s February 28 rally in South Carolina, where he characterised nCOV as a hoax, and Bolsonaro’s continued public appearances, are an assertion of invincibility. In this vein of bravado, Bolsonaro proclaimed that his background as an athlete had him covered.
In Asia, nCOV was already causing deaths outside China as early as January. On February 3 when WHO had reported 17,931 cases across 23 countries, Duterte held a briefing where he condemned the “hysteria” of those who criticised him for his delay in imposing a travel ban on flights from China to the Philippines, which he did on February 2, after initially imposing a ban only on flights from Wuhan, China. Prior to the ban, there was an average of more than 300 flights between different cities of China and the Philippines every week.[4] On March 9, Duterte made the familiar declaration that he would not stop shaking hands.
Bolsonaro and Duterte not only rejected the possibility of their own physical frailty but also extend this conception of virility to the national body: On February 11, Duterte remarked that Filipinos will have to “rely on how strong the antibodies of the Philippines are” and that “Filipinos don’t get sick easily. Bolsonaro, too, has declared Brazilian bodies to be superior. On March 27, when Brazil’s nCOV death toll reached 77 and 3000 cases were identified, Bolsonaro boasted about the immune systems of Brazilians, saying they can be dunked in raw sewage and “don’t catch a thing”. He also declared that many Brazilians had likely been infected in previous months and had developed antibodies to the disease, which would prevent an outbreak.
These leaders reflect well-documented harmful health paradigms related to masculinity that associate preventive health care or visiting a doctor with weakness. Despite some cultural variance, men are less likely to seek medical care when they are ill or to acknowledge and report symptoms of a disease or illness.[5] In the case of nCOV, that meant avoiding the appearance of vulnerability by denying the threat until it became impossible to dismiss. They stigmatised public concern and caution by characterising it as a hysterical overreaction. Hysteria is a charge historically levelled against women who spoke and behaved in ways that were deemed unacceptable for their sex.
While there has been resistance to their dismissive approach within their countries, there is a cult of personality around them and they have strong propaganda capabilities. Thus, the initial (and ongoing) macho posturing of these leaders may have contributed to a sense of complacency within their populations and some state agencies. This can be seen in the relatively severe lack of nCOV testing capacity and lack of protective equipment for health workers. Trump’s rhetoric also tapped into the militant Christian masculinity of the religious right. Well into March, evangelical pastors were urging people to continue congregating and characterised other religious leaders who endorsed social distancing as “pansies”, and “losers”, who have “no balls”, feminising and stigmatizing scientific and careful approaches to public health.[6] Health officials have warned that religious gatherings pose a high risk for nCOV transmission.
Stage 2: Strongmen versus the pandemic
As evidence of danger mounted, they have had to shift gears. On March 12, with military and police officials on his side, Duterte announced a community quarantine for Metro Manila. Even Bolsonaro has cracked in his denialism, but held on to his macho style: “We’re going to tackle the virus but tackle it like fucking men – not like kids”, he said on March 29.
On March 18, Trump called himself a “wartime president” willing to make difficult decisions such as shutting down the economy and invoking the Defense Production Act to commission US companies to produce essential equipment for the US market at the expense of foreign buyers.[7] By invoking the war metaphor, Trump can deploy the language of sacrifice. Indeed, he said that “every generation of Americans has been called to make sacrifices… and now it’s our time”.[8] He can also continue to use language such as “Chinese virus” to stoke nationalism and portray nCOV as a foreign threat rather than one that was made significantly worse by his administration’s underpreparedness.
Most of Duterte’s public comments on nCOV generally highlight the role of security forces in maintaining order and punishing those who fail to comply with quarantine.[9] Public health and social welfare mechanisms are generally underspecified. He has metamorphosed from the invincible man to the tough protector of the nation. Duterte’s critics were now no longer constructed as the fearful and cowardly actors that they were when they asked for swift action to protect lives. He is now the protector, and by questioning his rulings, they are the ones who stand between the nation’s life and death as it battles a deadly virus. Once more, they are the ones who must be silenced.
Broader Perspective
It is useful to compare these performances of masculinity with more calm, technocratic, and caring approaches of leaders such as New Zealand’ Jacinda Adern and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both unequivocally acknowledged the severity of the threat early on and provided an honest account to their publics of what is yet unknown about nCOV, unlike the bombastic assertions of Trump, Bolsonaro, and Duterte about the virus being non-threatening. Adern stressed the need for strength and kindness. Merkel appealed for reason and discipline. She drew on her experience growing up in communist East Germany to acknowledge people’s anxieties around giving up hard-won freedoms, but explained that as a scientist she also respects the facts.[10] These counter-examples demonstrate that governance strategies grounded in transparency and a focus on public health are possible and can generate public trust and support.
[1] Sheryl Hamilton, “Hands in Cont(r)act: The Resiliency of Business Handshakes in Pandemic Culture,” Canadian Journal of Law and Society 34, no. 2 (2019): 347.
[2] Christina Cauterucci, “The Masculine Bluster of Trump’s Coronavirus Hand-Shaking Tour,” Slate, March 13, 2020, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/trump-still-shaking-hands-coronavirus-handshake.amp.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Shi Yinglun, ed., “Philippines expects to attract 4 mln Chinese tourists annually by end of 2022,” Xinhua, December 20, 2019, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-12/20/c_138646442.htm.
[5] Peter Baker, Shari Dworkin, Sengfah Tong, et. al., “The men’s health gap: men must be included in the global health equity agenda,” March 6, 2014, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/8/13-132795/en/.
[6] Ibid.
[7] James Brady, “Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing”, March 18, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-5/.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ronald Holmes and Paul Hutchcroft, “A Failure of Execution,” Inside Story, April 4, 2020, https://insidestory.org.au/a-failure-of-execution/.