Laurie Essig started receiving texts this year asking whether she was the gender studies professor at Middlebury College. When she responded that she was and then asked who was sending the messages, the replies startled her.
“They were texting me to tell me that although men had temporarily lost the sex war, they were going to win it,” she said.
Essig’s cellphone had been doxed on Reddit following comments she made to the New York Times about men struggling and falling behind in college.
The unwelcome texts were just one of a growing number of misogynistic incidents on campuses at a time when more college men are embracing the Republican Party and its brand of masculinity.
Over the next few months, Essig received a couple messages a week from young men, some of whom blasted her views on gender, sexuality and feminism. Others showed genuine curiosity about her comments.
“They didn’t call me names and it wasn’t the worst trolling in my life,” said Essig, who formerly taught gender studies in Russia. “I think they were kind of young and lost and sad.”
BETRAYAL AND FEAR
The spike in sexist behavior on college campuses surfaced during a heated presidential campaign in which gender took centerstage.
President-elect Donald Trump often came under fire for wielding sexist insults against Vice President Kamala Harris and courting misogynistic speakers at his rallies.
At a Madison Square Garden rally in October, one speaker compared Harris to a prostitute, declaring she “and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” In Greensboro, North Carolina, after a rally attendee yelled that Harris “worked on the corner,” Trump laughed and said, “This place is amazing.”
Harris and other Democratic candidates also used gender to paint Republicans as anti-woman and present a bleak future for reproductive rights and other women’s issues if Trump won a second term.
Essig noted at Middlebury College, following the Harris’ election loss, comments such as “your body, my choice” and “shouldn’t you be getting fitted for your Handmaid’s outfit?” appeared on the social media site Yik Yak, which allows students to make anonymous posts only viewable by others at the college.
The Vermont school wasn’t alone. The day after the election, the terms “your body, my choice” and “get back in the kitchen” saw a 4,600% spike on X, according to a study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
One parent said her daughter was told three separate times on campus “your body, my choice,” and another group of boys told her to “sleep with one eye open tonight,” according to the study. At the University of New Mexico, a Reddit user reported women were being harassed by gangs of men in MAGA gear telling them to “go home where they belong.”
In another incident at Texas State University, two men not affiliated with the college were escorted from campus for holding signs that said “Women Are Property” and “Homo Sex Is Sin.”
Witnessing the surge in misogynistic behavior and reading sexist comments online have left some young women feeling disillusioned and alone, according to Rebecca Ewert, a Northwestern University sociologist who teaches a class on masculinity.
“There’s kind of this feeling of betrayal,” she said. “They’re expressing fear, anger and feeling alienated from people they consider to be close, people from home or even friends on campus.”
POLITICS TURNS MASCULINE
Sylvia Slotkin, a Northwestern sophomore and Democrat studying journalism, said she experienced those feelings after the election. One conservative male friend mockingly told her “Sorry, Trump won” as a way to insult her.
“Others were posting like, ‘Boohoo, the liberals are crying’ and just being so tasteless,” she said. “When people think of toxic masculinity, they think of bottling up emotions, so they’re making fun of these people crying because their candidate lost. That was definitely jarring.”
That kind of condescending behavior from men is becoming more mainstream at her campus, Slotkin explained, and the culprit can be found in the kinds of social media that college men consume.
Slotkin pointed specifically to Joe Rogan, a hugely popular podcaster with millions of listeners, and social-media personality Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports media. Both appeal to a bro-culture, male-centric sensibility sometimes associated with college Greek life.
During his campaign, Trump courted those influencers, giving interviews that ranged from discussions about policy to speculation about the existence of UFOs. Others asked Trump whether he’d ever been in a fist fight.
Boosting his appeal to young men, Trump attended testosterone-fueled events such as Ultimate Fighting Championship competitions. He was introduced to the Republican National Convention by Dana White, head of the UFC. Hulk Hogan attended and tore off his shirt.
Such campaign strategies tap into a growing male perception of politics as an expression of masculinity. The Survey Center on American Life found in 2022 that 54% of Republicans described themselves as “very masculine,” compared to 33% of Democrats.
In 2022, nearly 40% of college men identified as Republican compared to just 21% who considered themselves Democrat, according to College Pulse’s Future of Politics survey that included interviews with more than 1,500 undergraduate students.
Men in the 18-29 age range, in particular, say it’s personally important that others perceive them as masculine or manly. Nearly half reported feeling that way and also reported they believe American society has become “too soft and feminine,” according to the Survey Center.
The fallout of those views was clear after the election. About 56% of young men voted for Trump. The number was even higher, 63%, among young white men.
Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center, believes the survey findings are tied into Republicans’ attempts to reassert aggressive, unapologetic and dominant politics — the kind of masculinity defined by Trump.
“I don’t have a hard time believing that certain Republican candidates can attract support from young men,” he wrote in a survey analysis. “… Young men today are adapting to behavioral requirements foreign to older generations of men. It can be disorienting.”
Andre Rocker, a Northwestern junior wrestler studying political science, said for college guys who might feel insecure about their masculinity, right-leaning social media influencers provide a playbook on how to be a man. The influencers’ support for Trump and his sexist behavior made it easy for many male students to vote for him.
For Slotkin, the journalism student, the connection between Trump and the rise in misogynistic comments and incidents on college campuses is even clearer.
“Trump’s presidency will impact so many women so negatively,” she said. “I think, just inherently, if you voted for Trump, that is a sign of toxic masculinity. There’s no other way to slice that.”
‘A DEAFENING SILENCE’
The impulse of some liberals to define all male Trump voters as toxic is actually causing serious harm to young men, argued Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men.
The notion that college males have shifted their views on gender equality and become more sexist isn’t supported by data or surveys, he maintained, and it’s a “fatal mistake” to think those who voted for Trump now are more likely to denigrate women.
“I think it’s incredibly important that we don’t let the exception get characterized as the rule,” he said. “We are in danger of throwing a generation of men under the bus completely falsely as a new generation of misogynists.”
For many young men, the left’s rhetoric about “mansplaining” and patriarchy is unwelcoming and sometimes feels like a personal attack, argued Reeves. That carries over to their perception of college, which some view as liberal bastions where men are blamed for society’s inequities.
Today, fewer men than women enroll in or finish college, and men are far more likely to kill themselves while at college, yet university leaders have done little to reach out or support them, according to Reeves.
“There has been such a huge blind spot on the left and at progressive institutions, including colleges, towards the genuine challenges of men,” he said. “The deafening silence on men’s issues on the left has made … college-age men feel somewhat politically homeless and up for grabs.”
Enter Republicans, whose messaging during the campaign was crystal clear: They like the things most men like, and they like men, Reeves explained.
Rocker, the Northwestern wrestler, said when that messaging is packed with not-so-subtle sexist undertones, it can normalize bad behavior toward women. He sees it happening with some of his peers.
“I do feel like, generally, our youth is not going in the right direction,” he said. “I think that direction is sort of reverting on our treatment of women as human beings.”
Trump and other Republicans have also used gender issues to generate deep concern among conservatives that colleges are attempting to “turn kids gay” and promote what some call deviate behavior, argued Essig, the Middlebury professor.
That fear played out in Indiana last year when the GOP-controlled legislature stripped state funding for Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, which researches sex, gender and relationships. In Florida, new legislation eliminated diversity programs and severely restricted gender, race and sexuality studies at state-funded colleges.
Women who don’t live by traditional gender roles — including college women — are increasingly targeted by male misogyny and sexism, argued Essig. That’s why she found it jarring, but not unsurprising, when anonymous texters began attacking her work in gender studies this year.
“It’s a really easy way of tapping into very fragile and wounded masculinity,” she said. “I think about how compelling that rhetoric is for young men, because actually naming the real problems they face is far more complicated.”