To Mark, my good friend, and to my many men friends who are uncomfortable with the possibility of Hillary as President,

Looking at our candidates purely on the basis of merit, intent, and leadership in public service, Trump, for me, is clearly the lesser candidate; in fact, for all his apparent willingness to disrupt  (but not really transform ) certain status quos, he shows up too often as a kind of a disaster waiting to happen: disregardeasy to characterize as a self-centered liar,  a thousand times a cheat and thief as a businessman, and an opportunist who so often dwarfs in number and consequence Clinton’s  share of “lies and mistakes.” Other than as with all Presidential candidates, they both are fiercely ambitious (with ambition having its own problems), their track records in serving the public interests seem to be a sharp contrast.

So I have come to suspect that something way more than good ole clean and pure comparative merit is going on—something about Clinton as a woman —- and a certain kind of woman: tough, maybe seems sometimes to be arrogant, or entitled to lead, or ‘better than,’ maybe seems a bit contrived or scripted  at times, and has occasionally distorted facts (like the ‘attacked at the airport’ scenario)  Yet I suggest that these shortcomings in a man would be seen as “all in a day’s work,” “a necessary evil” in order to get the job done. But not so with Clinton.

Not that men have anything going on with women leaders.  Notice how welcoming and supportive men have been with generating those myriad women leaders we have emerging in the C-Suites Fortune 500  (up to 17 %. Wow! over 35 years since they began seriously knocking on the doors of leadership.)

I suggest to you, guys, that your dislike of Ms. Clinton may not be as innocent or as meritorious as you think. Preconceptions and bias  are very, very, very difficult to see. Preconceptions and prejudice are a lens, a filter; we see t h r o u g h it; we don’t actually see IT in our field of vision or in our thinking. Because this lens, or framework, or set of assumptions are transparent to us, they are invisible to us. Bias for the most part almost never registers with us consciously, yet it is there. We human beings have preconceptions regarding almost everything with which we are familiar, mostly unaccounted for as preconceptions or biases.

And many if not most men are certain that we are familiar with, know all about, who women “really are.”

A good chunk of our male reaction to Hillary may have to do with her being a tough-minded leader, ambitious enough to withstand bias over time, and thus she shows up as unfamiliar to men and that unfamiliarity is mostly unwelcome. Some of us might call such a woman simply a ‘demanding bitch’ as if she is only a taker and not at all a giver which we men especially prize in ‘our’ women.

Consider : Men, we have been and are used to having power and decision-making rights pretty much all to ourselves for thousands of years. We have had 90%+ of the power 90% + of the time. This often leaves us threatened by powerful women, many of whom may be better at actually governing, demonstrating inclusivity and  consensus-building, better than we are.

Worse, most men are unwilling or unable to confront or consider that they can be deeply threatened by, unfamiliar with  and emotionally uncomfortable with ‘powerful,’ effective women, especially those who do not go out of their way to curry men’s favor. (Tammy Wynette’s song, ‘Stand by your man’ may be really great day in and day out, but not always, and a Presidential race is a ‘not always.’)  Their tough minded ness can seem quite readily to disallow their being feminine. Angela Merkel .recently or Geraldine Ferraro, from the 1980s, are two, who could seem that way to some men and by most assessment’s, men and women, Merkel was an exceptional leader. We men almost never, ever acknowledge feeling threatened., especially by a woman. That would be unmanly. And what the hell is a man do with that? As writer/speaker, Jordan Peterson says, a man can’t pick a fistfight with a woman. So a man might belittle or undermine her work and cast off-handed aspersions about her character or ability, all of which Trump does almost  constantly.

The kind of woman some men would accept as a leader is a fantasy. Gorgeous, thoughtful and kind, that kind of “she” would likely never, ever develop (in today’s world) the toughness and resilience to be a serious candidate or contender and therefore a genuine “threat” to us, as men.

Know, Mark, that I share deeply and fully your celebration of men and our “masculine arts”: sports, wilderness, service including even heroic service, the building trades, raucous humor and play, fathering, creativity, self-reliance in The Outback of deep nature.  Masculine energy  at its finest.  Because of that shared nature, I hope you seriously consider this. I have observed men (including myself ) over a good many years, and I am convinced that unconscious or semi-conscious bias is often in play  unseen and unsaid, taken for granted. …..by some of us men towards women and yes definitely of some women towards men. Simply considering what each of us ,men and women, children and adult, has in place with women, men, races, money, origins, histories, religions, begins to break up the dismissive views and fixed mind sets we each sometimes take on, allowing of almost no new learnings or realizations.

I know you may not  agree. But consider chewing on this possibility for a day or two, and take some looks at what’s happening through this lens I am pointing to…. sleep on it, and see what distills over several days versus your immediate reactions. And let me know what distills down, once you do.

Maybe, just maybe, we can be men, fully men, wholeheartedly men, full expressed, and be led by a woman with the wherewithal to become President of the United States.