Public History Commons^™

Built Ford Tough: Masculinity, Gerald Ford's Presidential Museum, And The Macho Presidential Style, Dustin Jones

Major Papers

In Cold War America, spanning roughly from 1945-1991, masculinity was in crisis. The rise of Communism and the Soviet Union had led to a fear of spies, infiltrators, and defectors known most commonly as the Red Scare. Americans were encouraged to be hyper vigilant in sussing out deviant behaviour. Alongside this scare came the Lavender Scare. It was suggested that homosexuals were deviant peoples and were therefore more susceptible to being turned Communist than their heterosexual counterparts. This led to a crisis of masculinity where even the smallest suggestion of femininity could lead to accusations of potential compromise, an effect …