Answer:
The presidential election of 1960 occurred as the United States approached the height of a
period of cultural anxiety referred to as the “masculinity crisis.” During this time, the masculinity
of young American men became a point of concern as questions were raised about their
perceived weakness relative to those in the east. This study explores the potential impact of that
cultural context on the outcome of the narrowly-won 1960 election. Using Linguistic Inquiry and
Word Count software, standardized “masculinity quotients” from each candidate were compared
using gendered linguistic standards established by Newman et al. (2008) and a formula to
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quantify linguistic masculinity derived from Slatcher et al. (2007).
Explanation:
