Few people expected that the campaign to elect the primary woman president would trigger a referendum on masculinity, but what it means to be a person has develop into.”probably the dominant theme of this 12 months's electionssaid MSNBC's Ja'han Jones.

The debate between vice presidential nominee, Democrat Tim Walz, and Republican JD Vance on October 1, 2024 featured two candidates who not only had different debate styles, but additionally competing views on the autonomy of men and women.

As Political communication scientistI've written about how gender shaped the dynamics of presidential and vice-presidential debates involving opponents of various genders. The 2024 Walz-Vance debate showed how gender can develop into central in a debate between two men.

Trust was a distinguished theme throughout the talk, revealing, perhaps surprisingly, a key difference between Walz, Vance and their respective political parties.

During a lengthy discussion about abortion rights, Vance reiterated his Vice President Donald Trump's assertion that girls make reproductive health decisions needs to be made by the state legislature. Vance then introduced a brand new argument, suggesting that the GOP should deal with winning women's trust by proving that the party can by some means make it more palatable for girls to… not have an abortion.

Later in the talk, Vance said he supports “a family care model that allows for choice,” but that alternative refers to child care options, not decisions about whether to have children.

Walz, then again, urged that girls must have the liberty and confidence to make their very own decisions about reproduction and childcare.

Throughout the talk, Vance subtly suggested that authority and autonomy are the purview of men, underscoring how patriarchy shapes Republican strategy.

Masculinity within the election campaign

Both the Republican and Democratic parties have emphasized masculinity of their campaigns for the White House.

Although Vance and Walz each introduced themselves as typical “Midwest guys”.“They have different opinions about what meaning.

Walz has nicknamed himself “America's father“in a way that’s each recognizable and revolutionary.

esquire reported that it inspired “thousands of social media posts” that “imagined Walz doing nice things reminiscent of a Midwestern father.”

Using the hashtag “BigDadEnergy,” Walz supporters presented“Tim Walz will take your little league team to Dairy Queen even after you lose a game because damn, you did your best” and “Tim Walz also brushed the snow off your car since you were next to him and him “We were parked.” I already had the rattling brush out.”

But he also expanded that stereotype by giving up his status as a patriarch to develop into Kamala Harris's dutiful vice chairman and proving it Pheasant hunting Football coaches can do this too Gay advocate and trans Children.

Vance showed his father's credentials in his speech on the 2024 Republican National Convention, but his status as distinguished member the “Manosphere” – an unofficial network of reactionary men’s groups that promote the supremacy of patriarchy – has given his masculine persona a harsh and harsh edge sometimes extreme Edge.

Independent political groups have also made masculinity a central concern of the presidential campaign. The Lincoln Project — a company made up of current and former Republicans who oppose Donald Trump — recently released one Campaign ad was geared toward moderate swing voters and featured the iconography of the American heartland made famous by President Ronald Reagan's “1984.”“Morning in America” re-election campaign ad.

The ad is voiced by actor Sam Elliott, a frequent on-screen cowboy with a deep bass line, who asks voters, “So what the hell are you waiting for?” Because in the case of women's business, it's time to recover from it . … It’s time to be a person and select a lady.”

The group “White guys for Harris“took a different approach to the same pitch, place an ad with a sassy male narrator who notes that men are “pretty sick of hearing how much we suck,” but claims that “Trump and all his MAGA friends are on the market making every part worse by “Screaming nonsense with their stupid red hats and acting like they're talking to us when they don't.”

The narrator then says that Harris and Walz are “actually talking to people like us” and “offering real solutions that protect our freedoms and help us take care of the people we care about.” The ad concludes: “Ultimately, you are your own boss. It's your decision. “But if someone gives you nonsense, tell them it’s none of their business,” echoing certainly one of Walz’s hottest lyrics Applause lines.

The debate placed Walz and Vance's competing views on masculinity in direct competition as they made their election proposals to draw voters.

Deference and doubling during debate

Before the talk, Washington Post political reporter Ashley Parker wondered if Walz's “flannel-wearing, gutter-clearing, football-coach-everyman-type” might do higher in front of a “friendly rally crowd” than “against an attack-dog opponent.”

Vance, then again, does took on the vice presidential candidate's traditional role of “attack dog.”.” He campaigns by “adopting his boss's playbook of openly engaging with the media and infrequently, if ever, apologizes for what he saysAs Vivian Salama of the Wall Street Journal reports.

But Vance took a distinct tack throughout the debate, making confident but heartfelt claims while magnanimously agreeing that he and Walz shared good intentions for the American people.

He was less magnanimous when talking to women or about women.

Twenty-eight minutes after the talk began, Vance's microphone was turned off after explaining immigration law to presenter Margaret Brennan.

Brennan notably corrected Vance's claim that illegal immigration was harming the residents of Springfield, Ohio, by declaring that the influx of Haitian migrants to Springfield was a product of legal immigration.

After Vance continued speaking beyond his allotted time, producers turned off his microphone. Significantly, Vance broke the foundations of debate as moderator corrected him.

Vance also repeatedly identified that Walz could possibly be trusted, but Kamala Harris couldn’t.

Of course, it's not unusual for a vice presidential candidate to attack the opposing party. Traditionally, this can be a vice presidential candidate's top priority within the vice presidential debate.

But Vance was particularly careful to defer to his white, male counterpart and demand that the black woman leading the Democratic Party was the true problem.

For example, when responding to an issue about housing prices, Walz argued that immigrants shouldn’t be blamed for rising housing costs and responded to a Claim made by Vance about housing in Springfield, Ohio.

Instead of objecting to Walz's fact-checking — as he had previously done with Brennan — Vance said, “Tim just said something that I agree with. We don’t want accountable immigrants for higher housing prices, but we do want accountable Kamala Harris for letting hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into this country, driving up costs, Tim.”

Vance was careful to defer to his white male opponent, but at the identical time he escalated criticism of immigrants and the black woman running for president.

It's a subtle strategy, but one that might potentially be effective with swing voters who’ve responded positively to Walz's “Big Dad Energy” but, consciously or unconsciously, are likely to be skeptical about voting for a female candidate black woman to vote.

Health marketplace Sesame announced Wednesday a brand new clinical weight reduction program that may give eligible consumers access to compounded versions of Novo Nordisk's blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy for $249 a month.

Sesame offers patients the chance to book and pay for appointments with doctors and specialists directly through the web site, thus eliminating middlemen resembling insurers.

The company said it should add semaglutide – the energetic ingredient in Wegovy and Novo Nordisk's diabetes injection Ozempic – to its platform to provide users secure access to treatments for obesity and diabetes, as many branded drugs are briefly supply. Sesame already offers branded weight reduction and diabetes drugs through its platform, including through a partnership with Costco.

However, the corporate’s latest program could function a less expensive alternative to weight reduction because compounded medicines are typically cheaper than their brand-name counterparts. Wegovy and Ozempic each cost about $1,000 monthly before insurance, and most weight-loss programs from competing digital health firms don't cover the associated fee of those drugs.

“Due to this drug shortage, on behalf of the American consumer, we are making a version of compounded semaglutide available to our users… [a] very affordable price,” said Michael Botta, president and co-founder of Sesame, in an interview with CNBC. “In fact, we believe it's probably the cheapest price the consumer can find in a direct comparison.”

Wegovy and Ozempic belong to a very popular class of weight loss and diabetes drugs called GLP-1. They mimic certain gut hormones to curb a patient's appetite and regulate their blood sugar. The popularity of these treatments has exploded in recent years, and some analysts predict that the industry more than 100 billion US dollars of annual sales by 2030.

Supply shortages are one of the biggest hurdles for Novo Nordisk and its main competitor Eli Lilly, as rising demand can make it difficult for many patients to get the drugs. When brand-name drugs with GLP-1 become scarce, certain manufacturers can produce finished products if they meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements.

The lowest dose of Wegovy is in short supply, but all other doses of the drug and Ozempic are available, according to the FDA Database on drug shortages.

Compounded medications are customized alternatives to branded medications that are tailored to the needs of a specific patient, such as when they cannot swallow a pill or are allergic to the coloring of a particular product. These compounded medications can be prescribed under two sections of the Federal Law on Food, Drugs and Cosmetics.

This law created two classes of pharmacies that manufacture drugs themselves. The FDA regulates so-called 503B pharmacies, which can manufacture large quantities of drugs without individual prescriptions. 503A pharmacies, on the other hand, that manufacture drugs themselves, can manufacture individual drugs for individual patients and are largely regulated by the states rather than the FDA.

But both Wegovy and Ozempic are protected by patents in the U.S. and abroad, and Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly do not supply their drugs' active ingredients to outside groups. The companies say that raises questions about what some manufacturers are selling and marketing to consumers.

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have fought back against illegal versions of their treatments, suing slimming clinics, medical spas and pharmacies across the U.S. last year. The FDA also said last month that it had Reports received of patients who have suffered an overdose of compounded semaglutide due to dosing errors, for example because the patients self-administered the wrong amount of a medication.

Botta said Sesame initially “stayed very far away from compounded drugs” because the company felt uncertain about their purity and quality. But the more Sesame learned about The more we see of compounded versions of GLP-1s, the “the stronger their potency, the safer they seem to be. People tend to have good experiences taking them.”

Sesame then sent its teams to inspect several 503B pharmacies that manufacture medicines.

“We have decided to work with a pharmacy that definitely meets our requirements in terms of checking its processes, its quality and its performance,” said Botta.

The pharmacy partnering with Sesame will produce prefilled, single-use syringes, quite than a single vial that patients must measure themselves. Botta said this might help patients “avoid the danger of overfilling a syringe, overinjecting, overdosing — overdosing on this medication.”

To participate in Sesame's new program, patients must fill out an intake form and select a healthcare provider. They will receive a video consultation with the provider, complete some lab tests and receive a prescription if the provider deems it appropriate.

Patients can access ongoing consultations via video chat, as well as a library of content on nutrition, fitness and mindfulness. The content won't be immediately available when the new program launches on Wednesday, but Sesame said it would be available in about two weeks.

Anyone who signs up in the meantime will automatically get access to it once it's available, the company added.

“There are tens of millions and tens of millions of Americans fighting each obesity itself and all of the complications of obesity,” Botta said. “We think it's price connecting patients who would otherwise struggle with the shortage of care.”