MILWAUKEE — Wrestling legend Hulk Hogan ripped his shirt off on stage as he called Donald Trump a ”gladiator.” Eric Trump led the crowd in a roaring “Fight!” chant, recalling his father’s reaction to being shot less than a week ago. Kid Rock picked up the chant in a song that called Trump an “American badass.” Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, said he knows the “tough guy business, and this is the toughest, most resilient human being.” 

The stage was set for Donald Trump to formally accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president in a speech that leaned heavily on aggression and bravado, anchored on the former president’s story of surviving the assassination attempt and his belief that the nation faces threats only he can fend off. 

“I am the one saving democracy for the people of our country,” Trump said in a speech at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum on Thursday before the Republican Party faithful. “The planet is teetering on the edge of World War III. It’s time for a change. … We’re dealing with very tough, fierce people. We have people who are a lot less than fierce,” added, referring to the administration of President Joe Biden. 

A day earlier, Trump made a grand entrance into the convention to a reverberating rendition of “A Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” the dramatic R&B hit that credits men with the major inventions of modern civilization, while saying it all means “nothing without a woman or a girl.” 

Republicans nodded to their disadvantage with women voters in the first presidential election since the end of federal abortion rights with a lineup of women speakers who contrasted Trump’s brash masculinity by describing a man who is loving and has used his power to support them. But throughout, the GOP convention put on display the party’s version of masculinity that has shaped Trump’s time in the public eye, from his cultivated image as a playboy in New York to his campaigns for office. This cycle, it is again at the center of his party’s case for his reelection. It’s also key to a Trump victory: Polling shows Trump has a significant advantage among men — 27 points in a New York Times/Siena College survey of registered voters — that surpasses Biden’s advantage among women.

The images of a bloodied Trump with a fist in the air moments after an assassination attempt on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, became a fixture of this convention. The image was reprinted onto t-shirts and signs, and the moment was echoed in the “Fight! Fight! Fight!” chants that erupted from the crowd throughout the week. 

Edward Young, 64, of Branchville, New Jersey, was walking around Fiserv Forum wearing a t-shirt with the image and the words “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Young said his friend had made 500 shirts the day before and sold them within hours. Trump’s reaction after being shot and wounded in the ear, Young said, would surely deliver him a victory in November. 

“The Republican convention is just making it totally explicit that the project of Trumpism is centrally about masculinity,” said Jackson Katz, who has studied masculinity as a fixture in American politics and is the creator of the documentary “The Man Card: White Male Identity Politics from Nixon to Trump.” 

“Strong versus weak. Our party and our guy embodies strength, and the other side, the Democrats, embody weakness and failed masculinity. That, to me, is the central theme of the convention,” Katz said.

These gender dynamics were on display on Wednesday, when the theme of the night — “Make America Strong Once Again” — was paired with official signs held by people throughout the crowd that read, “Trump = Strength, Biden = Weakness.” 

“He’s strong. He’s the strongest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever known,” said Eric Maher, 55, of West Chester, New York, at the convention Thursday. 

Melissa Heldman, who has long studied masculinity in presidential politics, said that in the United States, masculinity has amounted to a “central requirement” for winning the presidency. “The idea of the president as the hypermasculine father protector figure has been with us since the start,” Heldman said. Trump’s brand of masculinity, she said, has been that of an aggressor and open bully more “than probably any previous president.”

Heldman said the allure of masculinity especially resonates with men in particular during times of turmoil or cultural shifts that empower women, underrepresented racial groups and the working class. But it’s also not anathema to women voters, particularly White women conservative voters, who have historically supported conservatives.

These are the voters who put Trump into office after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual assault and harrassment, a long history of demeaning comments toward women, and the publication of a tape from “Access Hollywood” in which he bragged about grabbing women by their genitals. Their votes could again put him into the White House, even as women’s support for many Republican candidates has slipped since the Supreme Court’s conservative super-majority, a legacy of Trump’s presidency, ended federal abortion rights.

The week’s convention has not been without contrasts. While Republicans and Trump have continued to embody the hegemonic version of masculinity that has defined his hold on the party and the country, attendees and observers also noted an effort by women speakers — and Trump’s teenaged granddaughter — to soften his image in a way that seemed geared toward women supporters.

The speeches offered a shift in the tone that has long surrounded Trump rallies and events, and painted Trump as a loving patriarch, and as a protector and champion of the women in his inner circle. 

Kai Trump, 17, Donald J. Trump Jr.’s oldest child, described a grandfather who called to check in during school hours and asked about her golf swing. Her speech picked up on a thread laid by her aunt Lara Trump on Tuesday night, who described Trump as “an amazing grandfather.”

Kellyanne Conway, a high-ranking official in Trump’s White House, described Trump as a champion of her success and that of other women. During one senior leadership meeting at the White House, she said, Conway realized many of the women at the table were juggling work with parenting kids. “Show me a C-suite in America where five working moms of 19 young children could have the highest rank in the company and work alongside the president,” she said.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary under Trump, quieted the room with a story about how, after she was criticized by a TV host, Trump “pulled me aside, looked me in the eye, and said ‘Sarah, you’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re tough, and they attack you because you’re good at your job.’” 

Carrie Ruiz, the golf general manager at Trump National Doral, said the former president promoted her to the job, calling it an unconventional decision in a field dominated by men.

But despite anecdotes about Trump empowering the women around him, his search for a vice president ultimately came down to a group of men. 

In interviews, convention-goers described the image of Trump they saw emerging as the candidate heads into the general election. 

“In 2016, there was something about him that I liked — the just raw, real man,” said Ruth Smith of West Bloomfield, New York. Over the first couple of nights at the convention, she said, women like Lara Trump presented a softer side she found heartening, and that once brought her to tears. But, she said, “he’s a businessman, he’s got that side of him that has to be tough.”