The 2020 presidential field is shaping up to have the most diverse group of candidates Americans have ever seen. That there’s a historic number of women leading the pack has been much discussed — and rightly so — along with just how “likable” these women may or may not be. Less discussed, however, has been the historically diverse group of men seeking the presidency, a motley crew of contenders that just got a bit motlier — Hi, Beto! — who could help redefine masculinity and power.

Before you roll your eyes at the prospect of a male journalist interrupting this momentous time for female candidates to remind people that guys are running for president, too!, consider the current and would-be candidates. There’s Cory Booker, with his bear hugs and his celebrity girlfriend and his veganism. There’s Pete Buttigieg, with his military stripes and his schoolteacher husband.

There’s John Hickenlooper, whom this newspaper recently deemed Colorado’s “geek in chief,” and there’s Bernie Sanders, patron saint of the dirtbag left. There’s Mr. O’Rourke, who is avocado toast incarnate — wholesome, trendy, Insta-friendly — and in the still-maybe-but-probably column, there’s Joe Biden, who is closer to corned beef hash.

There are a bunch of others that you’ll have to Google, but the point is, that from woke bros to Cold Warriors, bridge builders to bomb throwers, we have never seen so many different expressions of manhood represented among the top-tier candidates — mostly because Americans have historically been interested in only one kind of man becoming their president.

In their 1976 book, “The Forty-Nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role,” the social scientists Deborah S. David and Robert Brannon laid out the cornerstones of “our culture’s blueprint for manhood:” Be a Big Wheel; Be a Sturdy Oak; Give ’Em Hell; and No “Sissy Stuff” (quotation marks theirs). And that, for the longest time, was what it meant to be a normal American man.

It meant domination. It meant solidity. It meant taking risks and holding back tears, and as a result, most of the men who ran for president fit some version of that mold. Sure, we’d see differences in background and temperament — the war hero (Dwight Eisenhower) versus the egghead (Adlai Stevenson); the outsider (Bill Clinton) versus the insider (George H.W. Bush); the everyman (George W. Bush) versus the elitist (John Kerry) — but by and large, they were white, heterosexual Christian men in pleated khakis.

But men today live lives vastly different from their fathers’. They’re less likely to marry and have children, and when they do, they spend a lot more time with those kids than their dads could’ve imagined. They spend more time cooking and cleaning, and worry about work-life balance and spiritual fulfillment.

They are more likely to cry openly, as John Boehner used to do all the time when he was the House speaker, and they are more likely to practice self-care, as Mr. Booker does with his regular mani-pedis. (His 2013 Senate opponent, Steve Lonegan, tried to make a thing of Mr. Booker’s nail-salon habit. “As a guy, I personally like being a guy,” Mr. Lonegan said. “I like a good Scotch and a cigar.” The thing didn’t become a thing: Mr. Booker won by 11 points.) They are more likely to say “Being a man is, first and foremost, being a good human” and that making masculinity about dominating others is “an old view,” as Barack Obama did last month.

Politics has always been our national fun-house mirror, exaggerating the finer points of real life. And as our social concepts of masculinity have become more expansive and elastic, it was only a matter of time before our candidates began to break free from the Big Wheel model.

This liberation should be celebrated: To see men who embody less traditional models of manhood competing at the highest levels of civic life is good for everybody. (Not that there isn’t still a ways to go: Lots of gender expressions remain unlikely to fly in presidential campaigns.)

It might even be good politics as well: In a Pew Research Center survey last summer, an overwhelming majority of Americans considered “aggressive” and “masculine” to be negative personality traits while “kind” and “responsible” were viewed positively. Which brings us to the current president.

“He is the almost cartoon of an alpha dog,” Glenn Beck said of President Trump recently. “And I think because we have taken alpha dogs and shot them all, when he comes to the table there’s a lot of guys that are out there going, ‘Damn right!’”

Mr. Beck has a point, and we don’t need surveys to tell us that many voters, men as well as women, revel in Mr. Trump’s strongman persona and throwback masculinity. (No diaper changing for that guy!) But we also don’t need surveys to tell us that many voters think he’s a bully and a brute, and when they go to the polls — in the Democratic primaries or in the general election — they’re going to think about what kind of man, and what version of manhood, they might want to see in the White House.

Do we want a man who has threatened to rough up an opponent, as Mr. Biden has done with Mr. Trump? Do we want a man who talks constantly about love, like Mr. Booker? What about a man who promises to stand up to bullies, like Mr. Hickenlooper? So many options, so many possible outcomes. And in the end, voters just might say they don’t want any man in the White House at all.

Richard Dorment is the editor in chief of Men’s Health.

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