The year in undead sexist cliches

Echidne links to two posts from Media Matters, one looking at the massive sexism vented in right-wing media during 2013, the other at various proclamations from Fox News that America is becoming too wimpy. The stuff in the first post is the kind of sexist venting I’ve covered a lot in the past, but it’s really creepy how often right-wingers equate prosecuting rape with “criminalizing male sexuality.”
I’ll get to that in a later post, but for the moment let’s look at the wimpiness list. Among the things that will sap American’s bodily fluid—er masculine strength—are teaching kids yoga (not competitive enough), kids not being scared their dad is going to wallop them, changing the name of the Washington Redskins, interns refusing to work for no pay, sports helmets to prevent head injuries (in the other Media Matters post, Limbaugh complains protecting NFL players from concussion is a sign America’s becoming “chickified.”) and coaches who try to pressure their team with homophobic slurs.
One obvious conclusion is that “wussification” and all the other phrases meaning the same thing have become, like communist, fascist and socialist, a catch-all insult on the right. How exactly is changing the name of the Redskins to something less racist “wussification”? The same way Obama is a socialist, a Community and a fascist simultaneously. Because they’re generic right-wing insults that have no more meaning than calling someone a poopy-head.
The worries about wimpiness also reflect the fears Soraya Chemaly writes about here, that boys/men are only allowed a narrow range of behaviors before they become Too Girly and that getting out of that range is Baaaaaad.
I think it also reflects the right-wing fear of disorder, of blurring the lines, of grey areas. In the authoritarian worldview, the world divides into clear categories, good and bad, black and white. Mixing Type A and Type B is a crack in the dam that holds back chaos: blur the lines, civilization falls. Even if the line is as simple as when it’s acceptable to wear pajamas.
This is something that comes up a lot in the religious right’s analysis of family dynamics. Mothers and fathers have complementary roles, each doing a job that’s necessary and that the other parent can’t and shouldn’t fill (which is why gay marriage supposedly can’t work: you have one parent trying to do the other gender’s work). Even having the father do housework, I read some years ago, is bad: it blurs kids’ ideas of gender roles. And that would be destructive.
In that light, stuff that blurs gender roles—women in combat, women playing football—is unsettling.
And of course, the idea authority figures (cops, coaches, fathers) shouldn’t be able to bad-mouth, belittle or humiliate those under them flies in the face of authoritarian views of leaders too.
I’ve no idea whether all those media personalities really buy into that view or if they’re just saying what they assume the audience wants to hear. But not really believing it themselves is no excuse.