Writing at Matriarchal Blessing, Celeste Davis argues persuasively that a lot of men don’t like women. Their real emotional connections are too other men and what they do is for the approval of other men. Who may be very judgmental in assessing whether you’re manly enough.
This is a topic I’ve seen before, that masculinity is performative, for an audience primarily of other men. In Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller’s book on rape and (though the term wasn’t in vogue then) rape culture, she mentions studies that show guys in a group will egg each other on in talk, making it dirtier and more misogynist. Or the accounts of Brett Kavanaugh assaulting Christine Blasey Ford and putting drugs in booze at parties. Most of them seem to involve other guys watching, participating and giggling.
In this worldview, a man’s toughness isn’t measured by “to hell with you, I’ll do this my way.” It’s measured by how well you conform to the standards other men set. Submitting to the group standard is the manly way. Or as Davis quotes Liz Plank, ““The smallest transgression of traditional masculinity, leads to huge, enormous acts of rejection from other men. Often from the men they care the most about.”
As Davis says, some men are all in on toxic masculinity. They freak out when it’s questioned because it’s how they define manhood. At the other end of the scale, some men walk away from that bullshit; they’re the ones who can be friends with women. In between is a large chunk who’ll take their cue from the men they hang out with, are led by or look up to. If those men expect performative masculinity, the chunk will deliver — which, I imagine makes them also uncomfortable about criticism. An article I read recently (but don’t have handy) proposed that while unconventional boys suffer from not living up to masculine standards, a lot of guys who have to work to meet them do too. They live with the possibility they’ll screw up and fall short or that other guys will spot their secret unmanly behavior. Which is not healthy.
Misogyny is one of the things that draws men to the far right: “A big chunk of the alt-right is populated by social misfits who have been repeatedly rejected by women and are bitter about it. This makes them suckers for leaders who assure them they aren’t misfits. What’s really happening—and this can be a very beguiling story—is that women toy with them and laugh at them as part of a deliberate ploy to emasculate strong men and keep them from their rightful leadership positions. Because of this, a bitter resentment of women runs through almost every strain of the alt-right.” You can see a less toxic version of this (but still toxic) in comics artist Tony Harris ranting about what bitches sexy cosplayers are.
As Davis points out, a lot of men who dislike women and treat them badly don’t suffer for it (here’s one example). There’s a default assumption of “himpathy” or “dude process” for guys who get accused or reported of sexual harassment— it’s cancel culture if they suffer a penalty! Do we want women to destroy these men’s careers? Which is another way of saying they should suffer no penalty at all. It’s no surprise that guys who are sexist or misogynist but not that bad can get away with it — as in the classic “sure it was bad what he did but it’s not like he’s Harvey Weinstein!”
Another factor is that like often calls to like. There are lots of misogynists and sleazeballs out there, some in positions of authority; it’s no surprise if they identify with guys like themselves. When accused harasser and sexual assailant Lester Moonves was in charge at CBS, Charlie Rose was doing a lot of harassment on his own and not getting caught; Moonves seemed perfectly fine with Donald Trump’s sexism too. Ronan Farrow has wondered if NBC rejecting his expose on Weinstein (published later as Catch and Kill) was because his producer at the time was a sexist ass who didn’t find Weinstein all that bad.
As Brooke Binkowski says at Wonkette, “misogyny — along with racism and antisemitism — is the greatest security issue that the American people face today, because the people entrusted with maintaining our information ecosystem are presenting skewed versions of the world to the rest of us, because they are not examining their own biases and the cultures that produce them. Their failures affect how we see everything in the world, especially since we don’t really have a way to track down actual vetted information any more.To put it another way, misogyny doesn’t just make you stupid. Structural misogyny makes us all stupid.”
For more on the stupidity of misogyny, you can check out Undead Sexist Cliches, available in ebook or in paperback.
