Undead sexist cliche: we need masculine leadership

As Jesus and John Wayne details, the religious right’s embrace of toxic masculinity is built around the idea that society has become too feminized, too soft, too girly. Women have too much power and we have to fix that by making society masculine and patriarchal again because patriarchy is soooo awesome! Spoiler: patriarchy is stupid, unjust and generally shit. Nor is the world so dominated by women that being a misogynist jackhole makes you a cool rebel.

As you know, the whole point of calling these posts (and my book) Undead Sexist Cliches is that these arguments have been around forever. But Moira Donegan’s column about the right-wing’s opposition to women voting points out that one of the arguments is that women are just too nice. They care. They have empathy. They don’t support the ruthless domination and violence that the strong, realistic men know is necessary to protect them. They’re “resentful about sex and status, insecure about their masculine identity, engaging in juvenile fantasies of power and dominance.”

These guys are the movie villain who sneers that compassion is a weakness. Well, compassion for the “undeserving” — I’m sure they feel entitled to compassion from others. “Fascist parties always glorify the virtues of manliness (by which they typically mean some form of brutality) and despise the supposed weakness of womanliness (how they interpret empathy, moderation, and compromise).”

This gets to become a circular thing. Being ruthless and cruel is supposed to be manly, therefore being ruthless and cruel is commendable. Pete Hegseth’s “War Department” gunning down innocent fishermen is just being strong and powerful, according to TechBro Joe Lonsdale who thinks we should go further: “We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes. And yes, we will do it in public to deter others. Our society needs balance. It’s time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable.” (It may not be a coincidence that he’s a co-founder of Palantis, whose current CEO wants to make war crimes legal).

The more cruel you are, it appears the more butch you are. And this isn’t a fringe position. The Heritage Foundation a few years ago put out a Project 2025 promotional video in which a woman staffer (see, they can’t be misogynist!) said the foundation wants to end recreational sex and restore consequences to sex. There is no reason to advocate for that other than thinking women are enjoying sex too much — because lets face it, they ain’t thinking of consequences falling on men. It’s always going to be Hester who wears the scarlet letter. And they have no problem with teen pregnancy if the teens are married.

Now the foundation has hired the odious woman-hater Scott Yenor who thinks we should once again be a world of public men and private women. As the National Organization of Women says, Yenor “has pushed for employers ‘to support traditional family life by hiring only male heads of households.’ He has openly called for a return to the English common-law concept of ‘coverture marriage,’ in which women lose the right to vote, work in professions, or hold property—ceding all authority to their husbands.”

I can’t say I’m shocked — for the right wing, Yenor’s the mainstream — but I am repulsed.

I’ll leave with this quote about educating women from Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelley), courtesy of Matriarchal Blessings: “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.”

For more of me venting about the loathsomeness of misogyny, check out Undead Sexist Cliches in paperback or ebook.