Introduction

This is an offshoot of the thread of the medieval moment by @Amity and with contributions from @Vera Mont, @unenlightened, @DifferentiatingEgg and @Tzeentch among others. As I am late to the party and want to address a slightly different topic I started a new thread. The thread can be read without reading all the pages from the one mentioned above.

I take as a point of departure three assumptions, namely: that there is a 'crisis', a problematic and grave moment in time in which old certainties falter and new bonds of solidarity are created.
The second assumption is that there is a connection between the recent success of the far right and the emergence of a 'manosphere' and 'mysogynistic' tendencies. The third assumption is that both the emergence of misogyny and the resurgence of the far right in politics are reactionary, a form of conservatism that yearns for a life that was simple, straight forward and with clearly articulated power relations with men 'on top'.

However, I think the analyses so far provided are usually too one sided, not only in the threads here, but also in general. The tacit assumption that is usually made, is that it is a reaction of a powerful group, men, that would like to solidify its privileges and uses the same means of oppression that it usually uses to oppress women and other minorities.

I feel it is one sided because I feel it is not altogether clear who the oppressed is and what the power dynamics is that the far right is reacting too. Instead I feel there is a 'dialectics of oppression' at work in which masculinity is in one sense the oppressor and in another sense oppressed and femininity is in one sense the oppressed and in another sense the oppressor. Men and women here taken as broad categories, as will be explained later. Identifying this dialectic allows for an analysis of the current moment of crisis as a reaction to a certain problematic, which is quite singular in the history of Western (or global North) civilisation and that is the emergence of the problem of 'men'. Masculinity as the epitome of the embodiment of traditional values has become a problem 'in itself' but also 'for itself'. In itself means that masculinity has become seen as 'objectively' problematic, especially by women and people on the progressive side of the spectrum. That masculinity has become a problem 'for itself' means that it has become a problem for society what 'masculinity' actually is and what its function is, its unclear to both men and women, leading to mixed signals.
That problematic emergence leads to a variety of responses, one is the repression of masculinity and another is an attempt to reassert dominance.

Masculinity and femininity

With these kind of threads, definition is important. What do we mean by masculinity and femininity? I think in the previous thread it was left implicit. Here I take a broad and theoretical view of masculinity and femininity, derived from the sociologist Hofstede. He ranked societies as feminine and masculine based on a number of characteristics. One caveat I make: what I am doing here is rather rough. One could go much deeper into Hofstede's work, but so doing would require me to write an academic article. That is not my point here. My point is to present a thesis and see if it is helpful to understand the current crisis and rising of the far right.

Hofstede states that: “Masculinity stands for a society in which social gender roles are clearly distinct: Men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success; women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.”
“Femininity stands for a society in which social gender roles overlap: Both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.”

From Hofstede (2001), Culture’s Consequences, 2nd ed. p 297, and I have it from: https://www.andrews.edu/~tidwell/bsad560/HofstedeMasculinity.html

The same website provides a handy table.

values Masculine Feminine

social norms
ego oriented / relationship oriented
money and things are important / quality of life and people are important
live in order to work / work in order to live

politics and economics
economic growth high priority / environment protection high priority
conflict solved through force / conflict solved through negotiation

religion
most important in life / less important in life
Only men can be priests / both men and women as priests

work
larger gender wage gap / smaller gender wage gap
fewer women in management / more women in management
preference for higher pay / preference for fewer working hours


family and school
traditional family structure / flexible family structure
girls cry, boys don’t; boys fight, girls don’t / both boys and girls cry; neither fight
failing is a disaster / failing a minor accident

While crude, I will use this table to roughly divide between masculine and feminine values. the terms feminine and masculine values will be used as shorthand for values and perhaps virtues and vices that have been traditionally ascribed to and associated with masculine and feminine identities. Thanks to @unenlightened for the definition which makes these terms much clearer.

Masculinity oppressing and oppressed, masculinity a problem in itself

The trump administration, but also far right groups share a lot of the values that are listed in the table as masculine. Conflicts are solved by force and the imagery employed does a lot to reinforce this image. The chain saw of Musk, the 'fight fight fight' of Trump. Religion and family structure are embraced, made visible in Trump holding a bible and the imaginary of the 'trad wife'. 'Drill baby drill' is emblematic for a storyline that pits economic growth versus environmental protection and clearly sides with the former. The list goes on but you get my drift. In this sense the power grab of the far right can be considered as the re-establishment of masculine values in the heart of government.

I say re-establishment because while masculine values held sway over most if not all of history, they are going against the grain of much of our current scientifically informed age. They have lost ground rapidly since the 1960s. Environmental protection was unheard of before the 1960s, but is considered one of the most pertinent problems now among educated classes. Religion has lost its grip on society for a large part, especially again among the higher educated. Traditional structures bound up with religion have altered, again in large part among the higher educated. Roe versus Wade is but one aspect, but same sex marriage is another. Among political scientists an ego-oriented masculine command structure has been reframed as 'command and control' and is now considered for a large part obsolete, surpassed by a more relational networked structure of command. Moreover, society becomes increasingly intolerant and fearful of violence. There is more concern about police brutality, more attention for domestic violence, more attention to colonial violence of the past. The globalization of the economy requires more cultural senstivity, more relational and emotional intelligence and more attention for consensus and win-win policies on all levels of society. Now this picture is of course also one sided. There are some contradictory trends. The emphasis on shareholder value for companies for instance or the continued reverence of wealth and so on, but those were always there. The societal trends described above are new and they favor feminine values, especially among those highly educated and therefore usually more successful.

Now if what is needed to be successful is shifting and become more related to feminine harmony than masculine dominance, we may expect those traits to be taught in schools and codified in law. At least in Europe we see both happening. Teaching become more egalitarian and more focused on cooperation and group work than on individual success. Of course individual success is still the norm, I am considering trends here. Laws on domestic violence, hate speech and insult have been tightened in Europe, the standard for rape has been lowered and consent becomes an explicit requirement.

While feminine values are in ascendancy, so are the people who transmit these values. In Europe women make up the majority of the teaching workforce, accounting for 73% (3.8 million) of teachers employed in primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education in 2021, while men accounted for 27% (1.43 million) (Eurostat 5 Oct. 2023). In the 1950 primary school teachers were already predominantly female but secondary education teachers predominantly male. Now over the board, teaching became a female profession. Similarly judges in the Netherlands are currently 60% female (NJB.nl July 2024)from only 16% in 1985. While men continue to be highly overrepresented in the population of convicted felons, we are more and more in a situation in which women judge men.

Here we see the first step of the dialectic, masculinity has become a problem. Its values are losing significance its ways meet with more disapproval. Boys are taught by women and judged by women. They are judged impartially I must add, I do not wish to cast any doubt on the impartiality of female or male judges, but it is a sign of the times that women wield actual power, improve on the social ladder and boys remain a majority of the people who lose out in society. Masculinity is facing a crisis. Physical strength is not needed, but becomes a burden as using it to resolve conflicts is increasingly frouned upon. Their fondness of hierarchy is not producing results and their preference for competition is met by an emphasis on relationality and consensus.

All of this does agrees with points made by @Amity and @Vera Mont above but underscores the problematic nature. It is not necessarily men who are the oppressors. Yes, currently it is men who grab power, but its traditional values feel the brunt of societal disapproval, in schools their tactics are disapproved of by teachers and in society at large by the judiciary. This is the first leg of the problem, masculinity has become a problem in itself.

Masculinity and subterranean values: masculinity a problem for itself
If this was all there was to it, the route would be simple. Men could adapt. There is nothing stopping men from embracing more relational values, especially if it works. The onus would be squarely on them and it is a matter of clearing up the last remnants of patriarchy.

The situation though is more precarious and here I feel both men and women are implicated. To argue this I take recourse to the notion of subterranean values. 'Subterranean values' is a concept introduced in phenomenological criminology by Matza and Sykes and denotes values that live below the surface of mainstream society. Subterranean values are socially accepted values that are usually suppressed in everyday life but can be expressed in certain situations, especially in subcultures or moments of moral flexibility.

While feminine values are becoming our mainstream values, masculine values remain revered in situations that are out of the ordinary, 'in love and war' so to speak, quite literarily in this case.
When one reads young adult male forums one gets a sense that you have to be a bad boy to get girls. That can be quickly dismissed as the whining of losers, but there is some scientific support for this hypothesis. From a study on delinquency and dating behaviour: "Of particular importance, results suggest that delinquency does not appear to increase dating by increasing the delinquent's desire for dates. Instead, they suggest that delinquency increases dating outcomes by making the delinquent more attractive to prospective mates. This finding supports evolutionary psychology's implicit prediction that
adolescents may, knowingly or unknowingly (see Berry & Broadbent, 1984; Claxton, 1999; Lewicki et al., 1992; Massey, 2002), perceive delinquency as one type of risk-taking behavior that reflects such qualities as nerve, daring, and bravado. 5 From an evolutionary perspective, such qualities may be highly beneficial to a prospective mate's social status, physical well-being, and/or genetic lineage"(Rebellon & Manasse 2004, https://doi.org/10.1080/07418820400095841).

Of course I can find one study, you find another that shows the opposite. However also if we take a more phenomenological route one derives at this outcome. There are scores of movies, books and other texts/images that depict the dominant man getting a woman, from the James Bond franchise to the recent Dutch success 'Baby Girl' and from Pride and Prejudice to 50 shades of Grey. Apparently it is not that simple. Men could embrace feminine values and become nice guys, but that does not necessarily make them more attractive. Here we have a different kind of problem from the first, namely that what desired masculinity is, is itself still in doubt. Masculinity has become a problem for itself, it is unclear what it is precisely, how it should be constructed. It is clear that it is a problem, but unclear what the solution is because it is caught in a contradiction. It has to reform and not reform at the same time.

Conclusion

The crisis, I suggest, runs deeper than simply the patriarchy reasserting itself as it always has done. And I apologize for needing a wall of text to make my point. There is a genuine need to look at the problem of masculinity. We have not addressed that and so men either become resentful, yearning for their old days of dominance, or insecure not knowing how to act and therefore inactive. It is no coincidence that there is hardly a male challenger to Trump or to his European counterparts. There is Sanders, but he is 85 years old, arguably he grew up before masculinity became such a thorny problem. The most credible leaders are women, but they will face an uphill battle of resentment. This resentment cannot be as easily dismissed as it is often done, because the problem of masculinity I argue is real and needs addressing.