Political Masculinity

Men with assault rifles, balaclavas and Hawaiian shirts pulled over bulletproof vests. Horned warriors with painted faces and fur headdresses draped over their naked torsos. The storming of the Capitol brought together men who had previously come across one another only online in the Manosphere. These were men with a common interest, followers of a male-supremacist ideology, who rioted in order to fight for their privilege. Before then, the world had looked on as devastating attacks were carried out by incels: those who seek to gain unfettered access to women’s bodies by redrawing the hierarchy of the sexes in order to ensure the subjugation of women.

For all of these men, masculinity is a political project, and the events at the Capitol were one episode in a growing movement. From the US and Canada to New Zealand, from Poland to Brazil, right-wing extremists, religious fundamentalists and male supremacists are coming together in order to translate their reactionary dreams of male domination into politics, underscoring the masculine roots of the authoritarian backlash.

Also available as an audiobook.

Acknowledgments

Introduction


I. Organized Misogyny

The Incel Movement

A New Type of Misogynist Masculinity

The “Manosphere”: A Reservoir of Aggrieved Men

Violence against Women, Online and Offline

Attacks against Women

A New Form of Terrorism Emerges


II. The Ideologies of Authoritarians: For the “Natural Order”

Aggrieved Entitlement

The Politicization of Masculinity

The Prophets of the Masculinists

White Sharia


III. The Politics of Masculinity

Translating Aggrieved Entitlement into Political Action

Unholy Alliances

The Networks and Strategies of the Anti-Gender Movement

Follow the Money: How Transnational Movements Are Built

Riding Hegemonic Masculinity to Power

Biologism as an Attack on Democracy

Poster Girls and Female Architects


Conclusion: Masculinity in Uncertain Times


Notes

‘Political Masculinity is an intelligent and urgently needed book on the global rise of misogyny, anti-feminism and toxic masculinity. Kaiser powerfully shows how male supremacists, right-wing populists and religious fundamentalists are tied together. From Trump to the incel movement, her book offers a thrilling and accessible deep dive into the masculinity struggles we read about in the headlines on a quasi-daily basis.’
Julia Ebner, author of Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists

‘We are witnessing a new conjuncture of political masculinity – aggressive, toxic and misogynistic. The book provides knowledgeable insights into global masculinist spaces, as well as processes of mobilizing masculinism. For those interested in gender, politics and de-democratization, a must!’
Birgit Sauer, University of Vienna

‘[T]he breadth and nuance present in Kaiser’s analysis firmly situates Political Masculinity as requisite reading for scholars concerned with the reshaping of hegemonic masculinity, the gendered character of the far-right, or the authoritarian turn in contemporary politics.’
Social Forces

Susanne Kaiser is a journalist and political consultant who writes for Die Zeit and Der Spiegel.