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.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction
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
