extreme right-wing corners or generally extremist corners alone. Denigrating rhetoric targeting women is far more widespread in our societies: it can be found in the writings of Catholic clergymen, in statements made by the anti-abortion movement, in the verbal loutishness of right-wing populist or conservative politicians, and of course in the misogynistic and violence-glorifying ideology of incels.
Three large movements have thus converged and become interconnected: incels and masculinists; conservatives, right-wing populists and right-wing extremists; and religious hardliners and fundamentalists. They share misogynistic and sexist views; they want to force women back into a subordinate position in the social hierarchy, restore the patriarchy and make the needs and privileges of men dominant once again. For all three groups, feminism represents the enemy, and this is what binds their ideologies together. Why, however, are right-wing factions around the world mobilizing against the specific themes of gender studies, LGBTQ+ rights, and gender roles? What is society’s breeding ground for this?
The process can be understood as a reaction to the deep shocks that have altered male self-perception over the past few decades, and as a fierce defence of masculine privileges and male dominance, which de facto still exist but have been challenged by our value system. In this tension, hegemonial masculinity has been problematized and politicized.9 Trump’s staging of masculinity during the pandemic is just one of many symptoms of a political conflict that is being waged on the field of gender relations. In the name of masculinity, right-wing groups mobilize and engage in politics; calls for the restoration of ‘genuine masculinity’ and the patriarchy fall on fertile ground, from mask deniers to incels. Right-wing populists, masculinists and Christian anti-abortion activists gather under the banner of male dominance in order to mobilize against the so-called ‘gender ideology’. In doing so, they invoke a recurring motif, which plays a central role in the ideas expressed by many of the protagonists of political masculinity: in the relations between the sexes, or so they believe, a natural order would prevail, a natural hierarchy in which women are subordinate to men – if only the social experiments of liberal activists, green activists and gender activists weren’t standing in the way. The modern conception of equality – whether before the law or from an economic perspective – is at odds, they think, with this natural order. Right-wing reactionary ‘thinkers’ such as Jordan Peterson or Jack Donovan lend to this authoritarian movement the pseudo-scientific tools for its ideology of hegemonic, natural masculinity.
This new discourse of masculinity is reflected in the rise of right-wing populist parties and in the rise of strongmen such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Like a common thread, misogynistic agitation pervades the statements and programmes of populist and authoritarian parties and politicians. Hardly anything unites the recent authoritarian efforts as strongly as the fight against ‘gender mania’, against the relativization of masculine power, which is felt as a degradation. The new discourse of masculinity is closely connected with the political convulsions over the past few years. The tension that exists between real and ideal gender relations has given rise to something which the sociologist and gender-studies researcher Michael Kimmel has called ‘aggrieved entitlement’. Men with a misogynistic worldview, according to Kimmel, believe that they are entitled to a wife and to a traditional masculine role (that is, a dominant role) within the family and within society at large. They derive this presumed entitlement from ‘tradition’, and whether this tradition is factual or imaginary is irrelevant to them. From this aggrieved entitlement, politicians such as Trump have formed a political programme of male sovereignty. They harness the frustration, disappointment and rage of those who are convinced that they’ve been left behind, and lure them with the promise of restoring their entitled privileges. This promise of restoration, in fact, is the method of choice among right-wing populist politicians: ‘Make masculinity great again.’
During his presidency, Trump delivered what he had promised to his constituency – above all, to his supporters from the evangelical and alt-right milieus. The rights of political minorities, which had been arduously fought for over the course of decades, were scaled back during the four years of the Trump administration at a rate and to an extent that no one had thought possible before he entered office. Certain women’s rights – for instance, those concerning domestic violence or sexual assault – were set back around fifty years.10 The rights of LGBTQ+ people were drastically reduced, the official government use of terms such as ‘transgender’ was banned, and gender transitioning was criminalized. Funding for women’s health was blocked, and thus resources were lost to protect against such things as maternal mortality, genital mutilation or sexually transmitted diseases. Access to reproductive medicine was restricted, while obtaining abortions was made more difficult – and even impossible in certain states. That was one of the central campaign promises that Trump honoured during his time in office: by nominating Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, three decidedly anti-abortion judges under the age of 55, to serve on the Supreme Court, he paved the way for decades of important legal battles in the United States.
These are just a few examples of the countless political measures employed by Trump to reduce the rights of women and other political minorities. It is no coincidence that the aim of such measures is to ensure that women are unable to make decisions about their own bodies. Reducing women to their bodies – and then regulating and controlling these same bodies – is a central element of authoritarian politics, and an expression of the patriarchal and misogynistic understanding of gender roles, an understanding that puts women in a subordinate position. Trump did damage to the American political system that will be felt for generations. The forces that he released will not disappear simply because he is no longer president. On the state level, the Republicans, as before, still hold clear majorities in the legislatures. In the general population, too, the Trump era will live on; the radical right, above all, remains just as mobilized. He ensured that American society will remain polarized on either side of the culture war, a divide that clearly deepened with his rhetoric and his politics.
The angry white men who benefited from Trump’s politics were already there before his presidency and they remain today – not only in the United States but in all Western countries. Evangelicals, right-wing extremists and masculinists, whose alliance Trump helped to form, have grown into a globally active authoritarian movement that will not go away any time soon, as this book will show. Instead, this movement will probably become even more dangerous for liberal Western democracies, as attested by the rise of right-wing terrorism in the United States and other Western countries such as Germany, Norway or New Zealand. The various ideological influences of this global masculinist, right-wing radical and fundamentalist community can sometimes come together like set pieces in a single person. This much is clear from the storming of the Capitol Building, whose participants stem primarily from the right-wing extremist milieu, but whose worldviews extend far beyond that.
One of these participants was Samuel Fisher, who, in the guise of a ‘misogynistic dating coach’ named Brad Holiday, sold tips on the internet for how to hit on women. By analysing Fisher’s online footprint, a reporter at the New York Times was able to trace every step of his radicalization.11 Fisher teaches young men ‘how to be a man’ and how to become pickup artists who are able to manipulate women for sex. He also sympathizes with the QAnon movement. His dating tips are infused with misogynistic, right-wing extremist and conspiratorial views. Fisher complains about his ex-wife and about the fact that he’s not allowed to see his daughter, thereby taking a position familiar from the men’s rights movement. He not only falls back on exaggerated stereotypes of women – he also presents himself as the victim of an advancing emancipation movement and, in response to this supposed threat, he bought a shotgun, machetes, tactical vests and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition. He travelled to the Trump rally in Washington, posted photographs of himself in front of the Capitol, and was later arrested and tried for his activities there.
So much of what has been brewing for years is embodied in the person of Fisher. There is a decidedly political current in which sexism has been radicalized and has taken on a political dimension. A comprehensive effort to explain why sexism and misogyny have become such important elements of the authoritarian backlash – an explanation that includes all the actors involved
