Opinion | Series

The Wounded Theater of Modern Manhood

Patriarchy told men to bury everything but anger. Now politics, loneliness, and the internet are digging it back up.

Image generated using Google Gemini

Patriot Front

On the 4th of July, some 400 men, clad in what could only be described as costumes marched around Washington D.C. in a show of numbers and strength.

They were identified as members of Patriot Front — a white nationalist group that repackages old racial hierarchy in the aesthetics of discipline, patriotism, and masculine order.

To me it was interesting that they hid their faces beneath white masks and sunglasses in an eerie echo of the hooded Klansmen a generation ago.

Watching them march in their little outfits somehow reminded me of adolescence — not because ordinary teenage experimentation is anything like white supremacist marching, but because both involve costume, imitation and the search for identity.

My niece is 15. She experiments with makeup and K-pop inspired clothing because she’s trying on different versions of herself. That’s what young people do.

But these guys are grown men. So the question I have is bigger and harder to ignore: who are they trying to become?

The only clues they give their audience is their interchangeability — any one of them could be replaced by another; so similar they were in build and appearance.

Let that sink in for a moment. There’s little to distinguish one man from the next. On top of that of course is the unifying esthetic of the white mask — which also suggests the only thing they shared was whiteness.

How different this is from the rugged individuality so many Americans shape their whole identity around.

Most people build identity from something lived. It can come out of work or craft. It can form out of family, faith and friendships. Activities like music, service or art shape us almost as much as our genes do. We find ourselves in history and in our land. We define ourselves by our trades. It’s always something earned, practiced, remembered or cared for.

That’s what made the march so strange. These men didn’t appear as individuals carrying a superior culture. To me they appeared as interchangeable bodies carrying a grievance.

Behind the mask

Who were these men behind their masks? They could have been anybody. Teachers, doctors, law enforcement, military. We’ll never know. Whatever individual lives they had outside that march, they chose to disappear into sameness.

What were they communicating by marching? Strength? Masculinity? Bravery? Patriotism? None of these resonated with me.

In fact, all I took away was their performance — a bit of street drama that highlighted a mode of manhood so empty, so hollow, it needed masks, uniforms, racial identity and public theater to feel real.

It was really quite a spectacle.

The Evolution of Masculinity

There is a grand bargain we are still given as men. Growing up, I was essentially groomed by culture and every role model I had to be strong. To protect. To need little and provide much. To have a ‘stiff upper lip’. I hardly ever cried. I became a rock.

In exchange we were promised the approval of women and the possibility of accumulating status and wealth.

Then and now, the grand bargain was clearly a lie. It only works for a chosen few. These days the bargain has deteriorated so much that work alone doesn’t reliably give dignity. Wages cannot support households and male status/authority is no longer automatic.

At the same time, women are more educated and financially independent. Marriage is no longer required for women to survive the way they once did and relationships have shifted away from male dominance to more equitable arrangements.

Here lies the heart of men’s problems: some men experience women’s freedom, not as women’s freedom but as male failure.

Some men are ashamed that they’re not earning enough. Others are ashamed of being unwanted, lonely, and not measuring up to other men. We’re ashamed of being ordinary. Terrified to admit we need comfort and affirmation.

In the ongoing upheaval of male roles in society, notice we’re never given the emotional tools we need to deal with change.

All we’re allowed is anger. It’s the one emotion we have ever been given permission to express and we channel it into everything.

Sadness becomes anger. Fear becomes anger. Loneliness becomes anger. Humiliation becomes anger. Need becomes anger. Grief becomes anger.

When it turns inward, we die by suicide. When it turns outward, it’s behind every shade of violence we are capable of committing.

Do you see the tragedy of patriarchy? As Jameela Jamil accurately suggests:

…men are the targets of patriarchy.

And it’s literally killing us, all of us — men and women alike by spinning up unrealistic expectations in men who then take it out in anger on their families in particular and society in general.

You see it behind the masks of the Patriot Front as they march. It’s in racial politics. In the gym as we try to contain our rage. It’s behind the myth of the alpha male. Behind the strongman politician. It’s in the gun, the uniform, the online tribe. It’s behind ‘negging’ of pick up artists. It’s written into abortion bans and legislation that seeks to take away women’s control of their own bodies.

We can do so much better than this.

To be clear, I’m not excusing men’s behavior gentle reader, loneliness does not excuse misogyny. Shame does not excuse racism. Economic pain does not excuse fascism and emotional repression does not excuse violence.

It’s clear to me, patriarchy just doesn’t work.

What’s next?

As I’ve started researching this article, I’m finding out there’s much more to examine. Questions like: Why are men only allowed anger? Why do men’s right’s activists and ‘manosphere’ influencers consistently give the wrong solutions? What kind of men hide behind race, flags, masks and strongmen? What would healthy masculinity look like? (Hint it looks more like Zohran Mamdani and Erling Halland than Trump and Biden)

As I find answers, I’ll add them in a series of linked articles. The end goal is not to humiliate men or have men disappear. It’s finding ways to nurture men who do not require domination in order to feel whole, and in the process find ways to heal our society.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this, together maybe we can figure out how to bring change for the better.

In the meantime as always, Walk Good. Mitch.

Gemini sure makes creative images. I enjoyed this one lol.