Josh Hawley Has Opinions on Masculinity. Most Fascists Do.

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Josh Hawley, renowned supporter of the Jan 6 insurrection, had some opinions on masculinity he felt he needed to air out on Monday. It’s not surprising: toxic masculinity and its approach to sexuality is a fairly foundational part of many fascistic belief systems.

Hawley said he believes men are watching porn and playing video games because their masculinity is being criticized. Masculinity itself is a fairly foundational concept within far right and fascist movements: the idea of the strong man dictator requires a very heavy emphasis on a very toxic form of dominating, aggressive masculinity. From Hitler and Mussolini to the Proud Boys and modern incel movement, you can see it just about anywhere.

It was written into the founding codes of the Proud Boys, a far-right, men-only club known for their penchant for political violence, that certain challenges involved in the swearing in of new members was to abstain from masturbation (as it supposedly affects your testosterone levels and means you are satisfying yourself without the ‘use’ of a woman) and to be beaten by existing members while you scream the names of breakfast cereals.

Trump was obsessed with the masculine aesthetic and masculine nostalgia, speaking of the good old days when political protesters would leave events in stretchers. He notably insisted on joining an incredibly odd conversation about the size of his hands, an ironically borderline homosexual conversation between grown men on the world stage that essentially discussed the size of the presidential candidate’s junk. He frequently spoke of making America Great Again, another nod towards masculine nostalgia that we were once a great, dominating and domineering nation and we have since slid into weakness. He questioned Hillary’s ability to govern the nation in terms that barely hid his blatant sexism. In short, Trump’s toxic masculinity was thoroughly unveiled, and it spread across his GOP and their followers in the form of terms like cuckservative and beta/sigma males.

The incel culture ate it up. The unhinged hatred toward women that pervaded that corner of the internet and society lapped up the masculinity-obsessed far right nonsense like it was water in an arid, sex-deprived desert. Here was something they could channel their anger through. They could join groups like the Proud Boys and even more angry, fascistic groups to find commonality in their fellow men. Even explicitly violent, fascist groups like Atomwaffen Division held blatantly sexist, overtly toxically masculine views in their chats online. Women whose husbands were part of those groups frequently supported the behavior, forming an avid conservative women’s movement whose core tenants were creating an environment where toxic masculinity could thrive on a foundation of subservient yet politically active and networked wives. ADL did a great job in this paper on misogyny and the far-right, with one quote by a former Atomwaffen Division member saying, quote, “I would vigorously bone the living hell out of my English teacher, like holy f. I don’t care if it’s miscegenation. That babe would be pregnant as f year after year, around the clock, acting as a hub of genetic imperialism…”

Sexuality, masculinity and all of the homophobia, transphobia, toxicity, misogyny and violent tendencies that come with the far right’s positions on those matters are becoming more and more foundational within the fabric of the far right in the West. One must look no further than the hysterically named “Men’s Rights Movement,” a political movement whose Venn Diagram with the incel movement is essentially a circle and whose relationship with the far right is well-chronicled here, to find evidence that sexuality, masculinity and sexual dominance play a major roll in modern far right circles. Caricatures of refugees and immigrants as rapists echo the “black beast” rhetoric of the racists of America’s past, and while the misogynistic view of needing to protect the purity of the white woman is prevalent in far right and fascist circles, a lot of it has more to do with the commentary over The Great Replacement than it does protecting women. Fascists are worried that pornography, video games, progressive culture and cultural representations of a non-white, non-cis world represent the disappearance of traditionally male dominated, conservative and white America and Europe. It is the fascist’s obsession with the female reproductive system and tendencies, who they are reproducing with and what skin color they possess, that keeps these supposed Alpha Males up at night.

So, you see, Josh Hawley’s weird opinions on masculinity aren’t an odd, quirky platform for liberal grifters like Brooklyn Dad Defiant to dunk off of. They aren’t an exception, they are the rule. Toxic masculinity, aggression, political violence and violence for its own sake as both an activity and as an aesthetic are core tenants of right wing extremism and fascist philosophy. As the saying goes, when someone chooses to tell you who they really are, you should listen. Josh Hawley has repetitively told us who he really is: a fascist supporter of the party seeking to overthrow the democracy of our nation.