"Masculinsim" goes mainstream: a movement to fight feminism
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terri Gross. Repeal the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. And then let the men of the House vote for the household. If you think that anyone who advocates for that is too fringe to be taken seriously, think again. It's the view of Christian nationalist Douglas Wilson, the pastor who co-founded CREC, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, CREC has a network of about 170 churches, including the one Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War Pete Hexeth belongs to. Wilson was the guest pastor in February at the Pentagon's recently created monthly Christian prayer service. Hexeth prayed beside him. CREC also has a network of Christian schools, and Hexeth's children attended one of them.
Wilson is influential in the growing movement that's sometimes called masculinism, which believes feminism has been emasculating men, men should have more power than women, and that a woman's place is at home, raising children and following her husband's wishes. My guest Helen Lewis writes about masculinism in her Atlantic article titled, The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet. It's subtitled, A Virulent Form of Misogyny Has Become the Single Most Important Force Holding Together the American Right. Wilson is one of the people she interviewed for the article. Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic with a focus on the intersection of politics, society, and digital culture. She's also the author of Difficult Women, A History of Feminism in 11 Fights, and The Genius Myth, A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea.
Helen Lewis, welcome to Fresh Air. So before we get to Pete Hexeth and Douglas Wilson, what is masculinism and how does it compare to regular old misogyny, patriarchy?
Well, masculinity Humanism is a word that has been around for quite a long time now. It's the idea essentially that men should be in charge, that that's the way that the world should be ordered, that you get now new versions of it that are about talking about biology. Men's hormones mean that they're more suited for government. But it's not exactly patriarchy in the sense that it is a political ideology. And it's one that its adherents will kind of argue for. And I didn't want to just say sexism or misogyny, because I think that is a kind of conversation ender. You know, we can all agree that's bad. Well, I say we can all agree that's bad. Obviously, quite a lot of people don't agree that's bad. But I wanted to give this its due as being a fleshed out set of ideas that sit behind the manosphere influences that people might have heard of your Andrew Tate's or your
Myron Gaines of Fresh and Fit and has got a kind of intellectual underpinning both to them and to the MAGA movement. When you say it's a political ideology, what do you mean? In the sense that there is a set of governing ideas and then a series of kind of policy proposals that flow from them. In the same way that you might see this as the kind of flip side of feminism. So the idea behind feminism was that men and women should be politically and financially equal and And you should enact policies in order to make that happen. You should give women the vote. You should make them entitled to equal pay for equal work. You should stop discrimination that keeps women out of being judges, say, or serving in the military, whatever it might be.
This is the other side of that. It says men and women aren't equal. They're suited for different things. Men are much better suited to being politicians, to being CEOs, to serving in combat roles. And women's role is to be nurturers, supporters, mothers.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–9:49
2
What is masculinism and how does it differ from traditional misogyny?
9:49–20:18
3
What are the political implications of repealing the 19th Amendment?
20:18–22:41
4
How does Douglas Wilson's view of women challenge modern feminism?
22:41–48:45
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from Fresh Air
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