However, we're a long way away from that in the United States and "weenie boy" is a good way to describe right-wing guys who articulate their politics in terms of heightened macho images. George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, and the right-wing political theorist Harvey Mansfield all strike me as weenie boys and they've all contributed mightily to the toxic character of American politics.
As the U. S. makes the transition out of right-wing government, it's important to consider the weenie boy elements of right-wing politics both as a way to understand the Bush administration and the mentality of the conservative opposition to a future Democratic administration. As much as we might want to wish it were not the case, the weenie boy politics of the right-wing will continue to be a powerful force in American society for some time to come.
Might as well be prepared. As a result, this is my first effort to discuss what it means to be a weenie boy.
EXACTLY WHO IS A WEENIE BOY? That's a big question for the Bush administration and the right-wing. There are four key traits for weenie boys in politics.
1. The conventional masculine ideal. First and crucially, weenie boys fervently believe in conventional standards of masculinity. They look to the sports stars, Brad Pitt-type entertainers, rock stars, big men on campus, and "popular" guys as models of what they themselves want to be--athletic, good-looking, at ease with themselves and at ease with good-looking women, not having to kow tow to authority. In this sense, weenie boys identify conventional masculinity with an easy and natural success in high school and college and the logical projection of that success into business and marriage. The role models of conventional masculinity might not think that way about themselves. But that doesn't matter to the weenie boy mind. What does matter is the image.
2. Weenie-Boy Failure. The second characteristic of weenie boys is that they live in contradiction to their masculine faith because they do not conform to the conventional masculinity they admire. In the language of Harvey Mansfield, weenie boys are frustrated because they can't be "manly" and this is the way they experience it themselves. George W. Bush always had the basics of weenie-boyness because he admired the kind of physical domination exercised by sports stars while not having the size, coordination, or self-discipline to be a good athlete himself. The same was the case with Rush Limbaugh who worshipped athletes and entertainers but didn't seem to have the social skills needed to leave his room as a teenager.
Of course, not everyone who is not conventionally masculine is a "weenie boy." Lots of musicians, computer geeks, bookworms, gays, and other kinds of guys would not be "weenie boys" because they don't particularly buy into conventional masculine standards of physical strength, social self-assertion, dress, and the like. Sneering at athletes as idiots, the popular types as snobs, non-conventional guys don't feel the same tense contradictions that weenie boys feel.
3. Hyper-masculine Compensation. That's not all there is to weenie boys though. The third characteristic of weenie boys is that they adapt heightened or hyper-masculine images for themselves as a way to compensate for their lack of success at conventional masculinity. In their computer games, pornography consumption, sports fanaticism, or action/horror movie fetishes, weenie boys identify with a fantasy masculinity that is far more powerful, dominating, and violent than the conventional masculinity from which they're either excluded or marginal. Here, the right overlaps a great deal with mainstream popular culture which is also permeated with extremely heighted images of masculinity. Conservatives are often big fans of cowboy or action movies that pose outsized versions of masculinity. For example, the main examples of masculinity used by Harvey Mansfield in Manliness were John Wayne movies and Gary Cooper in High Noon. Apparently, reality wasn't masculine enough for him. For more current weenie boys, it's the heightened images of Rambo, Grand Theft Auto, pornography, and heavy metal that defines masculinity.
4. The Gift. To a certain extent, the whole world of computer gaming, horror flicks, and heavy metal music would have a dimension of weeniness to it. What makes someone a political weenie boy is a political gift that enables them to turn their imagery of heightened masculinity into political action. People on the left generally think of their opponents on the right as lesser beings because of the individual right-winger's bullying, dishonesty, rigidity, and delusions of grandeur. But it is important to recognize that Rush Limbaugh has a gift for creating impromptu right-wing dialogue, sticking it to the left, and promoting conservative delusions. As rigid, delusional, and self-aggrandizing as George Bush is, he had the political talent needed to project himself as a regular guy while promoting a right-wing agenda. From all accounts, Paul Wolfowitz was a tenacious and successful bureaucratic in-fighter as he promoted "regime change" in Iraq.
The ultimate triumph of the right-wing weenie boys though was making their own fantasies of out-sized masculinity into the dominant image of political manhood in the United States. This is what killed "big man on campus" types like Al Gore and John Kerry. Both Gore and Kerry were thorough embodiments of conventional masculinity. They were both popular, relatively secure guys who were ambitious, served in the military, and worked their way up the ladder. With the cooperation of the media, however, the right-wing weenie boys were able to trump the conventional masculinity of Gore and Kerry and make the "natural," "assumed" manliness of the Democrats look artificial, contrived, and effeminate.
In many ways, the success of George Bush and the invasion of Iraq represented the political triumph of toxic weeniness in American politics. If the Democrats and liberals want to prevent the re-emergence of weenie-boy politics after the Democratic landslide of 2008, we need to develop a more critical perspective on the weenie boys now.
Posts
45 comments:
I begin, slowly, to understand what "post-modern textual interpretation" is all about.
You have absolutely no comprehension or even apprehension of anything outside your own tiny circle, so everything you encounter becomes a Rohrschach blot upon which you can project yourself.
The glass company may be able to help you. That's not a window you're looking through, it's a mirror, and you ought to see to getting it replaced.
Regards,
Ric
Or maybe, just maybe the left's inability to distinguish ad hominem from non-fallacious argument is so complete that they now feel compelled to offer hyper-intellectualized defenses the practice.
I breathlessly await your treatise on "dick-head."
yours/
peter.
To Ric and Peter. Thanks for your interest. But I put up this post on "weenie-boy" masculinity almost two months ago. Where did you guys find it?
Professor:
Perhaps you should be less interested in the origins of commentators and more interested in engaging them in some kind of contructive debate. Although, by the tone of your post and the question posed in your comment, you seem to be the sort of academic who isn't very tolerant of potential opposing views.
If you find my characterization of your willingness to debate a gross generalization then, perhaps, you may understand why some might find your partisan broad brush strokes to be intellectually insular and without objective merit.
But, then again, it may just be because of my place of origin, wherever that is...
If I saw a counter-argument here, I'd be able to debate it. Some examples of counter-arguments would be "Rush Limbaugh is the manliest man since the Duke and this is why," "your distinction between conventional masculinity and "weenie boy" isn't valid and here's why," "George Bush doesn't fit your definition of "weenie boy" and here's why," or "right-wingers don't have exaggerated images of masculinity and here's some examples." But there's nothing like that here.
Sneering at athletes as idiots, the popular types as snobs, non-conventional guys don't feel the same tense contradictions that weenie boys feel.
Yes, sneering and seething to compensate for their inadequacies is much healthier.
Well, you have been accused of being fallacious, over generalizing and contextural, but if that is insufficiently targeted I'll give you a relatively simple one:
Where does George Bush's flying of F-102 "bricks with fins" fighter planes rank in consideration for evaluating a person's manliness? Does this echo the whole "wimp" factor that W's dad used to hear when he was president, despite the fact that he flew fighter planes in the Pacific theater of WWII?
Or is any type of military service (except for Al Gore's potsmoking days as an Army journalist or John Kerry's Cambodia Christmas vacation) considered inappropriate for the unique calculus you've proposed as a "weenieness" baseline?
...are healthier...
There. I've pre-empted any grammar police tactics.
Actually, Bush Sr flew Avenger torpedo bombers, an even less safe occupation than flying fighters.
"Personally, I like the idea of a thousand masculinities blooming and all of them able to recognize women as equal selves and citizens."
Suuuuuuuuuuuure. As long as I don't watch football nor John Wayne movies. Yep, nothin' me 'n' Dubya enjoy more than a couple hours of the Duke, then gettin' an intern to polish the knob. Oop, bad example...
Do you have any concrete evidence for any of your assertions, or is this simply another in a long series of leftist "Conservatives are mentally ill" screeds?
I take great offense at your use of the term weenie as an insult. Teeny Weeny, The Tiniest Hot Dog In The Universe, is loved by millions of Nickelodeon Magazine readers around the world.
Stop using words as a weapon!
http://www.markmartin.net/now/teeny/06a.html
You don't recognize a meta-argument, Professor? It's not about debating the conclusions, it's about challenging the premises.
See, if the premise is flawed, so will be the conclusions. Why waste time with those then when there are perfectly good flaws to be fixed?
So, can you identify ad hominem statements? Can you distinguish between falacious and non-falacious arguments? Thes capacities are not in evidence from your article.
That the whole article is about "weenie boys" would seem to indicate that you have embraced the ad hominem. Hopefully you also are willing to relinquish the ear of those around you that almost always comes with that. But, perhaps, and this isn't clear from you article, you don't know the difference between debate and attack?
This would also seem to promote a "toxic character in US Politics," hence the charge of projection.
As for falacies; is a "heightened macho image" incompatible with recognizing "women as equal selves and citizens?" It's not clear to me that it is, and you make no case in support of that idea.
You also accept as a truism that we are along way from the capacity of that recognition in America and expect your readers to accept it as well.
Another unsuported claims: The US is transitioning from a right-wing government (Has the US ever had a right-wing government to transiation from? I was under the impression that democratic republics were well established as liberal (left) governments.)
Until you adequately address these things, any conclusions are fataly flawed and need not be addressed.
As long as you guys are interested, here's some more url's for my "weenie-boy" posts about Bush and the right. I'm also going to do a post on Ann Coulter as the "uber weenie boy" today. Enjoy
"Weenie-boys of the right"--http://red-state.blogspot.com/2007/04/bush-administrations-weenie-boy-way.html
"Fred Thompson and Conservative Deprivation Syndrome"
http://red-state.blogspot.com/2007/03/fred-thompson-and-conservatie.html
Al Gonzales: Not Just a Liar, A Falsetto Liar
http://red-state.blogspot.com/2007/04/al-gonzales-not-just-liar-falsetto-liar.html
The Duke in the Parellel Universe
http://red-state.blogspot.com/2007/05/duke-in-parellel-universe.html
Bradley Schlozman: Another Helium-Sucking Bush Weenie Boy
http://red-state.blogspot.com/2007/06/bradley-schlozman-another-helium.html
Hmmm... sir, I have twin grandsons who will soon be five years old (I raised 4 daughters)
I recently purchased The Dangerous Book for Boys and their mom is planning on signing them up for cub scouts when they are old enough.
I expect you would accuse us of raising "weenie boys"
May I suggest you unpack your invisible knapsack of seething envy.
I might as well start from "rto trainer" and work my way back.
To "rto trainer"--
Spare me the pseudo-sophistication. It doesn't help.
For example "Ric Locke" challenges my "premises," but he doesn't know what he's talking about. "Post-modern" is not the term he's looking for. "Post-modern" refers to an argument about the development of society over the last fifty years," not a critical method. What "Ric Locke" is looking for is "social constructivism" but I'm not doing an "immanent critique" of Bush and the right in the manner of someone like Foucault. Instead, I'm offering a hypothesis concerning George Bush, the right-wing, and their particular versions of masculinity. Sure you guys can offer "meta-level" criticism but you have to do it competently and make it interesting for me to respond on a meta-level. Ric Locke certainly didn't do that.
As for all the criticisms I would have to answer before you would honor my main argument with a response. Sorry, but I don't want to run that gauntlet. If you don't want to address the main argument, that's fine with me.
To Mark Martin--The Weenie-Boy Masculinity post is a political post. The right successfully defined American politics in terms of war. I've adapted "weenie boy" as a small-scale weapon in that war. Sorry!
To Molyuk. I wouldn't say that conservatives are mentally ill. Instead, I would claim that conservatism is a cancerous normality
Here's the url for my post on the subject:
The Cancer of Right-Wing Normality
http://red-state.blogspot.com/2007/06/cancer-of-right-wing-normality.html
To Mishu:
I've always known honors students and artistic guys who are not conventionally male but do not fit my definition of a weenie boy. They may have their faults, but they're not weenie boy faults.
To bjtxs:
George Bush is as big a weenie boy as their is. Far from embodying a conventional masculinity, he was a non-athletic, undisciplined, and a cheerleader (which he didn't tell his Texas friends). Bush liked the flyboy stuff (nice fetishism in the "flying brick" thing though)but couldn't sustain it and went AWOL although he was never charged with it. In fact, Gore and Kerry were much more conventional kinds of guys when they went to Vietnam and remained so through most of their privileged adult lives. One of the things I give the right-wing credit for is the rhetorical creativity and energy which made a long-standing weenie-boy and business failure like George Bush into a seeming paragon of masculinity. It was quite a feat.
To Peter Jackson. It would be ad hominen argument if I hadn't gone to the trouble of defining "weenie boy," developing empirical grounds for claiming that certain right-wingers were weenie boys, and developing an argument for the significance of weeniness in American politics. The weenie-boy argument is much better thought of as a tongue in cheek kind of theory.
By the way, what happened to the fabled "conservative sense of humor?"
To Darlene:
I was in Cub Scouts. Why would Cub Scouts be connected to weeniness? Hiding in your room as a teenager then talking big about being toughness along the Rush Limbaugh line--that's weeniness.
I'm also going to do a post on Ann Coulter as the "uber weenie boy" today.
Do you plan to detail the similarities between the two of you?
STOP THE HATE SPEECH!
Mrs. Edwards says so.
I refuse to apologize for not being au courant with the latest academic jargon. Tell me about electronics, do. As for the "conservative sense of humor", we have learned, sometimes painfully, not to expose Lefties to it. Since they are constitutionally incapable of getting the joke (that is, any "joke" that isn't a spitefully dismissive stereotype addressed to their political opponents), it's both cruel to try it and boring to try to explain it.
You celebrate, in passing, "the conventional masculinity of Gore and Kerry." Presumably this means that you do not consider John Kerry a "weenie boy".
I am personally acquainted, and have had reasonably extensive conversations with, people who could be considered "war heroes" without irony, drawn from four generations of Americans, two each of British and Canadians, and one each of German, Japanese, Austrian, Australian, Russian, and Bosnian Muslim, with multiple representatives in each category except the Russian and the Bosnian. The plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but it is at minimum notable that all, one hundred percent, of the war heroes of my personal experience share a common characteristic: when they can be convinced, often reluctantly, to tell war stories, they invariably celebrate the heroism of others, and deprecate their own accomplishments when they can be persuaded to mention them.
What, then, shall we make of a man who carries his "lucky hat" war souvenir wherever he goes, and whose admirers note that he cannot hold a conversation without bringing up "...I was in Viet Nam, you know." A man whose conversation is positively larded with self-congratulatory anecdotes celebrating his own heroism, with others relegated to secondary rolés? A man who tells, with great relish, about the time when, serving as a Naval officer, he abandoned his command to the hands of a junior enlisted man, to don a bandolier, grab a rifle, and go bounding across the landscape chasing Cong?
By your own definitions this would seem to be a near-canonical example of a "weenie boy". I conclude that you are either utterly dishonest or profoundly deluded, without precluding the possibility that both might be true.
Regards,
Ric
Apologies for the double post, if it occurs. Feel free to delete one of the duplicates.
Regards,
Ric
Really? Was Gore being conventional when he bizarrely walked up to Bush during one of their debates to demonstrate his masculinity by invading the other guy's space? Was Kerry being conventional when he lied about throwing his Purple Hearts onto the White House lawn, or when he talked about Christmas in Cambodia, or when he slandered his fellow servicemen by telling Congress that they committed atrocities against Vietnamese civvies with casual frequency?
Bullshit.
It's funny, too, that you've merely turned the meme of conservative "manliness worship" inside out. Everyone knows, don't they, in your strange little academic clique that this overblown masculinity is just a cover for closeted homoeroticism. It's not very clever, it's not insightful, but it passes for that in the inverted world of academe.
Twatwaffle.
To Rick Locke,
If you don't understand academic jargon, don't use it. By the way, "post-modernism" peaked in the late 80's and isn't influential among academics. I see more references to post-modernism from right-wingers than anyone else.
To everyone with criticisms of Gore and Kerry.
All the criticisms are lame. In the post, I specifically argued that conventional masculinity was not an ideal and most of the guys who the conventional ideal are far from perfect.
So, Kerry and Gore have faults. Big deal. Both of them still embody a big man on campus masculinity to which Bush has always been a stranger.
To Dan Martin:
Why would you think that the homoeroticism of a figure like George Bush is "closeted?"
Dan, is it so hard to believe, after so many years, that John Kerry adequately summarized the orders people were given in a Free Fire Zone. You asshat, Winter Soldier was sort of well-documented.
Bush is a faux man with his dirt bike riding and hatred of Daddy. The Professor may not be right about general right wingers, but he's dead vis a vis Georgie
If you did not know, by the way, the commenters here are from the protein wisdom blog (www.proteinwisdom.com), a veritable treasure trove of manly thoughts and deeds. I love posting there and you should give it a read
My, aren't you a pretentious little bitch.
yes, PW where even the women are manly
Dear me, prof, I'm surprised you admitted being in the cub scouts... what with it being a paramilitary (those uniforms! those badges!) godbothering, heteronormative organization.
Is this "weenie boy" meme based on false premises your penance?
anon "faux man" remark is typical of Leftist identity politics
non-leftists are "inauthentic"
That was what was so revealing about the last Dem debate at Howard University ... it was so wincingly clear that not one of the putative candidates took their audience seriously.
I'm not sure where Darlene gets her "inauthentic" line from. I don't think that "weeniness" is any less (or more) authentic than other masculine stances. It would be fair to say that I think Bush or Limbaugh-like weeniness is pathetic but I do give the right credit for turning toxic weeniness into a normative ideal. I'm sure Kerry and Gore are wondering how they did it.
Moreover, most people I know on the left think of right-wingers as being highly authentic in their
racism, sexism, and homophobia.
I looked at the comment section on Protein Wisdom and saw where you guys made me into today's punching bag. That's fine. Every group has their inside jokes. However, you were throwing your punches at such a highly stereotyped version of me that none of them landed.
Moreover, most people I know on the left think of right-wingers as being highly authentic in their
racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Well then, that's as good as Gospel. (Oh no, he said "Gospel"! Theocrat!!) What's a right winger, btw? Anything right of Kucinich? And what's "the left" in terms of your circle of acquaintance?
Please, tell us more about these stereotypes of yours.
I'm not sure where Darlene gets her "inauthentic" line from.
Oh prof, you should like blush or something for such a line
From Colin Powell to Dr. Rice to Justice Thomas, from Margaret Thatcher to Jeanne Kirkpatrick
all charged, judged and sentenced as "inauthentic black/women" for holding non-leftist views.
and for some reason, Jeff Goldstein can't post here. However, here's a quote
"Should the good professor like to show up here and debate the merits of his post — he presumes, erroneously, I’m afraid, that we rightwing weenie boys are incapable of teasing out his logical fallacies only because he believes, again mistakenly, that we aren’t trained in the art or know the vocabulary — he is more than welcomed."
so, prof?
Thanks for the invitation, but I'll have to decline because of time concerns. I've already spent a fair amount of time on this and the post is more than two months old. Maybe next time.
Actually, I've never seen anything from the left about those figures being inauthentic. I've heard lots of African-Americans say that Powell, Rice, and Thomas aren't "really black," but most of those folks wouldn't think of themselves as leftists.
In case you're interested, I just posted on this discussion at http://www2.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=30856325&postID=2175822579960159462.
I couldn't quite get past the visual imagery of masculinity blooming.
I realize, Mr. Caric, that this is an old post and you're tired of it. Truth is it was a rant and undoubtedly not meant to stand up to logical scrutiny so it's likely unfair to try to do so.
And I'll admit it. I've never quite managed to comprehend the criticism of the "right" in terms of masculinity. At least not beyond the very simplistic route of "masculinity is bad" and then, as you have done, building a truly monstrous creature to prove it.
Masculinity, for all your visions of blooming, is *never* invoked except as a criticism.
To Synova,
Like all the other commenters here, you're just nibbling around the edges of my argument and doing so in a pretty lame way.
Obviously, "weenie-boy" is meant to be a pejorative characterization of conservative political figures. As I state on the banner, this is a left-wing blog and much of my focus is on criticizing the right (which I view as a cancer on American society).
None of the comments on this post either challenged the definition of the weenie-boy concept or challenged my application of the concept to leading conservative figures like Bush, Limbaugh, and Tom DeLay. As far as I'm concerned all of the comments were beside the point of the post.
Okay, here's an example of a conservative sense of humor:
"Bwahahahahahahahahaha! Oh lord, what tripe! Twatwaffle, indeed!"
You'd argue yourself INTO a speeding ticket, professor.
Snicker...
Prof
much of my focus is on criticizing the right (which I view as a cancer on American society).
It's amazing that you do not realize what you reveal about not only yourself, but give continued evidence that the Left brooks no apostasy.
Conservatives are not "mistaken" to you. You grant us no "good faith" argument. We are a "cancer", we are "diseased".
This is why you create caricatures of "rightwingers" and see those caricatures as reality.
You've created your own narrow, narcissitic comfort zone where any challenge is so feared that dismissing it out of hand as unworthy is the only way to protect yourself. Your feelings are sacrosanct and since you feel those you don't agree with are "diseased" then it must be true and certainly one doesn't grant diseases the right to debate.
Ironic your little foray into how conservatives are "racist, sexist and homophobic" followed closely with the cancer libel.
Mr. Caric, you didn't *make* an argument.
I recognize that this was a rant about (as Darleen said) your feelings. Nothing I can possibly say will change your feelings about this.
But you didn't make an argument. You supported no points which could be challenged. You made a series of assertions.
You teach, yes? Are you interested in a broad understanding of various opinions? Well, this is your blog and on your blog you don't have to be. This place is about what you want and what you like.
We could take one tiny little thing and discuss it if you wanted. I'd go for a debate over the word "blooming." Does the word "blooming" have a gender and is it female?
To me it's a female word. That may be very silly in a whole lot of ways but as a fiction writer I know that different words carry different baggage. Words evoke emotion and visuals for readers. I'd never use "blooming" in a context where I wanted to evoke masculinity.
... thousands of masculinities propagating...
Much better. Much more masculine.
(If feminism is the radical notion that women are people, what is the radical notion that men are people called?)
"For more current weenie boys, it's the heightened images of Rambo, Grand Theft Auto, pornography, and heavy metal that defines masculinity."
Well, that just nails Bush right there. Him and Rove like nothing better than cranking up some Motley Crue and playing GTA all weekend.
B Moe
In America, the party without the Presidency is insane, while the party with the Presidency is complacent.
I think that explains this little ad hominem.
"All the criticisms are lame."
Says the professor. Clearly, a well educated response where the good professor declares all argument against to be lame and therfore, not worthy of response. Classic! That's why I hated college, professor. Anytime anyone tried to challenge a professor, even if it was to play devils' advocate, the professor acted as if the person slapped thier mother and usually resorted to attacking the person who asked the question and not the argument itself. I have always wondered why that happened. Was the Professor unable to back it up? Was he/she simply to ego driven to be challenged by a student? Or was he/she just trying to push a politically motivated ideology and to lazy to defend it? Don't take it so personally professor. And if you really believe it, defend it. With all your heart. Which, for some odd reason, you seem unwilling to do here on your own blog. As RTO said, if we disagree with the premise of your argument we simply can't move on to debating the conclusions. That, good professor, would be wasting time. So, can you defend the premise of your argument?
To Synova,
your fascination with "blooming" is pretty standard right-wing word fetishism. Actually, President Bush is a big-time fetishist. These days, he's fetishizing about "history."
To Darlene,
I believe the right-wing is a cancer for these reasons--1. the right is continually pushing for more wars like the push to attack Iran; 2. right-wing commentators like Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell, and Harvey Mansfield are talking about eliminating "democracy as we know it" in the U. S. in favor of authoritarian regimes (I post fairly substantially about this); 3. that the right is the political home of racism, misogyny, and homophobia in American society. Ann Coulter's writing is a great example of all those things and she's a tremendously and increasingly popular figure among
conservatives.
Also to Darlene--
I would consider going over to proteinwisdom.com at some point. I just don't have time right now.
It's not a right wing word fetish, it's an author's word fetish.
People are multi-dimensional you know.
The writers I generally discuss words with run the political gamut from self-identified communist to Objectivist to a variety of other odd things, Christians to wiccans to someone who favors the Norse pantheon. Monotheists and monogamists, polytheists and polyamorists. Gay, straight, rural or urban. American, European, and Kiwis.
Talking about words is only slightly less fascinating than a grammar discussion or arguing about which dead language supplied a root. Since some of those discussing read old Norse or latin and several have various first languages other than English, I usually just enjoy the conversation and learning new things.
Are you curious about *nothing*?
But it wasn't a tangent either. Your main thesis in this post (and others) concerns something important about masculinity. When you discuss acceptable masculinity you used the word "bloom." Now that in itself isn't very important. Word choice isn't a determinate sort of thing. It's a curious thing. And if you want to start out saying that you have something important to say about masculinity, why not discuss the masculinity evoked by that word.
It might illuminate a difference in perception between people. It might promote connection or understanding.
Or it might just be fun, because words are fun.
But I do wonder how the ultra-liberal ultra-feminists I know would feel about the judgment that word fetishes are "right-wing."
This O post is just another version of chicken hawk. A sort of pseudo challenge upon another's masculinity, when the challenger doesn't even know what masculinity means.
To Ymarsakar,
I don't know what you mean by "O" post. However, I did not want to identify my weenie-boy profile with the chicken-hawk idea. I imagine that plenty of weenie-boy types join the military and serve honorably.
To Synova,
When I used the word "blooming," I was riffing on Mao's "Let a thousand flowers bloom." It was meant to be mildly funny but was not tremendously significant. I tend to see guys as "watchers" more than bloomers. Maybe you can see something that I don't though.
To give an example of the fetishism I'm talking about, several of those replying to my original post focused on one example I gave about conventional masculine ideals rather addressing any part of the argument. The most frequent there was the "big man on campus" or "Brad Pitt" where in fact I gave several examples of conventional masculinity. That's a form of fetishism.
I should emphasize that I don't consider any form of masculinity to be "acceptable" or "unacceptable" in the way you indicate in your reply. If you look back at the top post, I emphasize that the "masculine ideal" is a "conventional" ideal not any kind of normative model and I emphasize that those who are seen as embodying the conventional ideal might not see themselves that way.
I've been kind of surprised that nobody addressed the final part of my analysis--the gift-- where I discuss the way the right promoted the weenie-boy model of masculinity and trashing Gore and Kerry. To me, this was the key to the right-wing winning in 2000 and 2004 and getting their wonderful war. It turned out that the right had a lot of talent and energy for promoting the weenie-boy way and I give you all credit for it.
I think that you mistake the reason that attacking the masculinity of Kerry and Edwards worked so well.
(I don't recall Gore being the recipient of too much of it, but I may not have been paying attention.)
None of this happened in a vacuum. So what was the context? There is a very strong anti-masculinity... I don't know... movement? The truly liberated man identifies himself as a feminist these days. It's not even about homosexuality or homoeroticism... after all, gay men like *men*. My daughter notices and comments on it. The television is full of it. Men are bad. Dads are foolish. Boys are idiots. Girls are smart and clever. Moms are always sensible. Those promoting "girl" stuff, such as the "girls engineering and science" camp that my daughter just attended, undertake a constant low-grade pro-female sexism that would never be acceptable if it was men or boys who they said were smarter, faster, better than girls.
Everything bad is masculine... war, competition, capitalism. Everything good is feminine... peace, compassion, reason.
So why did it work so good to pick on Kerry and Edwards in 2004(I'm not going to revise History and include the 2000 race) about their masculinity?
It is because even women are seeing this "masculinity is bad" trend so rampant *particularly* among progressives and there is a backlash. So when someone points out how Kerry or Edwards fit this model, it sticks more than it would otherwise. But it wouldn't have seemed to *fit* if Kerry or Edwards had reacted to the "not manly" stuff in a manly way. In a way that men who work for a living could relate to.
Because it was also about *class*.
It was about Kerry's wife's money and about Edwards looking like a slick lawyer. It was about botox and spray on tans and a man fussing with his hair.
When you say that Kerry or Edwards (and I supposed you'd include Gore) didn't know how to deal with this attack on their manliness, you're basically saying that they really don't know how to relate to men who work for a living.
And that's why it worked.
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