Best of RSI: Weenie-Boy Masculinity and the Right

WHAT'S UP WITH WEENIE BOYS? I think I'm going to start a series on "political weenie boys." There are forms of masculinity that are particular to the Bush administration and the right-wing and the best term I've come up to characterize this kind of masculinity is "weenie boy." I'm not entirely comfortable with the term "weenie boy" because it can imply that there is a masculine ideal and that deviation from that standard is an indication of deficiency. I don't believe that at all. Personally, I like the idea of a thousand masculinities blooming and all of them able to recognize women as equal selves and citizens.

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.