From Iran to Afghanistan, USA to Europe, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in the way women are overtly treated. The return of the Taliban has resulted in a plea by Meryl Streepat the UN to protect the rights of women and girls by not imprisoning half their population behind closed doors, and in our Western democracies, the misogynist rhetoric of influencers like Andrew Tate has had a chilling effect on our young men.
In the last five years alone, young men of the Gen Z generation are consciously and assertively now of the opinion that equality has gone too far. One recent survey showed that 57% of Gen Z men thought “we have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men” (while 44% of baby boomer men shared this view).
The recent conviction of the crossbow murderer Kyle Clifford has revealed that he was a fan of Tate, who is facing charges of rape and human trafficking. Clifford watched a number of Tate’s videos, police would later discover, which feature the self-styled ‘misogynist influencer’ talking about hitting and choking women, trashing their belongings, and stopping them from going out.
The strongman archetype and the war on ‘woke’
For whatever reason, and there may be many, a new archetype of leader has emerged in the world and is fuelling this trend. Pressure put on the Romanian authorities to free the Tate brothers and allow them to fly to the USA can only be explained by the new incumbents in the White House and Elon Musk’s continued support of them.
More and more muscular men (some taking to wielding chainsaws on stage for intimidating effect) are taking up positions of power and we are now witnessing the strongman era, according to Ian Bremmer in his video ‘The strong do what they will’.
Tate is now safely in the USA, where he is lauded and protected by the new regime, a regime that harks back to and is nostalgic about the days in which America was expansionist, was dominating, gaining territory by buying from other colonial powers. Buying Greenland or annexing Canada is no different, in many ways, from the purchase of Alaska from the Russians in 1867 or Louisiana from the French in 1803 (the fact that the land was mostly inhabited by Native Americans at the time was not seen as a deterrent). The rules-based order of today we have come to accept seems to have disappeared overnight and leaves many of us reeling.
So, the MAGA movement harks back to these times, when ‘men were men’. Adherents of the movement regret the way in which the United States has developed with human rights enshrined in law, but they are also annoyed because of how ‘feminised’ and ‘effeminate’ it has become. The introduction of rights for women and other marginalised groups has enraged them beyond measure, which is why there is such an attack on diversity and a war on ‘woke’.
There is also a fear of the inner feminine within men, which leads the toxic masculine individual to project his hatred onto authentic male figures. Who could forget the recent humiliation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by JD Vance and Donald Trump in the Oval Office?
Could religion be the key?
All major religions – apart from potentially Hinduism, whose multiple deities have a variety of sex and gender expressions – have patriarchal tendencies and use tradition to subjugate women in many different ways.
The fiercely contested verse in the Qur’an, “Men are the maintainers of women,” pits those who believe men are there to protect and look after women against those who feel permission has been given to them to control not only their own spouses but all women. In a recent intervention, Vance called Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and Europe “a frustrated spinster” because she was powerless – two misogynist tropes out of the Christian Evangelical playbook.
The Christian Church has a history of competing and conflicting issues around celibacy, women, and sexuality, summed up by John Philip Newell in his book Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul. He argues that the early Celtic Church, with monks such as Pelagius – a Welsh monk who lived from 360 to 430 – challenged the thinking of Imperial Roman Christianity. Pelagius was anathema to Rome, as he was determined to teach women to read and interpret the Scriptures. Who would have thought?
The early Celtic Church believed in the sacredness of all things in alignment with nature. There was a reverence for the divine feminine and a belief in its union with the sacred masculine. These attributes can be found in people of all genders, of course, and represent qualities like nurturing and intuition personified by the feminine and strength and action embodied by the masculine.
We all have a propensity to embrace both, but toxic masculinity occurs when a man’s hatred of his own feminine side, which he can equate with weakness (the ‘boys don’t cry’ brigade), propels him to project his anxiety onto women, who then become his nemesis.
Pelagius’ teachings were condemned in 529 and with Pope Gregory’s edict in 594 that relegated Mary Magdalene to the role of ‘prostitute’ and sinner, Western women were set to be the recipients of ongoing inequality and misogyny for centuries to come.
Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his book Lower than the Angels, says this is because: “The Church has become so male in its rhetoric, and that incorporates antique attitudes about male privilege. It is about male insecurity, as simple as that – men wanting to hang on to the power which traditional religion has handed to them. This may explain why contemporary Christianity appeals to many, especially a young generation who align themselves with alt-right politics.”
Radical Christianity
In the Bible, Jesus was a radical who came to explode patriarchy with his ideas on love, compassion, and his inclusive attitude towards the many women disciples who followed him. There is nothing in the New Testament about homosexuality. In an interview in the Church Times, MacCulloch said, “it is not possible to read off a clear Christian theology of sex or marriage from the Bible”. He suggests Christ is a wild card.
The tragedy is that the hijacking of Jesus’ message by hierarchical institutions has imperilled our world. Toxic masculinity has wreaked environmental damage, prolonged wars, and undermined our civil societies. The concept of Jacob’s Ladder needs replacing with Sarah’s Circle. The early Celtic reverence for nature and respect for the feminine need urgent resurrection if we are to push back against a world where domination and bullying take precedence over collaboration and community spirit.
A resurgence of alpha male attitudes gives us bullying, cruelty, and harm. A world in which the ‘feminine’ is respected and sits alongside the healthy masculine in community and decision-making will effect change, bring peace, and help our young insecure boys make sense of the rapidly changing environment in which they are growing up.
