The Man, The Myth, The Legend: The Ancient Lineage of the Masculine Narratives Reshaping America
The "toxic" myths of manhood that propelled Trump to victory are neither new nor solely a product of economic uncertainty, but are deeply historical and reveal a concerning scarcity of alternatives.
If the election were a movie, an appropriate title might be The Menpire Strikes Back. Indeed, a decade of Fourth Wave Feminism yielded tangible results for women, including pay increases, reductions in sexual harassment in some workplaces, and the cancellation and, in many cases, incarceration of hundreds of powerful men who were exposed as sexual predators during the Me Too Movement. Yet, the social sentiment driving these changes has increasingly been interpreted as hostile to men. Some data suggests that nearly half of young men today believe men are facing heightened discrimination, with a quarter reporting that they have been victims of sexism.
From this increasingly defensive posture emerged what has been called the ‘manosphere,’ the disparate assortment of content and media dedicated to the promotion of masculinity. Many politicos have noted the pivotal role the manosphere played in Trump’s win. Just as Obama used social media to outmaneuver McCain in the 2008 election, so too did Trump harness the power of the manosphere media complex to outmaneuver Harris in this one. From Andrew Tate to Joe Rogan to Jordan Peterson, Trump, beyond being a man, embraced the manosphere while Harris ignored it, dismissing it as a decentralized fringe movement. Admittedly, it took the bros a little while to rally the troops, get organized, build infrastructure, anoint leadership, and find their voice—but, now that they’ve mobilized, the male resistance is proving formidable. Feminism v4, once in full advance, is now in retreat. For evidence of this retreat look no further than the trad wife trend and viral hits like “I'm looking for a man in finance,” which reinforce neo-masculine narratives. Some feminists have responded by embracing the 4B movement, but this itself seems like a form of surrender.
Commentators such as Scott Galloway have focused on the increasing economic challenges facing young men as the primary driver for the rise of the manosphere and anti-female sentiment. There is absolutely truth to this. Women in this election served as a convenient and effective scapegoat for the socioeconomic struggles of young men, just as immigrants served as a scapegoat for the economic stagnation of the working class.
Yet, viewing the rise of the pro-male/anti-female narratives as a purely economic phenomenon risks missing broader historical dialectics that reveal a disconcerting scarcity of identity and meaning granting systems and institutions. While today’s narratives of masculinity are in part a reaction to economic realities, they were not created by these realities. These narratives are not new and are deeply rooted in history. In many ways, the ‘menaissance’ is a ressourcement, a return to a set of masculine myths from earlier eras. The myths of manhood that are being proffered today are ancient and deeply ingrained in our cultural lexicon. Such narratives generally include some version of the man-as-hero myth or other forms of the masculus superior narrative. In some cases, we see these myths implied through an enantiomorphic, anti-female form, typically through one of several woman-as-subordinate narratives.
Men have long been the main characters in stories, both ancient and modern, both fact or fiction. King Arthur, Robin Hood, Beowulf, Hercules, George Washington, George Patton, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King Jr., Luke Skywalker, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Ant Man, Captain America. And, when they are not the main character, they are still a heroic character. See any pre-Mulan Disney movie. Moreover, in most, but certainly not all, religious myths the godhead-in-chief was most often male. Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Ahura Mazda, Enki, Ra, Marduk, Quetzalcōātl, Yahweh, et alia. Oh, and of course, Jesus.
While there are many important female deities across history’s polytheistic religions, they are frequently heavily associated with strictly feminine characteristics, such as fertility, love, marriage, and beauty. Aphrodite, Durga, Gaia, Inanna, Frigg, and Coatlicue, as examples. In several cases, female divinities also appear as goddesses of death, night, or the underworld. Hel, Hecate, and Ereshkigal, for instance. The goddess is very often either a mother or an undertaker, but rarely the god over all others, rarely the god that bids the sun rise, rarely the god that brings the world as we know it into existence. The role of the feminine divinity extends only from “womb to tomb,” notes Joseph Campbell, the progenitor of the now-ubiquitous (and highly problematic) Hero’s Journey.
Speaking of Campbell, the Hero’s Journey has profoundly shaped the evolution of masculinity narratives over the last half-century, directly or indirectly influencing countless hits, from Star Wars to The Matrix. Campbell’s journey, however, largely assumes that heroes must be male. In his original framework, which has since been adapted for more general use by the marketing industry, the hero encounters a goddess and, through his skills, woos her into a mystical marriage. “The hero who can take her as she is, without undue commotion, but with the kindness and assurance she requires, is potentially the king, the incarnate god, of her created world,” he writes in The Hero with a Thousands Faces. While Campbell allows for the adventurer to be female, the female’s journey involves being courted by a male god, a la the Virgin Mary. The woman is the pursued, but not the pursuer. The male, however, can seduce a goddess, unlock secret knowledge, overcome cosmic challenges, and become a hero, a king, a god.
These myths of manhood are among the oldest in our cultural repository and their historical inertia makes them extremely difficult to change, much less eradicate. The fact that the manosphere’s narratives are not merely generations old, but millennia old, makes them more resilient and more powerful. They may be primitive, but they’re also proven. Philosopher Hans Blumenberg thought that myths went through a process of cultural selection, whereby they adapted or died. The ones that survived became dense with meaning. Their survivability over long periods of time allows their significance to compound, the myth becoming more potent each generation it endures. If this is the case, the myths of manhood currently shaping politics and culture are nothing short of antifragile.
While some have judged these narratives “toxic,” they ought to have been expected. It’s social physics. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Many men felt that the Me Too Movement, whether explicitly or implicitly, whether intentionally or incidentally, villainized men. While most Feminists do not identify as anti-male, how Feminists think is less important than how men feel. Men feel assailed, assaulted, demonized. They feel less, less like heroes, kings, and gods and more like second class citizens, criminals, servants, and slaves. Pro-male/anti-female rhetoric is the reaction to this sentiment. “Hostilities exist,” the man said. “There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.” And so The Menpire Strikes Back.
And, who can blame them? Men have been told for generations, for centuries, for millennia that they are the heroes of history. Every time a man opens a book, there is a man performing great deeds. Every time they turn on the TV, there is a man saving the day. In every news cycle, there is a man leading nations. In every museum, there are imposing statues of great men. In every boardroom, there are men at the head of the table. Walk into any Catholic Church and there is a man on the cross saving all of humanity. History has been by men for men. Society has been by men for men. Is this right? Perhaps not. But it is. And, so when men are told that they do not have a monopoly on heroism, that queens are just as powerful as kings, that they are not the gods they thought themselves to be, something doesn’t add up. The math doesn’t math. It does not compute, because it is not the myth men have been told.
These realities are what feminism has attempted to change, but taking man’s myth head on is a poor strategy. This long view is not intended to excuse anti-social masculine behavior or anti-female rhetoric, but it does illustrate the difficulty in changing the myth. It’s not simply about improving economic outcomes for young men, although that will certainly help. But even in times of economic prosperity, the old myths of masculinity still persist. The form that they take may change with economic factors, but their existence is thoroughly intertwined with history and seeded in sociological, psychological, and anthropological dynamics, to say nothing of biological and evolutionary ones.
What is more interesting than the path dependent and deeply historical nature of modern myths of masculinity is why men keep returning to them time and time again. These ancient masculine myths seem to serve as a source of individual and collective identity for many men, particularly young men and particularly in times of uncertainty. When you think about it, this actually makes a lot of sense.
Young people, both men and women, have fewer dimensions on which to predicate their sense of self. Most are not advanced enough in their careers to base their identity on their professional accomplishments, they are less likely to be married or have kids, they are less likely to be widely traveled, and more likely to have experienced social isolation either due to the intermediation of “social” media or the perhaps the pandemic. What else besides their inherited traits, such as sex or race, do they have as a foundation for a stable, reliable sense of self?
Similarly, in times of uncertainty, newer myths—myths that have not gone through Blumenberg’s process of natural selection—aren’t as resilient. People recourse to the proven narratives that are widely accepted by their in-group. While newer, more innovative, more contemporary myths may be more egalitarian, more optimistic, or more unifying, their novelty will typically result in lower mythological adoption. A new myth, even if compelling, will still be less known, less accepted, and therefore less resilient. For instance, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang garnered a national following in the 2020 election when he attempted to craft a unifying narrative around the dangers of technology, using automation as a scapegoat rather than any group of individuals such as women or immigrants. While Yang’s predictions were logical, they lacked sufficient narrative contagion given they were grounded in the future rather than the past. But the past is what people know. Past experience is how we learn who we are and define who we want to become. The myths of manhood are deeply grounded in the past, making them difficult to unseat and easy to return to in times of doubt.
The crisis facing young men today is not merely economic. It is also the lack of new myths capable of giving young men a sense of self that’s grounded in something beyond their biological characteristics. Many of the West’s traditional institutions of religion, community, family, etc., long responsible for providing people with meaning and identity, have not fared well in the secular, digital age. In the absence of other options, old stalwarts such as nationalism and sexism have stepped back in. When threatened, people have a tendency to revert to primitive behaviors, primitive beliefs, their basest biological and cultural coding. Feminism, rather than try to fight the male myth, should focus on fostering and nurturing pro-social systems of meaning that offer both men and women an identity based on something beyond their sex. That isn't to say sex is not an important aspect of one’s identity, but it is to suggest that it need not be the foundation of it or the totality of it.
To predicate one’s identity on their sex is to ground who you are in something you have not chosen, something that has been received rather than seized, given rather than taken, inherited rather than elected. According to the myth of manhood, this seems entirely unmasculine. A man’s identity should be fought for, his hero myth forged by fire and validated by victory. It should be be determined, not by one’s parents, but by one’s accomplishments, by what the hero does, not what sex the hero is. The true man is measured by his deeds, by what he accomplishes, by the demons he defeats, by the worlds he saves. One could argue that basing one’s identity on the myth of their sex (or other inherited traits) assumes that you can’t create your own identity, that you are not god the demiurge, creator of the cosmos, that you are forever a prisoner, a captive, a slave to what others bequeathed to you. Nothing seems more unmasculine.
As a society, we need to find something else besides our inherited traits to anchor on. We need to coalesce around new institutions, new myths that tell a new story about who we are and why we, as individuals, have value and worth. We need to embrace more constructive narratives that motivate us to build something better together, a narrative that doesn't pit people against each other but people against a problem, a narrative that focuses on who we can become not who we were. What myths of personal and collective identity might have such gravity in the digital age I leave for another discussion.
This is the final of three posts on myths that influenced the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. See the other two on the Myth of Democracy and the Myth of the Migrant. All observations are intended to be apolitical. I take no normative stance on the outcome of the election.