No, Josh Hawley, men aren't struggling because of feminism
The senator's new book is a masterclass in the right wing's divide and control strategy.
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)—famous for raising his fist in solidarity with protesters outside the Capitol on January 6—couldn’t get past the seventh page of his new book before revealing the propaganda he’s trying to push on frustrated young men.
In the opening pages of “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” Hawley writes:
“As for jobs, fewer and fewer young men have them ... Meanwhile, those who are working are earning comparatively less than their fathers did at the same age. In 1970, 95 percent of thirty-year-old men earned more than their fathers had. By 2014, only 44 percent of thirty-year-olds could say the same.”
Two pages later, he argues who he thinks is to blame for this statistic (and all the other data showing that more and more men are struggling these days). “No menace to this nation is greater than the collapse of American manhood, the collapse of masculine strength,” he writes. “To be frank, some welcome that collapse: namely, those on the American left.”
Hawley continues:
“In fact, they have helped drive it. In the power centers they control, places like the press, the academy, and politics, they blame masculinity for America’s woes. The tribunes of elite opinion long ago decided that male strength is dangerous—toxic, leading inevitably to oppression and a hateful patriarchy.”
Hawley is, in fact, the problem
We could dismiss Hawley’s argument by pointing out that he’s cut from the very elite cloth he’s claiming is the problem—he attended Stanford University and Yale Law School, and his father was a career banker. But what I want to highlight here is the absurdity of the story he’s telling—and the reason he’s telling it.
Who isn’t mentioned in Hawley’s book? The billionaires, corporate executives, and other rich and powerful folks who are directly responsible for statistics like the one above. They’re doing better than ever. Meanwhile, the average worker (regardless of gender) has seen pay flatten over the last four decades, even as productivity (how much stuff the economy produces for each hour we work) has boomed. On top of that, the cost of basic needs like housing, food, and energy has skyrocketed.
(To be fair, I’m only 23 pages into Manhood. But there’s been no indication that he’ll be pointing the finger at the right people. And there’s no mention of corporations, billionaires, or Wall Street in the index.)
It’s the classic divide and control strategy
Instead of calling out the rich and powerful people who’ve rigged the economy in their favor over the last few decades, Hawley blames things like the “the left,” “feminism,” “federal policy,” “globalization,” “the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agenda,” “woke politics,” and “gender ideology.” He’s using the age-old divide and control strategy. As University of California, Berkeley law professor Ian Haney Lopez has documented, political and economic elites exploit fear that people have toward other people who are different than them to “hijack government for their own benefit.”
And corporations have rewarded Hawley for all his hard work. Even after he became the first senator to announce he would object the certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump, corporations like FedEx, Wells Fargo, and Microsoft were contributing to his campaign fund.
That’s the whole point of Manhood: to divert attention from how Republicans are continually passing policies to further help the rich and powerful. That’s the point of what Gov. Ron DeSantis is up to in Florida. That’s the point of Trumpism—to troll the liberals in the foreground while billionaires and corporations stuff their pockets with cash in the background.
Unfortunately for men (and everyone except the ultra-rich), the Democratic Party hasn’t been an effective counterforce to this divide and control strategy. Aside from a few progressives, no one is pointing the finger at the right people (or at capitalism itself).
I’m not delusional about the reach of this tiny newsletter. But I’m going to keep reading Hawley’s book and calling out how wrong he is, and how dangerous his (and DeSantis’s and Trump’s and Jordan Peterson’s and Andrew Tate’s) ideas are.
Now, in the comment section below (or email me: jeremy@jeremymohler.blog): Why are so many men struggling these days? And what can we do about it?