Conservatives are all about manhood. To them, a man can change a tire, rescue a woman in distress, fire a gun, protect his family, and grill food over an open fire. In the clip above, Fox News recently had a former Navy Seal on to promote his book, Book of Man: A Navy SEAL's Guide to the Lost Art of Manhood.
First up in this interview is how to tie a tie—with the obligatory joke about a pink not being a manly color. Former Senator Scott Brown shows that he can tie a square knot. Then they go on about how we have become a nation that does not know how to work on their cars, mow their lawns, etc. i.e. we have lost our manhood.
In the final segment of the interview Elizabeth Hasselbeck is playing the woman in distress while the former senator tries to change a tire—and fails. Now, I can change a tire, put a thrown track back on an M113 armored personnel carrier, change my own oil, and swing a hammer. I can also bake cookies, sew, do laundry, clean the house, cook up a mean casserole, and have been known to secretly like chick flicks. Guess what? None of that makes me any more or less manly.
This right-wing nonsense that you have to be a manly man is about one of the dumber things to come out of the right. We now have "men's rights" groups. Seriously? Why in the hell is a men's rights group even needed? It is painfully obvious that white males run pretty much everything, and that is who seems to see promoting this manly man lifestyle.
The real reason behind this "lost manliness" is because of fear. Fear of losing power. They see feminism as a threat—a strong woman on equal footing is frightening to these men. The blog, The Poisoned Well ~ The Poisonous Language of Feminism, once stated,
From day one Feminism has been elevating women at the expense of men. Now, the question is not if this is true. This is unarguably true. The question is if it’s justified. According to feminism women have been oppressed 2nd class citizens and males the privileged overlords. Freeing the slaves took a great deal of wealth and power and income away from whites to elevate blacks. This is power and wealth that whites shouldn’t have had in the first place. Freeing the slaves did help blacks at the expense of whites, but it was justified. Many, like myself, don’t believe women are oppressed second class citizens. Tearing men down to elevate women isn’t creating equality or moving too equality. It is oppressing men.
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When men are denied the right to vote, when men are not allowed to drive, when men are not allowed to get an education, when men are forced to have a probe stuck inside of them prior to a legal medical procedure, and when men are expected to stay home and raise the kids while the woman brings home the bacon—then maybe he may have an argument. What the author of this post is missing is that he is not seeing his own privilege. He cannot see the forest for the trees. This very same author also states that,
How many times do men need to be told “Don’t Rape”? Men are excluded from most victim services even though men are more often the victim of every single crime including rape. Harass a man, it’s Tuesday. Harass a woman, it’s the end of the world. Inequality and discrimination really have become part of our every day lives.
Blurring the line between being tazored and thrown in the back of a van and getting called “Sexy” Lump sexual assaults in with cat calls because really they are the same thing. Also, men have much more to fear walking down the street than women do. Men are more often the victims of every single type of crime including rape. Men are murdered much more often than women, but women suffer from catcalls. We must ignore mens lives and protect the women’s feelings.
First off, why is it necessary to be able to harass a woman, or anyone for that matter? Is it to prove one's manliness? His not understanding that treating women as objects instead of a person dehumanizes them. His not understanding that saying don't rape should not bother anyone but a rapist.
Of course, it cannot go without saying that part of this right-wing obsession with manliness is also to prove their masculinity, that they are fine upstanding straight men, because heaven knows that a gay man cannot be manly.
When I was a pre-teen I had this idea in my head as to what a manly man could be:
At the time I had no idea that the Village People were gay, or even what "gay" was—to me I saw guys who fit the image of macho that I had grown up with. I wonder if any of these right-wing macho men are trying to hide something.