Master’s of the Universe: Men’s Rights Activists and Collective Identity

• In Event: 40420 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 19: The Politics of the Right Wing 1

Abstract

Hegemonic masculinity as expressed and experienced through Incels and the Man-o-Sphere as expression of a particular masculine performance as seen purported by Jordan Peterson, that guy that Greta Thurnberg destroyed on the internet, and the Men’s Rights Activist groups behind Redpill and other conservative groups and movements that have successfully lobbied to gain control of state governments to put forth anti-trans laws and were part of the repeal of Dobbs. They are in part, the shadow movements that make up the Convention of States, a burgeoning issue that is characteristic to emerging forms of American fascism.

Media plays an important role in the creation and curation of masculine collective identity. This goes beyond “guy-centric” films and magazines to social media where ideology of belief and lifestyle are being casted as the “true masculine” and all else are effeminate.

To determine where positive masculinity begins, the search for where hegemonic masculinity ends in the everyday performance of masculine gender amongst heterosexual men. What are the markers of masculinity that are not shrouded in stereotypes, or in role expectations from toxic peers? This is what I call the masculine mystique as most heterosexual men are behind their trans and nonbinary peers in living a non-patriarchal informed masculinity but rather one informed by their own ideology of what masculinity looks like.

This study takes a dialectical approach to how men view themselves, the stereotypes they live with, and the media that has influenced their relationship to self and identity as a masculine person and applies it to the identity and ideals of the movements that claim to represent “real” masculinity in America.

Author

• E.J. Odell Nèel, Worcester State University