Racial Warriors and Weekend Warriors: The Construction of Masculinity in Mythopoetic and White Supremacist Discourse
Abstract
This article explores contemporary white male backlash by comparing the discourses of two movements usually assumed to have little in common: the mythopoetic men's movement and the contemporary white supremacist movement. While there are clear differences, the author argues that they are similar in important ways, and with consequences. These two discourses reinforce broader reactionary discourses about gender and share a number of common assumptions. They both construct gender in essentialist terms, depict contemporary American men as demasculinized, blame contemporary social problems on this demasculinization, blame women and the women's movement for this demasculin-ization, and seek to help men rediscover their lost masculinity and reassert their rightful authority. Both movements encourage white men to see themselves as victims and argue that (white) men are the truly oppressed minority in today's world.
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