Bully

Toxic Masculinity, Statecraft and the End of Patriarchy (Maybe)

Cagle Cartoons (MICHAEL DE ADDER/Cagle Cartoons

As fashion designer and author Orsola de Castro puts it: "...To say that masculinity is having a crisis is to admit that it can only function in domination." When I look at the non-war/incursion/whatever the fuck it is we're doing illegally in Iran, I have to say she's right. And it isn't working. You cannot blitz your way to dominion, especially if you're quoting fake Bible verses. Masculinity isn't in crisis. Good men still get up early, shower and shave, take their kids to school, work, play sports and video games, dance with their wives or their husbands if they have them. Abusive masculinity, on the other hand, can’t take a joke. 

The FCC is reviewing Disney’s broadcasting license because Jimmy Kimmel, in a brilliant spoof on Saturday’s upended Correspondents Dinner, roasted the Donald and said Melanie “had the glow of an expectant widow.” Somehow Kimmel, in a breathtaking display of foresight, time traveled to the future and retroactively foretold the Donald being whisked off by the Secret Service after Cole Tomas Allen breached security and open fired outside the Washington Hilton Hotel ballroom. 

See in a fact-free universe, the guy who called John McCain a loser for getting caught during Vietnam, and fallen soldiers “suckers,” who said he was glad Robert Mueller was dead, and that Rob Reiner, who, along with his wife was murdered by his son had Trump Derangement Syndrome, who said that there were “fine people” on both sides in Charlottesville, said “it is what it is” in response to the hundreds of thousands of deaths on his watch during COVID, incited a violence at the US Capitol, and Thumb screamed “Open the fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” on EASTER after the war he started murdered 165 little girls is actually the victim.

In a fact-free universe, which is the preferred environment of every authoritarian everywhere EVER, words mean nothing; truth is fashioned to suit the occasion and purpose. Gas and groceries are up? Au contraire. You’re just spending challenged. Murderous masked government thugs gunning you down in the street? Think of it as extrajudicial enforcement due to failure to comply.

Which brings me back to abusive (or, let’s just say toxic) masculinity. Toxic masculinity sees the needs of Others as lesser, insignificant compared with its own urges. And compliance is its watchword, it’s happy place. Not enough of a girl? You’re a bitch. Not enough of a boy? You’re a fag. The need of every abuser whether gained through manipulation, gaslighting, or its ultimate expression: violence.  

The wife murdered by her husband when she finally decides to leave; Rodney King, beaten nearly to death in 1992 the jury agreed with officers that he should have stayed down—the four officers who beat him saying they feared for their lives; George Floyd dying with a foot on his neck because somehow despite being held down by four officers he failed to comply, an ex-Illinois sheriff’s deputy opening fire on Sonya Massey in her own home because she was holding a pot of boiling water several feet away from him it was because she failed to comply; Renee Nicole Good turning her car away from a confrontation with an ICE agent who then stepped in front of her vehicle, opened fire, claiming he feared for his life. Alex Pretti swarmed and shot lying in his back. Always the story regardless of what our eyes tell us is the claim of failure to comply.

 During an April 1, 2026 presser the Donald sat behind the big desk and said of the federal government, “We’re gonna have to force ourselves on them, which we have the right to do,” referring to Los Angeles because of the World Cup. Toxic masculinity does not believe in consequence or accountability. Often it seems untouchable—until it isn’t. 

And what happens when Others assert themselves and fight back? Look at Ukraine. Call them what they are, bullies, and they genuinely take offense.Tale as old as time: being bullies l, they crumble in a heap, blowing snot, wailing “look what you made me do! No fair!” NATO basically told the Donald to go fuck himself as Jonathan Samuel reported on April 10, saying flat out said we’re in our own in Iran. And last time I checked they ain’t budging on the Strait of Hormuz, minesweepers or no. 

The masculinist fever dream that is Project 2025, perhaps the logical conclusion of 2000 years of Western hegemony may be in full effect, but (and it may be too soon to tell) what we are witnessing may be the beginning of the last gasps of patriarchy, and the cracks are beginning to show. What's defininte is the Donald has managed (not single-handedly, mind you) to make America irelevent in two short years and she may not recover. Force doesn’t work. Not forever. Ask Rome. Because the reality of all that it suppresses isn’t sustainable. And force is all toxic masculinity has going for it. Poke it just a little and you find a collection of snowflake man-babies who just can’t take a joke.