Though it seems routine by now, each time I hear Donald Trump verbally attack journalists, particularly women of color, who are doing their job by asking him hard questions, I feel as though he has punched me in the gut, making me almost want to scream out against this monster bully-in-chief.
With his verbal assaults, the president sends a strong message: that women are unworthy to hold the esteemed post of career journalist and that they don’t deserve respect.
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Earlier this month, the president called one female journalist “dumb” while accusing another of being “a stupid person,” one after the other in a matter of seconds, all because they questioned him about the inflation of petroleum products brought on by his war on Iran and whether public taxes would be used in the construction of his ballroom.
As I have thought about these exchanges, I’ve been transported in my mind’s eye back to a beautiful town in southeastern Poland on a warm summer day during one of my frequent visits to the country, where I conduct genealogy and Holocaust research.
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My good female Polish friend and I were walking along one of the streets, which connected to a small grassy field. On the other side of the field was a building site in which two young, shirtless men whom I considered to be very attractive were laboring in the hot sun.
As my friend and I were walking, I kept my glance on the men. After a very brief time, they noticed me, and as they did, I saw their fists clench and faces tighten to a mad scowl. They tossed their tools to the ground and began to step toward us.
I have seen this same body language on men in my own country. It’s a reaction stemming from a privilege, or perhaps more accurately, a right that males are granted from their first breath, the moment the doctor announces, “It’s a boy.”
This right, which is unearned and the exclusive domain of those assigned male at birth, goes by the label of the “outward male gaze”: that powerful stare males are promised in their objectification of girls and women.
Any other male who objectifies them, on the other hand, violates the rules and is at risk of ridicule, ostracization, and violence.
Some men allow women to objectify them when it may feed their vanity, as long as they maintain ultimate control over the gaze.
The hierarchy of power
There is a strong connection between how Trump viciously berates primarily female reporters and the rageful reaction directed toward me from the young men in Poland.
That connection is the privilege males are accorded in a patriarchal system established within a power hierarchy, with males on the very top layers subdivided between “Alphas” on the summit and “Betas” lower down. Females are placed at the bottom depending on their age and physical appearance.
Gender roles include the set of socially defined roles and behaviors connected to the sex we are assigned at birth.
These vary from culture to culture. Our society recognizes two distinct gender roles. One is the “masculine,” having the qualities and characteristics attributed to males. The other is the “feminine,” having the qualities and characteristics attributed to females. A third gender role, rarely condoned in our society, at least for those assigned “male” at birth, is “androgyny,” combining assumed male (andro) and female (gyne) qualities.
“Gender” is constructed as a verb (a repeated action). According to social theorist Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, “The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence, gender is an act, which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again.”
Gender roles maintain the sexist structures of society, and heterosexism reinforces those roles by, for example, casting such epithets as “f***ot,” “d*ke,” “homo,” at anyone who steps outside their designated gender roles, regardless of their actual sexual identities.
Society hurls these symbolic spears at the heart of anyone who violates socially constructed behavioral norms.
The burden of the binary
All people, no matter our assigned sex, are saddled with the heavy burden of the masculine/feminine binary. Concepts of masculinity and femininity promote the domination of males over females and reinforce the identification of maleness with power.
Assigned males are encouraged to be independent, competitive, goal-oriented, and unemotional, and to value courage and toughness. Assigned females, on the other hand, are taught to be nurturing, emotional, sensitive, and expressive, and to care for others while disregarding their own needs.
Society mandates that males must be “in control.” They cannot get too close to their feelings, and if they do, they certainly cannot allow them to show. They must “keep it all together” and “suck it up.” They cannot show vulnerability, awkwardness, or doubts. They must be “on top,” both in and out of bed.
Within the male/masculine conflation, society maintains a rigidly controlled hierarchy: On top is the so-called “Alpha Male.” Characterized as the leader with inflated confidence, as well as mental and physical toughness, they are highly competitive; winning is the most important thing.
Weaknesses for alpha males include intellectualism, empathy, and the display of any strong emotion other than anger or rage. They have a presence, meaning they take up the space they inhabit and are seen as physically dominant and virile. Signs of tenderness or vulnerability are only allowed when inebriated and during the heat of sex.
The Beta Male, on the other hand, is seen by the Alpha as a follower, unremarkable, lacking confidence, avoiding risks, lacking physical presence and charisma, and acting overly emotional.
Though ultimately unattainable for any male, the deceptive rabbit of masculinity circulates on a patriarchal track that projects the alluringly tasty rewards of control, security, and independence. But males end up perpetually competing in the race, sprinting after that ever-elusive creature.
Some boys and men internalize this socially mandated illusion of masculinity to the extreme, resulting in a self-destructive and toxic hyper-masculinity. As they run and run and run around the course, they invariably stumble, hurting both themselves and others along the way.
They build and accumulate frustration, turning to resentment and then to anger and often rage because they can never truly reach the promised patriarchal bait.
For those who survive, the societal masters dispose of them as dog trainers dispose of overworked greyhounds. They are stalked, controlled, used, wasted, and ultimately slaughtered.
Girls and women, who also grow up in this patriarchal system of domination, are certainly not immune to these messages. They may even collude to pressure males into staying in the race.
When compulsory masculinity reaches the level of toxic hyper-masculinity (and even beforehand), males are forced to surrender their critical reasoning by never challenging the system, losing their individuality, abandoning moral and ethical compasses, ignoring their emotions, and bucking their very integrity and humanity for some promise of security, support, and camaraderie, not to mention the privileges that automatically accrue to followers of the patriarchy.
Taken to extremes, this often results in violence. On the international scale, it results in wars.
According to the social rules, gay and bisexual males can never ascend to the top ranks unless they achieve the pinnacle of social status through occupation and wealth. Transgender males can be accorded a certain degree of male privilege if an essential condition is met: that other people outside of their friendship spheres perceive them as males assigned at birth.
Transgender women within this patriarchal pyramid, however, are seen as gender traitors who must forever relinquish their former standing in the gender order.
This hierarchy of gender, just like the hierarchy of race, is a myth. It is made up. It is socially constructed to grant power and dominance to some (males) while delegating others (females) to the ranks of the powerless and marginalized.
The outcomes often result in violence against women, gay and bisexual men, and trans people.
Within the United States, violence against women, primarily intimate partner violence, including sexual violence, is currently a major public health problem. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1 out of 3 (30+%) women worldwide have been the target of either physical and/or sexual intimate partner or non-partner violence in their lifetime. WHO found that the trauma women experience from this violence has lifetime effects on their physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health.
Violence against women and girls, like most social problems, is not inevitable, and it has solutions: massive educational efforts, more support systems, codification of mandated institutional and governmental policies, men and boys acting as positive role models, and each of us calling out those who violate the physical and emotional spaces of women and girls and all others who are targeted on the lower rungs of the social ladders of privilege and power.
Fortunately, a new generation is challenging the system by revolutionizing the concept of gender identity and expression. They are shaking up traditionally dichotomous notions of male/female, masculine/feminine, and gay/straight. They are courageously calling into question this social myth of gender normativity and heteronationalism.
They have opened the boxes for all of us to ultimately obliterate the gender status quo showing us the enormous gender continuum.
Their stories and experiences have great potential to bring us into a future where everyone will live unencumbered by social taboos and cultural norms. It is a future in which our unrestrained expressions can live and prosper in us all.
This future will come faster if we stop electing leaders who enforce the status quo.
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