Josh Hawley Blames the Left for Men’s Problems

Men Like Josh Hawley Are the Problem

In his National Conservatism Conference keynote address, Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley recently stated, “Many men in this country are in crisis, and their ranks are swelling.” Hawley blames the left. As politicians often do, he speaks in broad strokes and oversimplifications. “The left’s attack on America leads directly to an attack on manhood.” Political misdirection is nothing new for Hawley or the Republicans.

On January 6, 2021, Hawley raised his fist to support Capitol insurrectionists. With presidential aspirations, the masculinity he supports threatened the Vice President and Congress with a noose, baseball bats, and firearms. They also assaulted police and left many dead. A year later, Congressional staff, from legislative aides to blue-collar workers, are still unnerved by the attack. And many are leaving jobs they once loved.

Men’s problems are diverse and replay over generations. Understanding is complex. Solutions run the gamut from Robert Bly’s attempts to reconnect old myths with boys’ development to blaming feminism. Just as women’s rights are under attack, the courts have been slow to recognize the value of fathers’ parental rights. Both men’s and women’s roles are under intense scrutiny, from the #MeToo movement to bitter backlashes against gender equality. Hawley’s words and actions do nothing to bring about change. Instead, he uses male disenfranchisement to enrage conservatives but offers no concrete solutions. He has no interest in bettering men’s lives. He simply wants to politicize them for his personal aspirations.

My father grew up in a violent family. My grandfather physically and sexually abused my grandmother. In the 1930s, she divorced him, and the court awarded her child support, but my grandfather refused to pay. It’s hard enough today for single mothers to raise a family. Back then, it was impossible. To survive, she had to remarry him. My father was not immune to this aggression. My grandparents sent him to military school to “straighten him out.” Only after her children were adults did my grandmother divorce her husband for the last time.

Dad didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. But he never talked about his childhood, and it scarred him. He could lash out indiscriminately, often without rhyme or reason. I didn’t know where the line was, so I was always on edge. Once, after our obligatory father/son attendance at my elementary school’s sex education night, as we drove home and with no prologue, my father said to me, “If you ever touch your sister, I will kill you.” My father had just handed me my early inheritance. At eleven, I was too young to rationalize or question it. And we never talked about it again. It would take decades before I knew what to do with it. While my sister rebelled in her teens, my rebellion didn’t come until my 20s. I did what I was told because I feared my father’s wrath. It’s easy to see how I might have grown up and mirrored his behavior, but that’s not what happened.

As I grew older, I probed my father’s modus vivendi, discovering his secrets and his shame. I wanted to connect with him, but if I got too close, he’d retreat. I remember telling him, “Someday, you’re going to die, and we will never have talked.” We never did. But I learned how to deal with him and disarm his anger. And finally, I learned how to tell him how I would live my life. By that point, it didn’t matter if he understood. I no longer needed his approval. It only mattered that I was resolute and expressed myself without malice. I would not pass down this pattern on my family.

So, as a man with my own history, I have a stake in Senator Hawley’s definition of masculinity. I’m also trying to understand the conflicting ways we talk about gender. With men’s roles in constant flux, it’s no simple task to make sense of them. Physically stronger and full of testosterone, nature conditioned us to fight predators, the elements, and other men. For many, that remains our prime duty. Will Smith felt the need to protect and defend his wife at the 2022 Academy Awards, slapping Chris Rock on stage after he made a lame joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Was it his duty? His testosterone? Or was it the nine-year-old Will who witnessed his father beat his mother? As Denzel Washington warned, “At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you.” Ms. Smith, more wisely, didn’t feel compelled to comment or defend herself so publicly.

A recent study published by the British Journal of Psychology shows that men with high testosterone levels are more likely to engage in unethical behavior when competing with other men. Study authors Marcelo Vinhal Nepomuceno and Eric Stenstrom believe that “high testosterone men become angry and behave unethically to gain status and increase the likelihood of attracting women.” But we are also a sensitive lot for all our bravado, wasting our energy by hiding it from our families and friends.

Now in my 70s, I’ve seen significant improvements in gender equality over my lifetime. But it hasn’t been enough or universally accepted. Legalized abortion seems as close to extinction now as it’s ever been. Still, no one is holding men accountable for unwanted pregnancies. A close look at women’s lives requires the same for men. The spectrum of male behavior is nuanced — burrowed deep within our society’s zeitgeist. Politicians don’t like nuance. It muddies their message. Hawley uses a sledgehammer to solidify entrenched traditions, and men are caught in this tug-of-war.

China recently banned effeminate men from television. “Broadcasters must ‘resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics,’ the [Chinese] TV regulator said, using an insulting slang term for effeminate men — niang pao, or literally, girlie guns.” Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro mocked his aides who wore masks by calling their protective gear coisa de viado, roughly translated “for fairies.” He thinks men’s masculinity can protect them from COVID.

Not only is this systematic tar pit an injustice, but it’s also a waste of our human capital. In 2014, the Congressional Budget Office reported that 16% of American men were incarcerated or jobless, an increase from 11% in 1980. The rate for minorities was much more significant than for Whites. So when we discuss masculinity, we can’t ignore race, education, culture, and poverty as essential factors. According to Psychology Today, “Mass shootings have tripled since 2011, with the majority carried out by young men, while young male suicide rates have increased fifty percent since 1994.”

While many attempt to create a language that clarifies and facilitates fruitful discussions, that same language can also serve as coded shorthand, allowing us to jump to conclusions. “Toxic masculinity” is the latest phrase for men’s anger and estrangement. Men can indeed be toxic, both to women and to each other. But not all men act that way. To promote those discussions, ask us questions about what we mean, especially on social media, where anonymity hides the context of our lives. “Why did you say that?” offers us a chance to explain (or reveal the misogyny we might defend).

Howard J. Ross, the author of Everyday Bias, says, “Learning to slow down decision-making, especially when it affects other people, can help reduce the impact of bias.” Our biases make us prone to reaction instead of reflection. In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, social psychologist Daniel Kahneman looked at how we make these decisions. According to Kahneman, we use two different systems to come to our conclusions. One is fast, automatic, and impulsive: full of impressions, intuition, and emotions. This is precisely what happens on social media. The second is slow and more considered and serves as our self-control. Kahneman writes, “Every human being has had the experience of not telling someone to go to hell.” We’ve become a reactive nation. Slowing down would make for more valuable discourse.

After a Facebook friend mentioned they were anxious, I suggested finding ways to calm down might be wise. Women immediately chastised me for telling a woman to calm down. To be honest, I didn’t even know my Facebook friend was a woman. Her online name was a gender-neutral “nom de plume.” Someone was upset, and that concerned me. I crossed a line without even knowing it.

Sometimes, I act like a “typical guy” despite my best efforts. I laugh — I’m still a work in progress, even at my age. Men can be prone to thoughtless mansplaining with women and other men (it’s part of our competitive, know-it-all nature). But that’s not what I was doing here. I backed off, not even attempting to explain. Cancel culture is indiscriminate and swift. We often talk over each other without listening. Anger in the absence of context is harmful. When groups gang up on individuals, it can be debilitating. Both men and women need to slow our reactions down to better gauge our responses.

After watching a recent Saturday Night Live sketch called “Man Park,” I lamented my lack of close male friends. This isolation has been especially hard for me during the pandemic. In the sketch, women come home to their boyfriends only to be inundated with non-stop chatter after their partners’ days alone. The women decide to take their BFs to the Man Park, where they can find social interaction and comradery. It takes a concerted effort for men to develop friendships, and they’re often more competitive than supportive. Robert Bly would probably approve of man parks, and I see franchise opportunities.

In reaction to this SNL sketch, Dr. Avrum Weiss wrote in “The High Cost of Loneliness,” boys start out feeling as connected in their friendships as girls do. But as they grow, they neglect personal relationships to pursue external success. This has been true for me. And many of my present relationships come about from being part of a couple. Weiss says, “Eighty percent of successful suicides are men, and one of the leading contributing factors is loneliness.” It’s as important a risk factor to longevity as exercise, smoking, and obesity.

Look at how we treat our veterans. We praise them for their strength and heroism on the battlefield, yet we do little for their PTSD when they return home. And, as women take on traditionally male roles, they encounter the same thing. Society often judges both women and men harshly when they express cross-gender behavior. Whatever our genders, our evolutions are intrinsically linked. Whether or not we like it, we’re in this together.

Like COVID vaccinations and mask mandates, Josh Hawley has politicized manhood, pointing to the left as a threat to men. It’s an oversimplification that does none of us any justice. The culmination of his argument is clear: “[The left wants] to define the traditional masculine virtues — things like courage, and independence, and assertiveness — as a danger to society.” This is nothing more than toxic propaganda. These are valuable assets in both men and women; the left has no interest in replacing them. If you’re concerned about men’s lives, invest in our empathy, not in political opportunism.

But there is room to reimagine what it means to be a man. And men need to take the lead. We need to create viable alternatives to the “good ole boy” network (often based on financial success). Nurturing the values that allow us to be more sensitive to others and attentive to our needs would help free ourselves from this unrealistic paradigm. Government and companies can help by creating policies that encourage us to spend more time with our families, like paid paternity leave. This would support new patterns in a successful life. Josh Hawley would find this ridiculous. Evolution will be slow given the multitudes who live by his contorted view.

Despite inroads into gender equality, men still value their fortitude above all — not only physical strength but the wherewithal to surmount any obstacle. This exacts an enormous price in our daily lives, and few fathers offer, let alone know any alternatives. Fewer talk to their sons about their passions and emotions, and peer pressure silences us.

Senator Hawley, our country’s founders, handed down a document that is a blueprint for how we live our lives as Americans. Your words offer no such plan. Instead, they perpetuate outdated stereotypes about men that cannot be sustained in the 21st century. They hurt rather than help us live our best lives. I’ve never forgotten what my father passed down to me. That legacy will go no further. And neither should yours.

Josh Hawley blames the left for men’s problems. Men like Josh Hawley are the problem.

This image is part of a series of posters about the sorry state of American political discourse. Jeff Gates does these under the guise of the Chamomile Tea Party. Download a high resolution copy of this poster for free. In fact, all Chamomile Tea Party posters are free to download under a Creative Commons license.

Follow the history of our country’s political intransigence from 2010–2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.