Ducat connects Gannon, Arnold and Hyper Masculinity

Intriguing Buzzflash interview with psychoanalyst Stephen J. Ducat dissects why war, why call Kerry "French" and why being on top means never having to say you're Gay. He describes the amazing and scary manipulations set to play on the minds of red-blooded Americans.


...Stephen J. Ducat: It's a culture based on male domination and a culture in which most things feminine tend to be devalued, even if they are secretly envied. In such a culture, the most important thing about being a man is not being a woman. This powerful adult male imperative to be unlike females and to repudiate anything that smacks of maternal care taking is played out just as powerfully in politics as it is in personal life. In fact, political contests among men are in many ways the ultimate battles for masculine supremacy. This makes disavowing the feminine in oneself and projecting it onto one’s opponent to be especially important. This femiphobia--this male fear of being feminine--operates unconsciously in many men as a very powerful determinant of their political behavior. Also, this femiphobia constitutes a very significant motive for fundamentalist terrorism...

Stephen J. Ducat: Absolutely. Femininity is seen as a contaminant, and there is an attempt to repudiate those aspects of one’s self that seem feminine. This is something that fundamentalists around the world share. As I argue in the last chapter of my book, there is particular tension between Christian fundamentalists in this country and the extreme Islamic fundamentalists elsewhere, surrounding this kind of devaluation, repudiation and fear of the feminine...


Stephen J. Ducat: Yes. In fact, the kind of hyper-masculine strutting that we see on display by right wingers is a defense. It’s a defense against this anxious masculinity, against this fear of the feminine. In a culture in which it’s so important to deny the feminine in men, masculinity becomes a really brittle achievement. It’s quite Sisyphean--you know, you can never quite get there. You’re always having to prove it.



http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/03/int05011.html

Thanks for posting, I missed it when I skimmed Buzzflash. That book is a definite on my must-read list.

in my view, Ducat is on to something.

For balance, here's another take not on masulinity, but on the feminine.


Here She Comes

Since my earliest spiritual awakenings, I have heard variations on a teaching passed down over many long years in the oral tradition. The teaching suggests that as the old world is passing away, but before the new world is fully born — in an era of unrelenting crisis — the feminine spirit will rise to heal the chaos, the madness, the willful destruction of the Earth.

As various elders have said to me over the years, watching the feminine spirit rise is somewhat like watching grass grow. It doesn’t happen all at once, or dramatically, but it happens all the same.

(snip)

http://www.chiron-communications.com/communique%208-4.html

outing are the bottoms? Do I have that right? I'm not a particularly big fan of the idea of outing (I like to think that your private life is your private life), but when faced with a monument of hypocrisy like the current admin, well, I think something else is at work then.

Since Gannuckert was a "top", well, who was his "bottom" in the White House. Will we ever get to the "bottom" of this? Is anyone even in a position to know, and would they tell if they did?

Maybe the W.H. propagandan machine is trying to numb people to the idea that homosexuality is not worth thinking twice about, in order to diffuse the chaos when it comes out that Rove/Fleisher/McLellan take your pick are, in fact....

bush entered the white house -- he started his first war against women. One of the first exec. orders he signed was to reinstate the gag order. Doctors aren't allowed to mention "abortion" if their clinic gets Federal funds.

The women "owned" by these creeps are punished if they speak their minds -- and/or act on their own.

Normal human being have both male and female traits -- Jung speaks of this in his writing of human personality theory. Our bodies also have both male and female hormones -- depending on our gender one hormone is dominate. (This whole topic is far more complex than can be explained in a short note). Anyway this is one area in which Jungian Psychologists and physiologists tend to agree.

Ducat's insights about the hyper-masculine cult surrounding and including bush are excellent. What these cult members are doing is to reject part of themselves.

At at the same time they are involved in Orwellian speak -- night is day, up is down, Green is red and "on top" in male/male sexual pairing is not gay. Only lovely, dovey stuff would make the on top male guy gay. I have heard men question strong, outspoken women -- asking if they had to be on top? Now I understand where this question was coming from. I've been to parties while Clinton was President and heard some very rude remarks involving "top".

So do this mean that bush is a wham bang thank you ma'am -- because only guys who are gay try to please the woman??? And what is it with bushie's inappropriate crying?? Shedding buckets of tears when he sees a painting of himself.

Preventing women from getting abortions is about CONTROL, not babies.
edit: spelling

Could she be riding the cusp of refeminization of the testosterone laden USA?

I always wondered about their disproportionate Hillary-hatred; this really explains a lot.

It's a desire to dominate and control everything. It holds domination and control by fear and material objects as signs of success and prestige.

What's interesting is the well-marketed campaign over the need for women's hormones to be balanced. For years, our culture has been labeling women deviant, hysterical, and imbalanced due to our hormones, certainly not because of the events taking place around us, our families and the world. We just need prozac, xanax, or more progesterone to solve our problem of too much emotion.

What women are not suffering from is the over abundance, production and over marketing of testosterone and virility products which is probably involved in the over production of male hormones, overt aggression and over promotion of unbridled competition, and inevitably and unchecked, the virtual destruction of the planet. Certainly, the virtual destruction of the feminine which is the vital balance necessary to sustain this planet.

Too much of anything is destructive. We are way past the balanced pendulum.

This is right on the money, sadly. This poisonous idea of hyper-masculinity can be seen behind most of the worst dealings of the * administration.

Not to say these are all bad but, Harley-Davidson, macho pickups, tattoos (etc) are trendy with their roots in male-orientated society. GOP advisor's are onto this male trend. Hearing the "cutting edge of societal evolution" claims echoing from Limbaugh's mouth seems to make sense now. And if the GOP aren't trend followers, they are inventing and forcing the evolution. Evolution, I thought they didn't believe in that.

It would be a hell of a lot better place. Husband just walked in. I think husband just walked out after I had him read this thread. Get back in here until I hit you in the head a few times until you get in touch with your "female" side!!!!!! In a word, these wingers are one hell of a threat to all that has been achieved in the last 40 years by women AND the most disgusting thing is all the dumb broads who "support our preseeedent". You deserve to wash toilet bowls, honey!!

:* :toast:
nt

Real men who are are sure of their sexuality are not frightened by strong women nor gay men.

Real men don't have to prove they are male by stuffing a sock in their crotch and parade in front of the world on an aircraft carrier.

Real men can be sensitive and loving.

Robert Redford is a real man -- and real sexy.

My husband is a real man!

bush is messing with mother earth . . . bush and his gang hate women because they all came FROM women.

reactions to being called a "girly-man".

reactions to Ann Coulter - who also insults women in general. She is like the Benedict Arnold of women. I think her job is partly to get some people hating women.



.....it's good to have people pointing this out.

BuzzFlash: How does the logic of your theory extend to the welfare state? Grover Norquist has publicly stated that he would like to see the social service state starved and then drowned in a bathtub. The social service state that provides education, medicine for everybody, care for seniors, that’s very feminine or very maternal.

Stephen J. Ducat: There’s nothing essentially feminine about it, but it is perceived and constructed that way in the femiphobic mind. Republicans call it the nanny state. That’s because care taking in this kind of universe is regarded as something feminine. Obviously there’s nothing essentially feminine about care taking, but that’s how it gets gendered in public discourse. A government that takes care of people is portrayed as maternal. And men anxious about their masculinity tend to be aversive of being taken care of by anything maternal. They repudiate that. In my book, I cite multiple examples of what can only be called a kind of transference to government--treating the government as if it were one’s own engulfing mommy. There’s a right-wing men’s movement book calledSurviving the Feminization of America, and the cover of the book is a picture of a capitol dome, and a man is looking aghast at the capitol dome because the top of it is replaced by a giant breast. So, we see quite concretely and dramatically this femiphobic terror of the "mommy state." I think this has a lot to do with the drive to undo the New Deal -- not only to undo the New Deal, but undo Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive area.

<snip>

BuzzFlash: Is this merely a stage we’re going through? Hasn't anxious masculinity been with us since the beginning of personhood? Is this due to the thirty or forty year strategy of the right wing?

Stephen J. Ducat: I think a complex combination of factors determines this. Not all cultures and all historical periods evidence this kind of femiphobia. But we’re seeing a number of factors, not the least of which is a kind of backlash against feminism and the ability of the Republicans to really define the words we use. There is no greater power than the power to define. If you can determine how people use language, you really are able to determine how they think. If you can fill the word liberal with the meaning that you want it to have, which nowadays is weak, feminine, cowardly, so much so that even liberals want to run away from it, then you’ve won an enormous battle for control. That sort of framing, as George Lakoff calls it, the kind of linguistic hegemony on the right, has accomplished a lot. Fears have always been there, but certain historical events have brought them into the foreground. I think the defeat of the United States in Vietnam played a major factor. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term “Vietnam syndrome.” I think one way of reading the Vietnam syndrome is as a condition of wounded masculinity.

<snip>

BuzzFlash: Then peace is a threat to anxious masculinity?

Stephen J. Ducat: It’s a threat because of its link to the feminine. In fact, I have a chapter on the 19th Century, when there was enormous debate about whether the U.S. should embark on the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars. In a number of editorial cartoons, peace itself was personified as female.

<snip>

the woman-haters will automatically ridicule it and oppose it. They define themselves in opposition to women, regardless of whether the particular thing is good or bad.

and concentrated on this area instead, he really could have changed the world as we know it.

It must be devastating for a male child in early development stage to realize that he is an "other" to his mother, whereas his sister is not. Particularly for men with brutal fathers (like Bush and most repukes, probably) to find out that they are different from their mother who represents safety, love and food, but the same as their fathers who represent fear and pain, it must engender an unbearable amount of self-hatred which they must transfer onto women just to survive mentally.

Many have suggested that Freud's whole outlook was dominated by his hatred and jealousy of his sisters, and that this influenced him throughout his whole career.

It must be terrible to know one will be cast out of the world where you were most safe, and that your siblings won't on the basis of gender.

It's sad to think that whether the mother is nurturing as in your example or the mother is NOT nurturing - either way would be a negative. (So really unless the mother and the father are nuturing - self-hatred, etc. could be a predictable outcome.)

Mothers often get the blame, though, either way. While the strict Father model is held up as some kind of model of virtue. From Luntz:

>> Strict Father: In the conservative worldview, it's assumed that the world is, and always will be, a dangerous and difficult place. It is a competitive world and there will always be winners and losers. Children are naturally bad since they want to do what feels good, not what is moral, so they have to be made good by being taught discipline. There is tangible evil in the world and to stand up to evil, one must be morally strong, or “disciplined."
In the 'Strict Father' family, the father's job is to protect and support the family. Children are to respect and obey him. The father's moral duty is to teach his children right from wrong, with punishment that is typically physical and can be painful when they do wrong. It is assumed that parental discipline in childhood is required to develop the internal discipline that adults will need in order to be moral and to succeed. Morality and success are linked through discipline. This focus on discipline is seen as a form of love -- "tough love."

The mother is in the background, not strong enough to protect and support the family or fully discipline the children on her own. Her job is to uphold the authority of the father and to care for and comfort the children. As a "mommy," she tends to be overly soft-hearted and might well coddle or spoil the child. The father must make sure this does not happen, lest the children become weak and dependent.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1632522#1633207

I am ordering it as soon as I get home.

I should.

say unequivocally, "Yes, a man is no better than a woman." The right wing forces are fighting a last ditch battle to stop that from happening. And just as there are many self-loathing gays on the repuke side, there are plenty of self-loathing women who will stand idly by, or flat out cheer at the repeated insults and affronts to their own sex.

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hyper masculinity is associated with repressed homosexuality.

Otherwise liberal men would never get laid, and I personally believe it is repukes that keep the pros in fishnet stockings.

"But at the end of the day the majority of women want and idealize the overly ambitious, upwardly mobile, well educated, professional man -- a Republican." That is quite insulting to liberal progressive men. Lots of attorneys and professors fit your defintion and many of them are liberal.

You have a pretty negative outlook on masculinity, I'd say.

the hyper macho mice -- are overly aggressive and are most often killed by other mice. And female mice don't choose these mouse Republicans to sire their litters.

My guess is that the women who do end up with the bushie types -- have their own abnormal needs. The really rich & powerful -- choose serial trophy wives -- and these are a whole different female species.

There are lots of men out there who are well educated and also liberals/progressives -- and who are secure in their own sexuality. These are men who really like women and have women friends.

Bush has also given me the impression that he is not entirely secure in his own sexuality -- for example the stunt of the cod piece in his flight suit -- leaving the straps on to show off his stuffed crotch (whereas those straps are always unhooked asap by the real pilots and crew).

That wasn't done to impress women -- but he was impressing another audience.

"But at the end of the day the majority of women want and idealize the overly ambitious, upwardly mobile, well educated, professional man -- a Republican. They want a man who makes more money than they do, a man who is higher in status than they are -- a man who is superior to them. They want what women have always wanted - no different from their more traditional mothers and grandmothers."

You are kidding, right? Are you a man or a woman?

I married a man who is my equal.

I stole her from her rightwing, jerk off boyfriend, and she's never been happier.

"In such a culture, the most important thing about being a man is not being a woman".

Because they are scared shitless to look inside and allow themselves to be the gay person they are, so they spend their whole life forcing it down and projecting it and their fear on to everyone else. Duh.

I love the joke I heard a comedian tell, that practically everybody asks themselves at one point or another "am I gay?". Most people answer no, some people answer yes, and the people that are two scared to even ask just lift alot of weights. (He could have also said drop alot of bombs).

I love the allusion to Sysiphus, pushing the rock up the hill everyday, only to have it roll back down that night. Sadly, this reveals their true feelings about masculinity, as if it is some sort of punishment like Sysiphus' fate.

Ann Coulter and Condi Rice may wear skirts and high heels, but they act as macho as any Republican man. I doubt we could detect a drop of feminine blood flowing though their veins.

In fact, almost all of the women that succeed within the Republican party do so by abandoning their femininity. The hyper-aggressive Condaleeza gets promotions, while the womanly Laura Bush is rarely utilized (and generally in only a seen but not heard capacity).

I felt during the elections that the way to hurt Bush was to attack his more feminine traits (he does have them, including his cheerleader past). Republicans are so completely dependent on that tough guy image, they simply don't know how to react when confronted with the wimp factor. They can't defend signs of weakness, because they are afraid that if they do, the femininity will rub off onto them.

they just really don't know what to do with her.

but the "weakness" and "feminity" they are afraid of is inside them, not exterior to them, which is why they hyper-react to it.

...to find out that they are different from their mother who represents safety, love and food, but the same as their fathers who represent fear and pain, it must engender an unbearable amount of self-hatred which they must transfer onto women just to survive mentally.

Insightful, jdj. I had never thought of it this way. It explains so much. All your posts on this thread ring so true.


Cher

I thought about posting this, but haven't yet. Feel free to start a thread with it if you think that it is good. The opposite of man doesn't have to be woman . I think that Cohen has the right idea.
http://www.collegenews.org/x4167.xml

The earlier thread on this BuzzFlash interview is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3204942
The unhelpful title: "Reason for Dubya's 'strutting'"
No wonder it wasn't noticed in a topic search.

I mention this partly because readers of this thread might want to see comments in that one and also because I would like feedback on a couple of replies I made in that thread. In them I argued for the need for a major reframing campaign for combating outgrowths of this mindset -- specifically including homophobia.

The blivet** administration and its fundie allies have been able to tap into something that is in the subconscious of too many people in this country to whip up their politically useful hate and fear. The psychology of "anxious masculinity" described bythis author fits as a predisposing factor in the success of the gay-hating demagoguery.

The author lays out some reasonable points - now how do we use this insight to build a campaign to counter the underlying fear that fuels homophobia and so much else poisoning this country? What do we DO?