Dying to Be Men

American Masculinity as Death Cult

Much as owing guns at home is most likely to injure or kill the people living with those guns than the supposed threats posed by home invaders, the violent discourse espoused by Charlie Kirk and many others has resulted in his murder in front of a crowd of thousands of students.

From The Daily Beast via JD Vance’s X account.

Kirk built his career on racism and misogyny, encouraging young Americans to the side of a fully radicalized and extremist Republican party that has abandoned any pretense of caring for Americans and instead has become a propaganda machine pathetically flailing to prove that they are all men. White male insecurity from the losers currently governing has fueled attacks on Black federal workers, girls and women, immigrants, children and the elderly.

It is no surprise that they are desperate to attack the very academic fields that lay their weaknesses bare: women’s and gender studies, sociology, the humanities and public health. What they are most afraid of is their own irrelevance and mortality, but instead of seeking a place in communities of care, these men grope for ways to lash out with violence and dominance. We see it the world over: Putin, Netanyahu, and others of Trump’s heroes seek global domination in a game of one-upmanship that is killing hundreds of thousands of people and risking the lives of millions.

In gender studies, we recognize a wide expression of masculinities, femininities, non-binary gender, many ways humans over time and across cultures have expressed their gender identities. These identities are fluid, but shaped distinctly by the power structures of any given society. Certain types of gender expression are more rewarded or encouraged depending on how power circulates. In America, the main version of hegemonic masculinity has been always linked to whiteness, because this country was built on white supremacy, and misogyny, because women have been constructed as subordinate to men. This subordination is maintained through the perpetuation of unequal rights afforded to women and the celebration of rape culture, that sees girls and women as sexual conquests and only valuable in how much they maintain their appearance and comportment to appeal to men (this is called emphasized femininity and its aesthetic is Kristi Noem and her tradwife ilk).

Dominant American masculinity is also homophobic, because men loving men is read as feminine (which must be violently rejected) and because not desiring women as conquest undoes a basic pillar of manhood. Women loving women cuts men out entirely, a loss of control completely unacceptable in a heteropatriarchy. Trans people pose the biggest threat (clearly) because they show that biological sex and gender are distinct categories, and that gender identity is constructed. This takes all of the power away from having a penis—again, unacceptable.

We are refusing to take action on gun control in this country because a minority of mostly white men cannot imagine themselves outside of these dominator models. Because there is such deep insecurity, men who otherwise might have a moral compass instead go along with the death cult to prove that they, too, are men.

These men are killing us, but they are also killing themselves: premature death rates among boys and men are much higher, because of risk-taking, refusal of care, isolation and mental illness. These are not caused by feminism and gender studies but are revealed by it. They are so afraid to face reality that they will die by their own swords and take us all down with it. They are literally shooting the messengers.

So we have to keep up the fight to protect these very disciplines that help us to understand how violent, white American masculinity poses one of this country’s biggest threats. We cannot give into apathy when Trump claims domestic violence shouldn’t be a crime. And we can’t look away from the constant murder of our children in school shootings or the death bans on women’s healthcare. These people are in a radical death cult and we can’t accept it as a normal paradigm for our country and the world.

I’m sorry for Charlie Kirk and all the other men like him that have been raised in this America and with these ideals of masculinity. I’m sorry that he decided to adopt this hateful ideology and to profit from it. And as the mother to a boy and a girl, my heart breaks for the America these children are growing up in. Here’s hoping we can save ourselves.