The right is obsessed with gender
Erin Ryan explains how "everything is gender."
There's a saying on social media that "everything is gender." The idea is that many of the things happening in politics today can be traced back to how different parts of American society are feeling about gender. This is especially true when we talk about the right, which has been hyper-focused on masculinity for years now.
The right likes to talk about things like "alpha males" and "cat ladies." Donald Trump is supposed to be their alpha—somehow—and the Democrats are cat ladies or feminine in some way. Many of the arguments one might come across in our political discourse have an implicit or explicit connection to gender.
Erin Ryan, a journalist and host of the Crooked Media podcast Hysteria, spends a lot of time discussing gender issues in her work. She says understanding the role gender is playing in American politics today is crucial.
"I think understanding that it's not a war between the sexes but a war over what gender means is kind of the skeleton key to understanding most of the actions of Donald Trump and his administration," Ryan tells me.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a great example of the right's obsession with gender. He's constantly talking about "warfighters" and "lethality." He makes a big show of working out on camera with soldiers, and he criticizes men who aren't fit. Trump uses extremely gendered language, portraying his political adversaries as "weak" and his supporters as big, burly men. Of course, Vice President JD Vance was the person behind the "cat ladies" comment.
We're seeing this kind of framing from right-wing Silicon Valley figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. We see it constantly from conservative media figures, such as Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson.
"It's an attractive sales pitch for men who feel disempowered and wish they had more power — without having to examine the economic reasons they're disempowered in the first place," Ryan says.
Ryan compares the right's gender messaging to LARPing—live-action role-playing. She says they're often selling these ideas to men who spend a lot of time online and/or playing video games, and they're trying to convince them that they can become the hero of their story.
"The Trump administration has sold the notion that the power you feel playing a video game doesn't have to stay digital — that you can actually be a real warrior," Ryan says. "There's a striving, self-serious corniness at the core of this Hegseth-ian, Trump-ian concept of masculinity — there are never any jokes at their expense. They're always the winner, in the end. It feels like a big cope."
And who is it who is trying to ruin all of the fun? Who is trying to prevent them from becoming the hero they've always dreamed of being? Well, Mom, of course. The Democrats are Mom, and they're bad because they're feminine and make you do things you don't want to do.
"You're mad that your mom told you that you have to stop playing video games at 9 p.m. You're so, so mad. You're mad that your mom made you go to church," Ryan says. "You're mad that your mom made you wash your hands and face. There's a video of Pete Hegseth from when he was on Fox and Friends where he told his co-host proudly that he never washes his hands. It was very, very odd. It feels like there's some unhealed inner child stuff happening with these people. And it does feel like this strange rebellion."
Thor Benson
As someone who's spent years writing about psychology, it's not hard for me to see what's happening with these people. It's probably not hard for you, either. They're extremely insecure, afraid of change and entitled. Things aren't going the way they wanted. They're worried about where things might go next, and they're making us all pay for their low self-esteem.
Of course, you can't talk about gender in politics today without touching on the fight over transgender issues. This administration doesn't like transgender people. It wants to take away their rights, and it demonizes them constantly. Figures like Elon Musk also demonize transgender people, and having a transgender daughter reportedly contributed to his radicalization.
"The gender binary as it exists on the American right is fragile and artificial," Ryan says. "That's why it has to be defended with such violence and hatred: left alone, it would collapse under its own weight."
The right is currently trying to portray Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico as either transgender or gay, because that's their move. When you look for it, you find this gender framing everywhere. It's childish and deranged, but that's true about a lot of things in American politics today. Perhaps the best thing Democrats can do is reject their narratives and show people what healthy, mature masculinity looks like.
