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toxic masculinity
Beware Men Who Wage War to Prove They Are Men
The rabid hypermasculinity unleashed across Iran by the White House can be no surprise.
Mar 21, 2026
Seemingly endless recitations throughout history of what constitutes virtuous citizenship emphasize military life. A specifically masculine heritage of violence in the service of the nation oversees and delimits democracy and authority—a privileged area of social welfare in contrast to health, education, the environment, or poverty.
Much classical and modern political theory assumes and even endorses domestic violence, bellicose masculinity, and the notion that “real” politics is generated, discussed, and concluded between men. The idea that male virtue is tied to violence, whether in defense of faith, family, or the border, is immensely strong.
From individual duels to national campaigns, the “right” way to engage in violence has given rise to ideas of nobility. Masculine worth is supposedly incarnate in bloodshed and authoritarian leadership, embodied in the military as a righteous national embodiment of power, spirit, religiosity, and victory.
Raewyn Connell articulates the history of North Atlantic countries that conquered much of the world with contemporary ethnographic study of gender politics. She finds white male sexuality in Western Europe and North America is isomorphic with power: Men seek global dominance and desire, orchestrated to oppress women through hegemonic masculinity.
US masculine anxiety is repeating itself in a manner that may be totally predictable, but is no less disastrous for humanity, other animals, and the planet.
This encompasses overt sexism—rape, domestic violence, and obstacles to female career advancement—and more subtle domination, such as excluding women from social settings and sports teams, or the bourgeois media’s fascination with men. Ironically, women’s rights are often invoked to justify invasions that injure them. For example, the British used traditional limitations on women’s freedom and education to legitimize the colonization of India.
Everywhere you look, from diplomats to bombers to correspondents, war is an implicitly and explicitly masculine activity. This is rarely, if ever, recognized in mainstream media coverage and academic knowledge, or problematized as such.
That said, reactionary commentators, male and female alike, have gone out of their way to valorize the hypermasculinity that has been unleashed, beyond even normal limits, in the United States since 2001, laying claim to chivalry, dominance, and certainty.
Reactionary public commentators churn out press columns and viral videos, seizing the opportunities afforded by war to push a domestic agenda for male power, using international relations to denounce queerness and feminism.
Camille Paglia, Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter endorse compulsory heterosexuality. Coulter called one deceased soldier “an American original—virtuous, pure, and masculine as only an American man can be” who “died bringing freedom and democracy to 28 million Afghans.” She insisted that “there is no other country in the world—certainly not in continental Europe—that could have produced such a man.”
In 2025, US Chief of Protocol Monica Crowley stated that “we are in an era of true masculinity thanks to the bold and muscular leadership of President Trump and our Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.” And Hegseth dutifully promises “maximum lethality, not lukewarm legality” in the assault on Iran.
But behind those loud voices lurks a figure long plagued by doubts, failures, and weaknesses—actually existing masculinity. Hence Niccolo Machiavelli in the 16th century proposing that men dressed in uniform and trained to fight lose any “habits they consider effeminate.”
Such anxiety has been common among imperial powers across history and geography, with numerous institutions dedicated to carrying forward errant masculine impulses or channeling them into military readiness: physical culture, “strenuous living,” social Darwinism, rational recreation, and French neoclassical romanticism among them.
Matthew Arnold famously wrote, “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”; but a deep concern for military preparedness led him to warn that “disasters have been prepared on those playing fields as well as victories.” Pierre de Coubertin revived the ancient Olympics in 1896 as an international festival of male athletes and diplomats that could cultivate “man’s moral musculature,” redeeming French masculinity after the shocks of the Franco-Prussian conflict a quarter of a century earlier.
By the end of the 19th century, the United States had been at peace for three decades, ever since its bloody Civil War. As most veterans of that conflict passed away, there was public debate about whether American men were still capable of martial masculinity.
Wars in Cuba and the Philippines followed in quick succession. Hundreds of thousands were killed and wounded to expand US imperialism—part of a desperate, felt need to “build masterful male citizens.”
That has its modern corollaries. In 1960, President-elect John F. Kennedy alerted Sports Illustrated readers to a “growing softness, our increasing lack of fitness.” Such trends supposedly constituted “a threat to our security” that must be addressed, per Ancient Greece’s Olympian quest to forge and maintain “a vigorous state.” After all, “struggles against aggressors throughout our history have been won on the playgrounds and corner lots and fields of America.”
Concerns about masculinity and domination of territory routinely underpin the allocation of government resources. Donald J. Trump’s National Youth Sports Strategy feared that “most young people are not moving enough,” detailing “surveillance systems” to monitor children. His 2025 “Presidential Fitness Test” for school pupils aimed to improve “our economy, military readiness, academic performance, and national morale” and “emphasize the importance” of “military readiness.”
The hypermasculinity unleashed across Iran by the current White House can come as no surprise. The fact that it is reinforced by a video of Hollywood explosions and outbursts makes this horror simultaneously banal and fatal, as propaganda and movies meet in male bodies: “machismo from film and television, crassly interspersed with real infrared kill-shot footage.”
US masculine anxiety is repeating itself in a manner that may be totally predictable, but is no less disastrous for humanity, other animals, and the planet.
It’s what those men do.
Not all men—the ones who need war to ensure that they are, in fact, men. To them, Hegseth and his cadre represent “less a symbol of toxic masculinity than a masculine tonic.”
Shall we join in? Thanks, but no thanks.
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More 'Beef' With Bobby: Meat and Masculinity
In 2026, the federal government is telling us how men should be men, with devastating effects on our health and planet.
Mar 17, 2026
In January 2026, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the Food and Drug Administration’s new inverted food pyramid to replace the Michelle Obama's “myplate” visualization. There is some good in the change: promoting whole foods and minimizing processed foods, as I noted in My “Beef” with Bobby. But the science ends here as RFK instead relies on bro-science. Taking his cue from the “manosphere” and MAHA wellness influencers, he emphasizes animal proteins over plant proteins. More on that in a moment.
Just one month after releasing the new food pyramid, RFK released a workout video with Kid Rock where the pair eat steaks, pump iron, and then drink raw milk in a hot tub together. It’s difficult to watch, but even more difficult to describe. Comedian Stephen Colbert called it “senior softcore that feels like dropping acid.”
RFK has long sought to prove his manliness. He has admitted to taking testosterone, while insisting, unconvincingly, that he’s not on steroids. The administration more broadly seems to have an obsessive and desperate need to demonstrate its masculine prowess. In fact, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s warrior mentality may have contributed to the US attacks on Iran. It has certainly contributed to his callous dismissal of human casualties. Both meanwhile defer to President Donald Trump’s allegedly off-the charts levels of testosterone.
These food policies and performative workouts might appear unrelated. But, a closer connection exists between beef, masculinity, and the American nation, one that has, in fact, twined since the country’s earliest days. RFK’s effort to Make American Healthy Again is mere revival of a longstanding American narrative.
For all its chest-thumping certainty, this administration’s relationship to masculinity looks less like confidence than anxiety, much like the frontier myth itself.
The idea that meat is manly can be traced to the cultural founding of the nation on the actual frontier. In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the struggle to conquer the wilderness had fostered American virtues of independence, self-reliance, and democracy. Proving your manly virtue on the frontier made immigrants into American men as America became a virtuous nation. Declaring the closing of the frontier, Jackson lamented America’s ability to grow and innovate. Men would wither without the opportunity to test their mettle as the nation expanded.
Beef was central to imperial expansion on the frontier. Ranching not only justified the expropriation American Indian land, but beef products supplied to the US Army made expansion possible. By slaughtering to the brink of extinction the 50 million bison that roamed the Great Plains, they settled the “Indian question.” Historian Joshua Specht calls cattle “mobile colonizers.” Culturally, ranchers and cowboys justified the violence against American Indians in the interests of civilization. Central to this myth was the frontier man, bringing civilization to the feminized “vanishing Indian,” a curious paradox, to be sure, where Native Americans could be at once docile and violent.
Today we are left with an embarrassing historical echo. Protein as the final frontier of fitness influencers ironically returns us to the actual frontier in American history. Now we can see why RFK’s two provocations in the culture war of 2026 are related. Food has always been gendered and tied to nothing less than the ideals of the nation and what it means to be an American.
Today we see the same gendering of meat wrapped up with big business. Only un-American soy boys refuse to eat meat. Meat advertisements often demonstrate the masculinity of meat consumption by displaying oversexualized women cooking meat, implying that both women and animals are to be dominated and consumed by men.
There is of course no evidence that soy intake affects male hormones, or that meat consumption is required for elite athletic performance. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose character once said, “You hit like a vegetarian,” has more recently called for cutting back on meat, noting that it isn’t necessary for athletes and harms the planet. James Cameron’s documentary The Game Changers challenges the myth that animal protein is needed for physical strength and elite athletic performance. Cameron follows tennis stars, Olympians, and even the ultimate fighter James Wilks to see how plant protein permeates their diets. But the myth lives on, perpetrated by RFK’s shirtless workouts and emphasis on eating meat. And because the old adage “follow the money” seems to be guiding light for this administration, it should come as no surprise that the meat industry is also a major donor.
Still, the science on red meat consumption and its effects on our planet and health are clear. Red meat consumption reduces life expectancy by increasing risks of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and cancer. Cattle also consume much of the world’s arable land, leading to deforestation and increased greenhouse gas emissions. While beans and legumes make it into the dietary guidelines, they are entirely absent from the pyramid.
Despite the eagerness of the administration, Kid Rock, and MAHA followers to heed RFK’s food and exercise advice, many of these same figures recoiled when Michelle Obama tried to move toward nutrient-dense fruit and vegetables in school lunches. Republicans accused her of trying to impose a “nanny-state,” and bristled at her impudent attempt to shape what Americans choose to eat. Again, gender is at work in our food policies.
Despite claiming to restore “scientific integrity” and “common sense,” RFK ignores the government’s own "Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee," which consistently advocated plant-based sources of protein, especially beans and lentils while reducing the intake of red meat. The committee even suggested moving the “Beans, Peas, and Lentils Subgroup from the Vegetables Food Group to the Protein Foods Group.”
Cultural tropes can be hard to break, but it is time for a new generation of athletes and influencers to confront the wellness-to-fascism pipeline. Our secretary of health should not be making policy decisions on the basis of pseudoscience for the sake of winning a culture war. Nor should his leadership parrot “manosphere" talking points that openly embrace a hostility toward women and decry the feminization of Western society. This is nothing short of what one nutritionist called a "vibes-based policy disaster." For all its chest-thumping certainty, this administration’s relationship to masculinity looks less like confidence than anxiety, much like the frontier myth itself. Still, these performances should not require the rest of us to pay with our health and our planet for their fragile egos.
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Missiles, Memes, and Masculinity: When the White House Turns War Into Entertainment
Consider what’s missing from the videos: no civilians running from falling bombs. No grieving families. No returning veterans struggling with trauma.
Mar 09, 2026
A week into Trump’s illegal war against Iran, the White House released a 42-second video on X, featuring movie scenes spliced with real military footage of strikes in Iran, promising “justice, the American way.” Rather than sober statements about national security or the grim human realities of war, the March 5 video resembled a movie trailer.
The clips stitched together real footage of missile strikes with pop-culture heroes: Russell Crowe in Gladiator, Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Keanu Reeves’ relentless assassin in the John Wick films. Even SpongeBob SquarePants made an appearance. The video was immediately mocked for reflecting the militaristic fantasies of teenage boys (see Hegseth, Pete), more than that of the US starting a war.
The editing followed a familiar formula: a heroic movie quote, a dramatic cut to real explosions, then a video-game style victory sound. War, apparently, has become content. Actor Ben Stiller publicly demanded the removal of a Tropic Thunder clip, used without permission, stating, “War is not a movie.”
When political leaders celebrate military violence using the imagery of hypermasculine heroes, they reinforce those expectations rather than challenge them. What’s the message for our sons and grandsons?
The controversy over these videos isn’t only about taste or messaging. It’s about something deeper: the way American political culture still equates masculinity with domination and violence. When leaders celebrate military strikes using action-movie heroes and gaming tropes, they reinforce one of the oldest myths about manhood—that men’s strength is proven by crushing enemies.
JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸🔥 pic.twitter.com/0502N6a3rL
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026
Criticism of the videos continues for trivializing violence. Coverage from Reuters described them as part of a broader “meme war,” blending Hollywood imagery and gaming culture with real military action. But the controversy isn’t only about tone. It’s about something deeper: the way American culture still links masculinity with domination and force.
For generations, boys have been raised on stories where one’s manhood is proven through violence. Movies, video games, and political rhetoric repeat the same narrative: the male hero defeats the enemy through superior power. Beyond the troubling optics lies a deeper cultural question: What do these videos reveal about the way masculinity is still defined in 21st century America?
In this script, restraint looks weak. Empathy looks soft. Diplomacy looks naïve. Real men strike back.
Really!? A quarter of the way through the century, the slow, steady gains of an international movement to redefine masculinity still remains beneath the radar.
The White House videos used Hollywood mythology to bolster its geopolitical messaging. Consider the imagery: Maximus in Gladiator embodies righteous vengeance. Maverick in Top Gun represents fearless individualism. Tony Stark’s Iron Man combines technological power with swaggering bravado. The assassin played by Keanu Reeves in John Wick eliminates enemies with relentless efficiency.
Psychologist Mary L. Trump—Donald Trump’s niece—has written about how fragile masculinity often masks deep insecurity. In her book Too Much and Never Enough, she describes a family culture in which vulnerability was treated as weakness and domination became the only acceptable form of strength. That dynamic doesn’t stay confined to one family. It echoes through political culture.
When leaders, almost always white and male, celebrate explosions with movie quotes and gaming sound effects, they reinforce a version of masculinity that sees empathy as weakness and violence as proof of strength.
Such a cultural script carries real consequences. The overwhelming majority of violence worldwide—from mass shootings to domestic abuse to war—is committed by men. Researchers who study masculinity point to rigid expectations that equate manhood with dominance and emotional suppression.
When political leaders celebrate military violence using the imagery of hypermasculine heroes, they reinforce those expectations rather than challenge them. What’s the message for our sons and grandsons?
Consider what’s missing from the videos: no civilians running from falling bombs. No grieving families. No returning veterans struggling with trauma. War is no longer presented as solemn or ethically complex; it is packaged like a video game. If a podcaster promoted that, we’d be outraged. That our government is doing so demonstrates just how morally bankrupt the Trump administration is.
War appears not as tragedy, but as spectacle.
Across the country—and around the world—men are challenging the old patriarchal script. They are often choosing caregiving over breadwinning, confronting sexism rather than ignoring it, and working to prevent violence in their communities.
Their courage doesn’t appear in action-movie montages, yet it may be far more important. Because the real challenge facing our society isn’t simply defeating enemies abroad; it’s transforming manhood at home.
If we want a safer, more humane world, boys must learn that real courage isn’t measured by explosions or victory screens. It’s measured by the ability to protect life, show empathy, and reject violence—even in a culture that socializes you to believe violence is what makes you a man.
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