Republican Phallus / Femiphobia Theory

Stephen J. Ducat Dissects "Anxious Masculinity," Making Sense of America's Strutting, in a Psychoanalytic Kind of Way

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

I saw the Republican National Convention as essentially a hyper-masculine strut-fest. The real point of the convention was to make John Kerry their woman.... They had already done that with John Edwards by dubbing him the "Breck girl." And Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to proclaim that any men who were anxious about the loss of jobs under the reign of George W. Bush were, as he put it, "economic girlie-men." The inference was that Democratic candidates who were always whining about pink slips may as well be wearing pink slips.

* * *

Like a jilted lover out to prove his masculinity with a series of new conquests, our Bush regime today seem always out to prove something. They will fight any war (with or without allies). They will ram through legislation (with or without the democrats on board). They will eliminate supportive social programs (since only wimps need "safety nets"). In other words, their America is a John Wayne/Rambo/Terminator figure. But why? Recently Stephen J. Ducat, author of The Wimp Factor, talked with BuzzFlash about where this delusional and destructive mindset comes from, and how it manifests itself in our country's domestic and foreign policies. When you think about it, the right wingers have played our fears and fantasies darned well, exploiting fear on the one hand and our hopes and dreams on the other. Perhaps "anxious masculinity" played out on the world stage does help explain the right wing's virulent attitude towards Hillary Clinton, and their determination to slur Vietnam war hero John Kerry as "French." As George Lakoff has commented, "It is crucial to notice and understand the central role of a certain version of masculinity in American politics. Ducat's book helps enormously."

Stephen J. Ducat is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a professor at the New College of California. He is a candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California.

* * *

BuzzFlash: In your book, The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, & the Politics of Anxious Masculinity, you argue that the current positions and attitudes of the Republican Party and Bush Administration can best be viewed through a certain lens that we traditionally associate with the he-man, the virile figure--you call it the phallus. Briefly, how would you define "anxious masculinity?"

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.

BuzzFlash: You're drawing a parallel between the extreme right wing in the United States and the Islamic fundamentalists, in that they are both highly fearful of overbearing feminine influence?

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.

BuzzFlash: You discuss "anxious masculinity" as exhibited by right wing America, the Bush Administration, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and George Bush. Why "anxious?" Is it that their masculinity has got to be constantly reproven?

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.

Part of the reason is that this type of masculinity is defined largely in terms of domination. The problem is that domination--either in a personal or a global context---can never be a permanent condition. It's a relational state. It's dependent on having somebody in a subordinate position. That means you could be manly today, but you're not going to be manly tomorrow unless you've got somebody to push around and control, whether that is an abused wife or another country. So this kind of masculinity is really brittle.

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.

BuzzFlash: You cite examples in your book of how your psychoanalytical approach applies to the political world in a very specific way. First of all, let's take the efforts by the Bush Administration to portray Kerry as "French." Should we assume that this was a way of saying he's feminine?

Stephen J. Ducat: Absolutely. It's a rather transparent code word for being feminized. I also saw the Republican National Convention as essentially a hyper-masculine strut-fest. The real point of the convention was to make John Kerry their woman. That's what they wanted to do. They had already done that with John Edwards by dubbing him the "Breck girl." And Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to proclaim that any men who were anxious about the loss of jobs under the reign of George W. Bush were, as he put it, "economic girlie-men." The inference was that Democratic candidates who were always whining about pink slips may as well be wearing pink slips. Real men, you know, don't worry about the losers in the new global Darwinian economy.

This theme was echoed by a number of people, including Zell Miller, who said that not only was Kerry suspiciously French, but he would even let Paris decide when America needs defending. There was the implication that, if Kerry were ever to run the White House, he would imperil the masculinity of all men by turning the U.S. into a kind of submissive bottom in the global contest for supremacy, the deferential housewife in the family of nations.

Cheney basically echoed the same themes, referring to Kerry as sensitive, faint-hearted, weak, wobbly, soft. Since the reign of Bush, even the notion of negotiation or diplomacy, or international cooperation became very suspect. For many Republicans, collaboration raises enormous femiphobic anxieties, even if they're collaborating--and perhaps especially if they're collaborating--with Democrats. GOP strategist Grover Norquist once said that bipartisanship is another name for date rape. So that tells you about his anxiety, I think.

BuzzFlash: To cooperate, then, is to give up one's masculine prerogative to assert oneself as a male leader?

Stephen J. Ducat: Absolutely. In the world they live in, you're either a top or a bottom. Mutuality, democracy, equality--that makes no sense to them.

BuzzFlash: Well, as Jon Stewart said recently in the context of the John Gannon/Jeff Guckert scandal in Washington, if you're on top, you're not gay. That may explain the inner circle acceptance of gays within the Republican Party, in spite of the gay-bashing national political line they give to their followers.