The Fear Imperative

I was originally going to call this post "Androphobia", because I want to talk a bit about how the Patriarchal memetic organism self-replicates through fear of men, both by women and by other men. However, I decided to google the term before I went ahead and used it as a personal coinage, and what came back was the official definition is, "abnormal fear of men". And obviously, my whole point was going to be that fear of men isn't "abnormal", but instead is endemic and a part of how the current social order is upheld - it is so "normal" that it is almost invisible in the way that it works until you start to stop working with it and go against what is ingrained.

In one of those incredible dual processes (like the way that women are at one the sex-class and the no-sex-class), boys are conditioned for their role in two almost diametrically opposed ways, both of which will be very familiar.

First, there is the "boys will be boys" approach, which is a licence to young males to be uncontrolled in certain forms of expression.

Second, there is "Toughen him up", which teaches them to fear other males.

Falling between these and incorporating elements of both, there is the whole process of male gender indoctrination. For example, "toughen him up" not only teaches fear of other males, but often explicitly teaches by aversion the avoidance of "feminine" traits. "Boys will be boys", in later life, excuses and encourages sexual predatory attitudes and forms a basis for what is termed "rape culture". The toxic mix of "you may act unfettered" combined with deeply scored furrows that define exactly where and how one may act in an unfettered fashion is what builds the male "enforcer" role in the Patriarchy. Those furrows ae carved so deeply because they are reinforced by the licence to act without concern for the consequences that one's fellow males enjoy: the moment you express gender non-conformity, you become fair game for them to prove their own adherence. It is this fear of other men that prevents men being able to step out of the norms of performative masculinity.

It would be inappropriate for me personally to comment on the many reasons that women have to fear men. I shall suffice to observe that by the physiological differences of men and women in terms of musculature, height and weight, men tend to have a force advantage over women.

It is on this difference that the "androphobia" that operates to the benefit only of the grand memetic organism (and the detriment of everyone who forms a part of its habitat) is based. The only other observation that needs to be made to complete the picture of its operation in performative masculinity is that, while men are more even by comparison with one another, a very strong man who loses the fear of the men around him will still be vulnerable to the cumulative action of a small number of weaker men: the very conditions that Hobbes described in Leviathan as defining the State of Nature. The "State of Nature" is not a natural state, and Karl Marx demonstrated that all the theories of political economy that in one way or another posited a state of nature were in fact arguing from a purely theoretical case, and not based on reality. Nevertheless, the Hobbesian State of Nature has been produced, or reproduced, in human society!

The response to the androphobic meme-structure can only be for men to act as though we are not afraid of other men. To dare to stand apart from the performative masculinity and the accepted attitudes. Already I think that there are male voices that have made it easier to do this by going there first; with gay rights, especially, gender normativity and performative maleness have been challenged to some degree of success; and in certain circles at least it is now possible to be male and openly feminist (or at least, pro-feminist) without running too great a risk (although I think a certain level of exclusion and othering still invariably occurs from other men for those who do not hide their ethical stance).

But being different still brings with it a real threat of serious violence, whether it's via transphobia, homophobia, or more subtle things (like hatred of goth culture, or targeting the "wimp" who won't go along with rape-culture attitudes). And that is how androphobia is used to reinforce the Patriarchy.