Cynthia Miller-Idriss’ Man-Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism

This is definitely the right book at the right time. The straightforward style covers many of the best known cases of male aggression from the news, social media feeds, and the internet. As a chronicle of the worst gender aggression of our times, Cynthia Miller-Idriss lays out in stark detail the hatred of women that that drives conservative politics and various right-wing political movements, but which also pervades many corners of our culture, and interpersonal interaction. However much some might like to imagine that sexist jokes, requests that a woman smile more, and similar and seemingly mild misogyny is essentially harmless, the mild end of the spectrum in fact legitimates more aggressive forms. Everyday misogyny normalizes all forms.

I especially like the style. While most people who follow the news would be familiar with much of the content, Miller-Idriss connects the various intersecting lines of misogyny clearly and often strikingly. She writes with an activist’s sharp critical edge that makes no attempt to hide the unseemly details of hate-driven worlds of right-wing politics, MAGA, incels, and manosphere discontent and aggression. She also maintains somewhat of a scholar’s distance, but I find that unnecessary, because she carefully discerns facts from fiction, and avoids exaggeration. Many of the cases cited here require no exaggeration to illustrate the extreme misogynistic attitudes and propensity for violence against women. In this regard, the book succeeds brilliantly, with consistent factual representation and critical insight. Fortunately, she spares us a literature review, a convention I have long since dispensed with in my own work, and which would only clutter the discussion.

Despite its emotional impact, Miller-Idriss does not write angry. Her assertiveness takes the form of inspiration through critical insight and factual integrity. She states several times that men will be part of the solution, and some women uphold misogyny. She devotes considerable effort to understanding women who oppose progressive change, from protecting children against alleged global trafficking conspiracies, to the “mama grizzlies” who try to create a racialized feminism, “with good motherhood and traditional gender roles linked to protection both of children and of white civilization more broadly” (p. 175). The honest clarity should appeal to anyone who opposes gender inequality and exploitation, from the most militant activists to everyday people who want to make the world a better place.

The book is meant to motivate, especially compared to extremely heavy intellectual tomes that cannot inspire an activist, offer no practical applications for everyday people to challenge patriarchal domination, nothing to formulate policy, and no insight to generate future research. I realize that feminist classics from the 1980s and 90s by scholars such as Judith Butler and Luce Irigaray were alongside and to an extent part of the postmodern movement of the period. As such, I don’t see their value as some others do. In contrast, Man Up very much hopes to hearten the activist, whether in the political realm, in every day friendships, in the workplace, in public, and at home. The book often delivers from the wisdom of personal experience. As the book is about everyday misogyny, we can also challenge it in our everyday lives.

The book connects people, ideology, and events mostly through thematic chronology. Along the way, we get some guidance as to how and why these things connect. From campaign slogans like “lock her up,” to conspiracies about Hollywood pedophiles, to online incel forums,  and other news items, Miller-Idriss lays out the facts so clearly that readers require little commentary. She definitely accomplishes her main goal, to connect the extreme and the public to the everyday. Conventional life reinforces male entitlement to “women’s bodies, emotional support, and subservience to men” (p. 103) as normal and natural. She also thinks more broadly, because the manosphere identifies many other enemies of ‘real’ men, including LGBTQ, Muslims, Jews, and liberal/leftists. As she notes, considerable scholarship has explored the intersection of gender, race, religion, immigration, and other denigrated groups. Their free ranging hatred attacks anything they perceive as “antagonistic of the white race,” (p. 103), such that the book effectively shows the close association between white supremacy and misogyny.

At the same time though, some points could use more insight. The evidence and discussion clearly shows patterns of child sexual abuse and rape among white supremacist groups, and the book also notes that these same groups obsess over alleged LGBTQ groomers and global child-trafficking rings (p. 138). Miller-Idriss is absolutely correct that “sexual violence enacted against women and children is thus foundational to far-right extremism…the ideological use of sexual and gender-based violence is a foundational tactic of terrorism” (p. 138-139). Still, this observation does not explain why the right-wing in fact engages in the same behavior they falsely allege liberals and others perpetrate.

Likewise, metaphors liven the discussion, but mostly superficially. During Covid time, right-wing women “wanted haircuts” (p. 178). Intriguing…tell me more. The story begins with the anti-medical establishment movements taught women to doubt modern medical science entirely, not just regarding childhood vaccinations. Anti-vaxxers originated in the early 90s among mostly liberal women, through typically elitist new-age cultures of “enlightenment, self-interrogation, skepticism, and an openness to new awakenings…” (p. 178). Miller-Idriss does not identify these themes as typically liberal, but right-wing leaders and movements do not call for honest self-reflection; they identify external Others who must be contained or eliminated. I know this because I study right-wing authoritarianism, but what if I didn’t? What connections might I draw then? If I assumed that fascist movements actually have an underlying self-reflective side that exposes individual complicity with oppressive aspects of American society, I would be completely wrong. I might also wrongly conclude that anti-science critiques have some validity, and that modern medicine is often more dangerous than beneficial. We don’t need much here, just something to the effect of: skeptics who explore so-called alternative medicine and other forms of anti-science may be open minded, but they are not critically minded. They embrace what they like, no matter how nonsensical, useless, or harmful–such as eating livestock deworming paste (ivermectin) as a cure-all.

Through chaotic but resolute right-wing experiences in self-delusional reality, the women wanted a “haircut” to seem more masculine, more like one of the boys with guns than women locked out of public visibility. They yearned to join the men on the front lines of fascist protest and takeover actions. Prior to the January 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow the US government, fascist men and some women took over the Michigan Capitol building on April 30, 2020. As with the hypocritical conspiracies mentioned above, Man Up shows the connections between conspiracy fantasies, gender identities, and racism, but similarly, why does such overt nonsense motivate people to aggressive action? How should we regard their motivations? As rational or irrational? As moves toward empowerment, or towards renewed submission to patriarchal domination? Maybe we have normalized nonsense? Maybe we believe that individual autonomy includes the right to act on fantasy realities? I encourage the author to discuss such motivations more closely, because the answers impact the solutions that she proposes later.

Miller-Idriss is correct, that normalized misogyny legitimates more extreme action. Consequently, fascist men do not feel insecure about their manhood, and neither do they feel disempowered. Rather, they feel absolutely entitled to express their sense of superiority, and do what real men do: do what you want, and never ask for permission or forgiveness. They do not feel left behind or left out of today’s world, but feel fully entitled to express their dominance. Similarly, whether women and their allies challenge patriarchy, or submit to it, they receive the same treatment. A story (p. 187) about a student who refuses to divulge personal information to a man at a coffee shop faces his increasingly aggressive reaction to her “stonewalling,” yet she also endangers herself by submitting. Everyday experiences empower the extreme, and the extreme reinforces the everyday.

Mainstream sources miss possible connections between everyday misogyny and larger trends of violence, and that “gender and mass violence in the United States and globally boils down to our inability to see that everyday forms of gendered discrimination and hostile forms of violence exist on the same spectrum” (p. 188). For any othered people, their everyday attempts to secure their safety through quiet attitudes, pleasant smiles, and deferential behavior reinforces the subordination is also absolutely correct. Refusal brings its own risks of aggression. The book notes (p. 191) significant progress over the past 10 years regarding same-sex marriage, LGBTQ recognition, to which I would add early 20^thcentury progress for the right to vote and own property. I think that gender is far more contested than the book suggests, and contemporary empirical research demonstrates this, especially for Millennials and Gen-Z.

In the Conclusion chapter, the discussion revisits parallels with everyday racism that covertly legitimate racial inequality and often aggression. Likewise, she hopes that “this book has demonstrated that the same thing is true for ordinary misogyny and sexism” (p. 189). Certainly she is correct, that systems of domination reinforce each other. I can elaborate on that important point myself, but I’m also a sociologist who studies these issues. Should we infer that racism and misogyny are similar in other ways?

Strikingly, the book has nothing at all to say about economic class. As a fundamentally material injustice, class differs decisively from racism and misogyny, which are status injustices. Of course, they often translate into material injustice. Changing status perception from stigma to mutual recognition has been a constant battle, but the Civil Rights, feminist, environmental, and other movements have advanced American society. In contrast, the class elite maintain nearly unquestioned dominance. Regardless of how we perceive them, billionaires retain their wealth, and wield unprecedented monetary influence.

For that matter, what kind of future society should we work towards? Does equality mean that women, people of color, LGBTQ, and any others all have equal opportunity to create inequality? Variously attributed to Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek, we can more readily imagine the end of the world than an end to capitalism. This also reminds me of the old joke about the difference between republicans and democrats. For the former, 10 white male heteronormative trillionaires will eventually rule the US. For democrats, 10 trillionaires will still rule, but half will be women, three Hispanic, two Black, and one Asian. Capitalism can function without race, gender, and sexual hierarchies, but not without class exploitation. Capitalist success depends significantly on the conditions of our birth, but monetary success requires only accounting with no status judgement, and the math applies equally to everyone.

Capitalism is the system of livelihood that encompasses the entire world. Agreed, boys especially “need early, consistent, and positive engagement with men who embrace connections with others, who engage with empathy and love in caregiving roles, and who are role models for respectful treatment of women” (p. 201). Positive examples are crucial. However, such respectful treatment of others often does not advance a career as effectively as using whatever advantage, coercion, and force for selfish gain. Money and power are entirely social creations, and as such, have no inherent limit—unless we apply limits and equitably reorganize resources and wealth. Is the world better if more women and people of color were self-aggrandizers who destroy livelihoods and deny to others such things as healthcare, quality education, school lunches, healthy food, and despoil the environment? Unless compassion, gratitude, and mutual respect translate into political-economic restructuring, we only substitute one oppressor for another.