World politics have always relied on leaders’ ability to catalyze young men’s free-floating misogyny and insecurity into violent devotion to their cause. You can’t build power on the world stage without people willing to kill or die for you. Throughout history, the key to building an army has been teaching boys to see their self-worth as contingent on the ability to harm others — and that training typically begins with training them to hate, hurt, and sexually humiliate women.
I’m not sure if the patriarchal oppression of women is a tool to facilitate fighting wars, or if wars are a tool to secure the power of patriarchy. No matter which side wins a particular skirmish in the Middle East, for example, a male-dominated political group will be the victor. Patriarchy may lie deeper in the psyche than the lust for political dominance (which could explain how the US has had an African-American as president, but not a woman of any race or political affiliation).
As you say, “ You can find similar examples of male radicalization along the political spectrum. It’s true that far-right politics are more explicit about their ethos of dominance, and therefore more attractive to scary, dominance-seeking guys.” The Republicans (and the far right in other nations) may rely more overtly on explicit anti-woman dog whistles (e.g. the numerous defenses of rape and rapists), but the left is hardly free of patriarchalism.
Look at some of the misogynist remarks that self-appointed progressives made on social media about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary (with the frequent defense of “I’m not a sexist, I like Jill Stein”).
Or the homophobic slurs used against Lindsey Graham by some liberal readers on the Washington Post comments section (readers who would probably never make a racist remark about Ben Carson, for example).
The Bernie Bros quoted in this article from Rolling Stone (who made sexist comments and death threats against Nevada Democratic Chair Roberta Lange for ruling against Bernie Sanders) were not prompted by the Sanders campaign to do so; patriarchalism apparently came natural to them. It’s embedded in the DNA of politics.
We’ll probably get money out of politics before we get patriarchy out, but we must be relentless in publicizing and fighting this deep-seated scourge.
