Folks like Jordan Peterson present their man-tastic vision of society as speaking to some buried elemental truth about humanity when in reality it is just openly a reflection of the status quo. Which is why their solution to a world overrun with manliness is just more manliness.
“The masculine spirit is under assault. It’s obvious," he says, because yeah a man can never be man enough within patriarchy, you must constantly prove your manhood, and you will never feel secure about your "masculine spirit." This *is* obvious and everyday -- but it's not new.
Men in the 80s also felt like their "masculine spirit" was "under assault." So did straight cis men in the 50s. It's an expression of patriarchy for men to feel "under assault" in the same way that white people always feel like they are losing power despite white supremacy.
But we make a mistake in responding to Peterson by similarly thinking that men's violence will be solved by "discovering" a "new" masculinity. Just like white people love to center "forgotten whites" in response to Trump's racism we try to solve masculinity with more masculinity.
This idea that there is some mythic vision of manhood that will save humanity from its problems is a patriarchal idea, even when we're talking about "redefining" masculinity. Because it reflects, I think, a fear amongst straight cis men of fully embracing what we call "feminine"
Which is not to say that straight cis men should simply lean on others to solve patriarchy for them, but rather that our models for dismantling oppression can't just be other straight cis men. And these models exist all around us, have been there our entire lives.
