“I IMPRESS A LOT OF PEOPLE. WHY AREN’T YOU IMPRESSED?”
“I AM THE BOSS, EVEN WHEN YOU’RE THE PREMIER.”
“EVEN WHEN YOU ARE THE PREMIER, I AM THE BOSS, ALL RIGHT?”
These are the feeble pleas of Daryl Maguire, the disgraced former state MP who somehow managed to reel Gladys Berejiklian into a romantic relationship. His story is an inspiration for men everywhere: no matter how charmless or pathetic you are, someone might tolerate or, inexplicably, deign to love you. There is always hope.
The insecure, fragile masculinity oozing from each of his words is repulsive enough to awaken a hint of misandry in anyone, especially once you recognise how typical it is. Every woman knows a Daryl. Most have probably dated one. The world is drowning in poisonous male anxiety.
It manifests in various forms, some more corrosive than others, but the common factor is a worldview that equates masculinity with dominance. The extreme version looks like Andrew Tate, the accused rapist and human trafficker, who has taught millions of acolytes to prop up their egos by being misogynistic, abusive assholes.
We can thank cult leaders like Tate for spawning a subset of boys, and grown men of comparable maturity, who view manliness through the prism of a dick measuring contest. The twist is that instead of wanting to have the biggest dick, they dream of being the biggest dick, and of screwing other people to make themselves feel good. They are, if anything, even grosser than the tortured metaphor makes them sound.
Slide towards the milder end of the spectrum and you come across the Daryls of the world, screaming “I AM THE BOSS” into the void with all the authority they can muster (roughly as much as an unpaid intern).
That covers the loathsome and the ridiculous. Most men are neither. But that pesky male insecurity remains – its effects just grow subtler.
The American senator Ted Cruz, a former presidential candidate, once endured a merciless roasting for accidentally liking some pornography on Twitter (few things are as hilariously ironic as a moralistic social conservative getting caught with his pants literally down).
I bring this up not to shame Mr Cruz – it was easily the most human, relatable act of his career – but to provide some perspective, because astonishingly it was only his second-horniest moment on the platform. He surpassed it, in 2021, by publicly salivating over a recruitment ad for the Russian military.
The ad in question featured beefy, shirtless, masculine manly men doing manly things like push-ups, and jumping out of a plane, and aiming guns, and glowering at the camera.
“Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea,” Mr Cruz said, unable to contain his, ahem, admiration. Focus on his word choice there: emasculated. It’s the key.
He was comparing the highly staged Russian ad, favourably, to one from the US military, which featured a real female soldier who’d been raised by two mothers.
He went on to complain that the American military was turning its soldiers “into pansies”. Not Russia though! Russia’s soldiers were MEN.
His attitude would have carried merit a few centuries ago, when wars were fought exclusively by men sticking pointy things into each other and physical strength was the essential factor. In the modern world, militaries depend overwhelmingly on technology and the people operating it. Brawn does still matter – but brains are equally important.
So it makes sense, does it not, for a modern military to diversify its talent; to recruit the best minds for the job, not just the men with the biggest muscles. Hence the American ad. It was a clever, well-targeted message, and Mr Cruz was too entranced by the Russian soldiers’ delts to see it as anything other than weak.
Helpfully, the Russian army proceeded to illustrate his folly with its stupendous faceplant in Ukraine. Not enough push-ups after all, I guess.
Anyway, emasculated. That was the word. To be stripped of one’s male identity. Ask yourself: how fragile, how easily shattered must one’s masculinity be if it is threatened by the idea of – gasp – women serving in the military? And – double gasp – being actively recruited? Are real men not capable of working alongside the opposite sex? Does it diminish them in some way?
It’s the same energy that tainted Daryl Maguire in his transparent desperation to avoid feeling overshadowed by a powerful woman. “Even when you’re the premier, I am the boss.” That is not healthy. Proper relationships are partnerships between supportive equals, not struggles for supremacy. Too many men instinctively perceive their own partner’s successes as threatening.
True masculinity is more secure than that, more self-confident. It doesn’t crave dominance or the exclusion of others. It doesn’t need validation. It sees little value in selfishness and cruelty. It is drawn from reserves of character, from a calm and considered mind.
The version above, the one that prizes physicality and aggression, and demands others be impressed or, worse, subjugated – that is the schoolyard definition. It is what we thought manliness was when we were boys. It’s a pitiably childish view of the world.
I was reminded of the Cruz episode this week when certain parts of the internet went doe-eyed for a different American politician, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mr Kennedy, an anti-vaxxer and serial conspiracy theorist, is waging a no-hope campaign against Joe Biden for the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
Still riding the crest of a publicity boost from his appearance on, predictably, Joe Rogan’s podcast, Mr Kennedy posted some footage of himself doing a shirtless workout on social media. A parade of fanboys felt this was evidence of his suitability for the presidency.
“This is the guy the media says has no chance against senile Joe,” said one such pundit.
OK chums, hello, I am a guy in the media, and I am telling you now using my extremely basic powers of analysis and comprehension that yes, Mr Kennedy has precisely zero chance against Joe Biden.
It does not matter how jacked he is. It wouldn’t matter if he could bench press a Toyota Hilux, or scale Everest in the nude, or rip the jaw off a tiger with his bare hands. The guy whose fanbase mostly consists of Covid truthers and alt-right Twitter trolls is not going to claim the nomination of a mainstream progressive party.
There is no female equivalent of this nonsense. Show me one woman who believes Gwyneth Paltrow should be US president, despite her goopy insanities, just because she’s had the self-discipline to achieve a slim figure. Nobody thinks that! It would be idiotic!
Yet we’re besieged by men who mistake Rogan’s amiable ignorance for genuine political wisdom. And it’s not as though RFK’s fan club is merely led by the sort of people who think lifting heavy things and putting them back down again will let them neutralise infectious diseases. They also think he’s fit to control nuclear weapons.
There is a reason democracies choose their leaders with elections instead of contests at the squat rack. Executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical gym ceremony! There is little overlap in the skill sets of prime ministers and bodybuilders.
Ultimately it’s a question of priorities. What matters more to you, gentlemen? Being “the boss”? Believing yourself to be “impressive”? Controlling women? Being the sort of person the internet’s perpetual teenagers praise in a weirdly masturbatory tone?
Or is there perhaps more value in being a decent human being.
Twitter: @SamClench