Sex, violence and the rise of populism
The Kavanaugh hearing in the US has shown that men fear a loss of power and status
Gideon Rachman
Where the male backlash finds its expression: Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Matteo Salvini of Italy © AFP / EPA
The most popular explanations for the rise of populism have focused on inequality and race.
But the storm surrounding the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court points to a third factor: male rage.
Traditional gender roles are under challenge, leading many men to fear a loss of power and status. That fear is visible in the misogynistic tone of populist movements in the US, Brazil, the Philippines, Italy and elsewhere.
The male backlash finds expression not just in relatively civilised debates about women in the workplace or gender roles at home. As the Kavanaugh hearings highlighted, it quickly moves on to the rawest and most emotive topic of all — sexual violence.
Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, and Jair Bolsonaro, the frontrunner in this month’s Brazilian presidential election, have incorporated gibes about rape into their political rhetoric. Matteo Salvini, the dominant figure in the Italian government, has used sexual slurs to demean female politicians.
Mr Bolsonaro once claimed that Maria do Rosário, a Brazilian politician, was “not worth raping; she is very ugly”. More than 3m women have joined an online group to oppose his surging candidacy, with the hashtag #nothim. With the first round of voting taking place on October 7, hundreds of thousands of women have just demonstrated against Mr Bolsonaro on the streets of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Mr Duterte once joked about the gang rape and murder of an Australian missionary, suggesting that, because he was mayor of the town it took place in, he should have been allowed to go first. (US president Donald Trump has since said that he has a “great relationship” with the Filipino leader.)
Mr Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and a Trump admirer, has also taunted female politicians. In 2016, at a political rally, he pointed to a sex doll on the stage and claimed that it was a “double” of Laura Boldrini, who was then president of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies. In a recent interview with Politico, Ms Boldrini said that she has received numerous rape and death threats in recent years, adding that Italy’s populists had targeted her because “I was a woman and I was advocating for refugees, for human rights, for women’s rights”.
As Ms Boldrini suggests, the use of demeaning misogynistic rhetoric looks like a direct response to the rise of powerful female politicians. It is suggestive that Mr Bolsonaro has come to prominence in the immediate aftermath of the presidency of Dilma Rousseff, the first woman to lead Brazil. And Mr Trump, of course, was running against Hillary Clinton, who would have been the first female US president.
By the debased standards of Messrs Duterte, Salvini and Bolsonaro, Mr Trump’s misogynistic language was relatively restrained. But it may have served a similar political purpose — sending a message to angry male voters that he was on their side.
Mainstream commentators, including prominent Republicans, assumed that Mr Trump’s remark about grabbing women “by the pussy” would hurt him in the presidential race. But some men probably quietly relished his taboo-busting macho talk. In the event 53 per cent of American men (and 62 per cent of white men) voted for Mr Trump.
Mr Trump’s period in office has coincided with the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment — which has ended the careers of some prominent men in Hollywood, the media, business and politics.
But the rise of #MeToo may also have stoked the male reaction that feeds populism. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Mr Kavanaugh’s most vociferous supporters, certainly embraced the language of victimhood when he said during the judge’s confirmation hearing: “I’m a single white man from South Carolina and I’m told I should shut up. But I will not shut up, if that’s OK.”
Many Democrats are now taking some comfort from the thought that even if Mr Kavanaugh is confirmed, the controversy will backfire on the Republicans in the midterm elections. A recent poll suggested that white women now tilt towards the Democrats by a margin of 12 points.
But some Republicans believe that the Kavanaugh hearings could work for them, by mobilising male voters. James Robbins, a former official in the George W Bush administration, warned men that if the “Democrats win on Kavanaugh . . . any man could find himself facing unprovable accusations automatically taken as fact.”
Disquiet about the implications of #MeToo has also surfaced in bastions of liberal America. In recent weeks, both Harper’s and the New York Review of Books have published anguished articles by men who lost their careers after multiple accusations of maltreatment of women. Ian Buruma, the editor of the New York Review, lost his job in the subsequent furore.
These controversies inside literary America are insignificant compared with the drama of the Kavanaugh hearings — or the macho brutality of politics in Italy or the Philippines. But they demonstrate the polarising power of gender debates in politics and society. And if there is anything that populism thrives on, it is anger and polarisation.
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