Is Masculinism Holding MAGA Together?

**Helen Lewis** (0:00)
And that's the thing I think is, that I think Democrats could embrace, is that I don't have anything to prove. Like, that's the state you get to with your masculinity, that actually, you know what, I like sports, but I also enjoy watching films, or like, I'm a dad, and actually having kids means a lot to me, and all that kind of stuff. That's all there. And that, I think, does begin to look powerful in contrast to what you see sometimes on the MAGA side, which is guys in like heavy makeup and, you know, like hairspray saying that it's gay to eat soup, right? Like, I just think that begins to look-

**Jon Favreau** (0:34)
Shout out to Jesse Waters.

**Helen Lewis** (0:35)
Right, but like that just begins to look really weird, doesn't it? Like you just think, just maybe just eat the soup and like have sex with whoever you want to have sex with.

**Jon Favreau** (0:51)
I'm Jon Favreau, and you just heard from today's guest, Helen Lewis, staff writer at the Atlantic. Helen just published a provocative piece that really breaks new ground on the post-2024 Manosphere debate. It's titled, The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet. And it's all about the voices on the right giving rise to masculinism, a movement that's trying to reverse the advances of feminism and reassert the, quote, primacy of men.
You're likely already familiar with some of the figures in the movement. You're Andrew Taits, you're Nick Fuenteses, and many of the names we've talked about on this podcast express similar beliefs. But in this piece, Helen goes deeper and speaks with many of the so-called intellectuals and leaders of the movement, many of whom have direct ties to senior MAGA officials, even as they speak openly about repealing women's right to vote, to run for office, or even to make the most basic decisions about work and life. Helen and I had a great conversation about the misogyny at the core of the MAGA movement, how the influencers profiting off this movement prey on young men, and the ways these right wing grievances are now bleeding into electoral contests across the country. We'll get to that conversation in a minute, but before we do, if you want to support independent, pro-democracy media pushing back against the tide of the Andrew Tates and Nick Fuenteses of the world, consider subscribing to Friends of the Pod. As a Friend of the Pod, you get access to subscriber-only shows like Pod Save America Only Friends, all of our great substack newsletters, and you get ad-free episodes of all your favorite Crooked Media podcasts, including this one. Head on over to crooked.com/friends to subscribe. All right, here's Helen Lewis.
Helen, welcome to Offline.

**Helen Lewis** (2:38)
Thank you very much for having me.

**Jon Favreau** (2:40)
You recently wrote a big piece for The Atlantic about masculinism. Is that what we're saying, masculinism?

**Helen Lewis** (2:46)
Yeah, you can say masculism if you want, which is the original Charlotte Perkins Gilman coinage, but I went for masculinism, because I think it gives the idea that the people who are behind this would say this is a kind of reaction to or a counter movement against feminism. It's about reasserting the primacy of men and also saying that feminism went too far.

**Jon Favreau** (3:06)
Yeah, I was going to start by asking how you define it and how it's different from sexism or misogyny.

**Helen Lewis** (3:14)
Well, those are quite narrow things, right? In the sense of sexism, I would say, is the belief that women are inferior to men, in whatever way you want to say. Misogyny is kind of the weaponized version of that, like that's hatred of women.
This, you could have no hate in your heart for women. You would just believe that society should be organized in a different way.
And one of the things that I try and do in my work, it's hard, but I think it's good intellectual discipline, is try and argue with the best version of your opponent's case, right? Say, this is what these people think that they're doing. They think society would be better organizing this. They think it would be better for women, right? They think women would be happier living in a patriarchal society. So they think that they're doing this on behalf of women. It's not motivated by hatred or fear. So I wanted to use that more neutral term, essentially, from the start, just to say, and also to say, this is an ideology, right? This is an intellectual movement.

**Jon Favreau** (4:08)
So you make a big claim in the piece. Here's a quote. Masculinism has become the single most important force uniting the American right, bringing together an unlikely constellation of pastors, posters, senators, preachers, influencers, podcasters, and fanboys.