When you look at what emerging leaders on the right are saying, it’s clear that conservatives are increasingly obsessed with the fate of the American family. From an attack by Republican Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance “Childless cat lady” from Elon Musk worries about apocalyptic birth ratesThere is a deep and abiding feeling that the family is in dire need of protection.
Recently, a loose group of conservatives has emerged with a solution: that the family can be saved by boldly reclaiming the importance of old-school gender roles. The movement called for men to be strong and women to have children, without overtly insisting that women submit to their husbands or stay at home. It is an attempt to revive an old model of gender relations without overtly sexist baggage (although it often resurfaces in a more subtle form).
I call this loose movement “neo-masculinism” and believe it is at the root of both the modern right’s biggest ideas and its most interesting internal conflicts.
Concerns about family health are hardly new on the right. Speech in 1977, Influential conservative author Russell Kirk Claimed that A nearly effective universal daycare bill threatens to dismantle the family and replace the state.
“We would be foolish to ignore the drift of what we call the ‘West’ toward the replacement of families by universal orphanages,” Kirk said, adding that the daycare bill would specifically “encourage even wealthy mothers to carry their young children.” Go to the baby-bin and spend the day in the bridge-clubs.”
Kirk’s fears reflected the central conservative preoccupations of the time: the threat from communism and the growing power of the modern state. It was “compulsive collectivism”, for Kirk, that threatened to sever family ties.
Modern neoliberalism begins from fear of the opposite; The concern is not communist collectivism, but liberal individualism.
Neopatriarchs believe that we live in an age where people prioritize self-actualization and fulfillment above all else. Young adults, they argue, live through extended adolescence, lost in some combination of video games, drugs, and casual sex; With age, raw hedonism is replaced by single-minded foci on money and career. According to neopatriarchs, this liberal social model fails men and women alike, leads them to a spiritually empty existence that guarantees hopelessness and depression, and it fails society by discouraging the production of children that are needed in the country. A future (immigration, needless to say, is not seen as an acceptable solution.)
The solution, for the neopatriarchs, is to go back in time. Men need to rediscover the old John Wayne view of masculinity, building on traditional male gender markers (including acting as paternity providers) to define aspects of their identity. The state has a role to play in encouraging this return, primarily by changing policies to foster “masculine” virtues and encourage marriage and child rearing.
In his recent book manhoodRepublican Sen. Josh Hawley Urges men Embracing strength and stoicism as a path to self-improvement, calls them to take on the roles of “warrior” and “creator” in their daily lives. Psychologist Jordan Peterson did Deliver similar advice at lengthHelped make him a conservative guru. In his forthcoming book morning lightKevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, argued Contraceptive technology “Break down the most basic functioning elements of civilization” freeing individuals to engage in consensual sex within marriage. Vance, who wrote the forward to Roberts’ book, pondered that Eliminate no-fault divorce For similar neopatriarchal reasons.
Neopatriarchy can be distinguished from patriarchy primarily by its treatment of women. Unlike some Christian fundamentalists or alt-right scribblersNeopatriarchs women do not pretend that forced As a result of divine order or natural law, the householder must become a householder. They clearly emphasize that women are having more children and choosing to focus primarily on child rearing no bad than having a career.
It’s clear why liberals and leftists would have trouble taking this seriously. If Americans are supposed to have more kids, and American men are supposed to be more traditionally masculine, who is supposed to be doing all the child rearing? The answer, of course, is wives (since it’s definitely not immigrants). Neopatriarchy may not necessarily call for the opposite of a feminist revolution, but it is essentially what it is going for.
Indeed, neopatriarchal writing rarely floats the idea that more men should be housewives — and often suggests women who happy at home. The choice to work is theoretically left up to women, but the traditional option is rarely offered. The neo-patriarchal vision for women is thus most clearly expressed in the popular “translator“And big-family TikTok influencers: women who have become social media advocates for family-first lifestyles, sometimes giving up formal careers to do so.
But it’s not just feminists who have problems with the neopatriarchy.
There’s a class of conservatives, mostly men, who despise the left because it tells them what to do: it’s offensive to hate women or use male pronouns for transgender women. This group is famously called “Barstool conservative“After the bro-y barstool sports website, enjoys partying and casual sex — and pisses people off by telling them to stop.
This has raised some real doubts about the neopatriarchal concept. When Vance’s comments called for non-parents to pay higher tax rates, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy called Vance “stupidIn a post on Twitter/X.
“You want me to pay more taxes to take care of other people’s kids? Are we sure this guy is a Republican? Portnoy asked. “If you can’t afford a large family, you won’t have a ton of kids.”
With Republicans out of the White House, these divisions are largely limited to posting war. But if Trump regains the presidency, his administration will likely include prominent neo-patriarchal voices — including Vance himself. It will set off a high-stakes national debate on an issue that some may have settled for: whether the state should support families with traditional gender roles.
