Pete Buttigieg is an interesting fellow. I thought this was an interesting analysis:
[H]ave you followed the masculinity crusade of former TV personality Tucker Carlson—testicle warming and the rest?
I mean, where to begin on this? Fears about masculinity are a way into the fear of displacement. Masculinity establishes a default place, and that place is being shifted and threatened by modernity. A man as the head of the household. The only one who earns income. The default leader in any social or political organization.
The politicization of masculinity is code for Nothing in your life has to change. The problem is, of course, lots of things have to change. Either because there was something wrong with the old way—or because, even as the old way seemed perfectly fine, it’s not an option.
This is true with the realities of climate change. If you can’t face that change, you might retreat to the default place of masculinity. Maybe that’s why someone characterized electric vehicles as emasculating. I think it was Marjorie Taylor Greene.
I do believe that Marge may be an expert on emasculation.
The larger point is very true. This stuff is all about fear of change. It’s happening very quickly and these people can’t adapt. It’s not all that different from the period in the 60s when half the country had a hysterical reaction to men growing their hair long and women not wearing bras — or more precisely, the sexual revolution and civil rights which introduced ideas that terrified a lot of people. They lost their minds over it.
Evolution requires adaptation. I don’t think these people are going to make it in the long run.