One of the main talking points within modern conservative movements, originating from libertarian philosophies popularized in the late 2000s, concerns the rejection of submission. The American Tea Party and the online alternative right, as well as coalitions within the mainstream Republican Party, are prominent supporters of this style of dialogue, paralleling motivational speeches within their rhetoric. This submission is requested, or, in their view, demanded, by an undeserving elite force. These forces could be the media, the shadow government or undesirable celebrity influences. In more explicit critiques, the undeserving elite could directly reference disenfranchised groups, such as ethnic minorities in the United States or even modern women of the United States.
Ultimately, supporters of these movements feel exploited by members of society who have been allowed more power than they deserve.
This perceived entitlement found in socio-political expendables by members of these right-wing movements manifests in images of wealthy white American men being exploited by the poor, the Black and brown and the feminine. These stereotypes manifest in images of women who demand everything but bring nothing to the table, welfare queens wasting their taxes or politicians engaging in reckless spending.
We witnessed a rhetorical pattern that I would consider a descendant of these dialogues in the DEI rollbacks of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in January of 2025.
The abstention from submission forms the rationale for the rejection of state social-security nets, but it can also be used to justify homophobia running throughout these circles. However, as internet anthropologists have discovered, there is a large portion within these movements who display homosexual attraction or even have secret same-sex relationships.
This phenomenon of patriarchal movements rejecting submission and critiquing open displays of pride while simultaneously having many gay people within their ranks is because the issue men hold is the submission implied by gay unions, not necessarily the nature of same-sex attraction. This displays that the logic utilized, particularly within rhetoric against obedience to authority, is fallacious and often not socially adhered to.
These social effects draw imagery of the Roman and Greek elite. Renowned Roman emperor Julius Caesar famously had a sexual relationship with King Nicomedes of Bithynia. Within the hypermasculine social confines of the Roman military and political elite, homosexuality was not taboo. Nevertheless, Julius Caesar was relentlessly ridiculed by his detractors, not because he was in a same-sex relationship, but because he assumed what they perceived as the submissive role within that relationship.
While the avoidance and overcoming of submission are some of the driving forces within these movements, hypermasculine and patriarchal environments often construct systems of authority and submission, even if they are touted to subvert them.
In a recent conversation regarding the lack of men on study abroad trips, I asked a peer if he believed it was connected to the decrease in men in higher education. He asked me to elaborate, and I explained that at many institutions, private and public alike, women often greatly outnumber men.
The conversation quickly turned to the alleged male precarity in school settings, explained by philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers in her 2000 book, “The War Against Boys.” He gave an analogy to explain this phenomenon: “Think about the way school works. They tell you to sit down, be still and listen to someone else. That sounds like a little girl, not a little boy.”
Many educators and students critique education systems for this exact principle, arguing that the pedagogical styles are more suited to female than male students. Many institutions operate like this within the West, with clear, defined hierarchies and ordered systems that disenfranchise some and benefit others, so I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
My next question was, “When did it become this way?” Historically, only men were afforded the privilege of education.
If academic systems are truly geared towards women and disenfranchise men, how did men succeed for the centuries they had access?
That’s because these systems are indeed hierarchical and rigid, as my male peer highlighted. However, women dominating these spheres is an effect of gendered socialization rather than an intentionally engineered design.
Academic settings in the West were created to facilitate and prepare students for the hierarchical systems of power they would ultimately join in adulthood: marriage, the industrial workforce and citizenship of a nation-state. The military, as well as organized sports and sporting culture, functions in a similar way, facilitating group cooperation while maintaining a defined and emphasized structure of power.
It just so happened that when women were afforded access to these spaces, the socialization they had received for generations prior to submit to their husbands and be the best wives, ultimately led to girls being the most pleasing students to teachers’ eyes.
The military, especially within the United States, takes the principle of institutional submission to its absolute extreme. Soldiers sign year-long contracts, dedicating their bodies, minds and hearts to the abstract ideals of their nation-states. In times of war, the state demands that they surrender their lives as well.
The U.S. military has put great effort into re-emphasizing the masculinity and force of its operations over the past year, most notably by renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War.
Hidden within these promotional campaigns and social media rebrands lies a glaring irony. What is dominant about putting your life on the line for men you will never meet, for an idea that the government could not fully describe if asked?
In glorifying warfare, warrior culture and state violence, we repeat the cultural mistakes of the Vietnam War era. There is no glory in death.
Ultimately, patriarchal systems that encourage rebellion and dominance, in rejection of the submission demanded by Western institutions, create another submissive class: the slave and the wage laborer.
Hypermasculine cultures, utilized to promote conservative ideals, often encourage rebellion against the legal system. Podcasts and long-form media encourage rebellion against social justice, abstaining from higher education and now even protesting against government safety agencies such as the WHO and the FDA.
This is essentially what late-stage patriarchy boils down to.
If enough men can be convinced to rebel against these core institutions that form the basis of our societies, they can effectively be converted into politically loyal, uneducated, forced laborers.
If they are incarcerated, they are effectively converted into slaves of the state. If they join the military, they are effectively indentured servants of the state. These men, due to their lack of individual and collective power against the state and corporate forces, subsequently enforce submission on the women in their lives.
This will be their only solace, and they will enforce it with all of their might. This principle, in tandem with the removal of reproductive healthcare access for women, and other incentives such as the child tax credit and proposed negative child tax credit, will force women to self-correct the Western birth rate crisis. The population of the poor will grow, providing even more exploited labor for the extractive elite class.
This is the irony of all exploitative systems. Within this ‘ideal patriarchal system,’ the vast majority of men, particularly those born outside the small percentage of the elite, lead miserable lives in terrible working conditions and housing in poverty. In their rejection of submission and their identification with patriarchal ideals of power and control, they end up submitting to other exploitative systems of their own design.
The only men who truly ‘win’ are the few and the lucky.