Abstract: This article explores an emerging strain of far-right politics that makes two major claims: (1) that cultural decline can be tracked to a feminized, egalitarian society; and (2) restoring culture (or the nation) hinges upon resurrecting “true” masculinity. What distinguishes this movement is not simply an abstract investment in masculinity, but an investment in the hardened, purified male body as the path to renewal. As the article details, the far-right investment in the masculine body goes beyond a preening bodily aestheticism. Instead, these anxieties over gender ultimately represent a desire to write illiberal commitments into the structure of nature.
Michael Feola (2026) studied this question.