Gender

Humans are animals. While we are capable of lofty philosophical insights and principle-driven values, we are also – mostly – motivated by baser instincts. We’ve talked about power and status in the group, but even more fundamental is our desire for sex. Status is secondary to our need to have a desirable partner. Sex is why we do most things, directly or indirectly. It is the machinery that gets us to reproduce ourselves and our society. Sexual ambitions are powerful; frustrated sexual ambitions are dangerous. Both can be weaponised. 

Animals that reproduce sexually, like us, are also differentiated in some ways according to their biological sex. In this chapter, we are going to look at some of the gender differences between men and women in different cultures. In order to do this, we need to drop our current WEIRD norms, which minimise sex and gender differences in the interests of egalitarianism. In most of the world, it is very clear that men are men and women are women, and that they have established roles in many, if not all, domains of society. These social expectations of what a biologically male or female person should be or do are called gender. Gender norms are culturally driven, and they can vary from culture to culture, but they have a lot of common ground across very different cultures. 

While much of Western gender theory has focused on the status of women and gender non-conforming people, the richest seam of gender in military influence campaigns lies in masculinity, and how to be a real man.  The term Fedayeen means “one who sacrifices” in Arabic, and emerged in the 1950s after the founding of Israel to denote guerrilla fighters prepared to give their lives to the Palestinian cause. In Gaza, gender norms of what idealised masculinity looks like have been shaped around this bigger societal ideal. In a culture defined by being embattled by a powerful enemy, giving your all for battle is the best thing a man can do. 

The Fedayeen ideal therefore celebrates men who are willing to risk their lives for the collective cause, whether defending their land, resisting occupation, or avenging injustices. Men are also protectors, who are expected to safeguard their families and homeland against enemy threats. This is reinforced by religious narratives, such as the Islamic tradition of shahada, or martyrdom, as a path to honour. Honour is a key value in Palestinian culture, bringing both social and spiritual status. Meet the Fedayeen norms and you will be considered a strong man, a good protector and a desirable husband. Dishonour invokes social and spiritual shame. Just as the white feather campaigns in WW1 Britain drew on a public narrative of true masculinity as strong, brave and warlike, to avoid fighting at a time of crisis is likely to bring dishonour on you and your family, shredding your status and your chances of finding a wife. 

A culture that needs men to potentially give their lives for a shared existential struggle will shape its shared conception of gender around that. This, in turn, wields influence over what is desirable and permissible male behaviour, because men who excel at those gender norms will attain the social and sexual status most humans crave. Gender stories are therefore useful levers for motivating desired behaviours.  

A great deal of status-seeking happens within the sexes: men want the esteem of other men, and women want the esteem of other women. In Nazi Germany, the male physical ideal was harnessed as a symbol of Aryan strength and purity, and physical fitness was prioritised in education and in culture more broadly. Today’s Western populist right is often tied up with the idea of reclaiming masculine virtues in a time of political correctness that denigrates men, especially white men, and bodybuilding can be used as symbol of what a man liberated from these constraints can be. The internet “Chad” meme promotes an ideal of hypermasculine square jaws and physical strength.

While it is less common for women to be co-opted into fighting by appeals to gender norms, the idea of being a good woman as viewed by men and by other women is an important domain of cultural influence. Kremlin-backed propaganda often depicts the archetypal Russian woman as a patriotic figure devoted to family and motherhood in contrast with the West’s decadent feminism. This aligns with broader narratives against Western liberalism. Women can be strong, but they need to be strong in the right way. Media outlets elevate strong women like regime politician Valentina Matviyenko as symbols of competent, patriotic leadership while demonising feminist activists like Pussy Riot as foreign agents undermining Russian culture. In traditional Iranian culture, women are in charge in the home, taking on decisions around finances, household management, and social activities, and can therefore wield quite significant financial and social influence so long as this is mediated via the family. Women’s authority in public life, however, is limited, with regular clashes between educated, liberal young women and the Islamic morality police. The views of rural and less educated women will often be radically different to those of urban, educated women. There may also be significant generational differences. There is, therefore, nuance in any given culture around where women’s power and value lies, and operating within that domain will identify better levers than assuming that all women need is exposure to Western-style gender egalitarianism to foment a pro-West revolution.