Standing on the world stage, Putin declares Ukraine is his for the taking and young troops his to sacrifice. Individualistic, brazen, aggressive and entitled, he is embodying his carefully curated image of a strongman, the image of hypermasculinity and heterosexualism.
This visceral, macho image has made Putin all the more easy to hate. Backlash against him from the West has been immense — and personal. After ongoing natural disasters and two years of a pandemic, it seems the last thing the West wants to see is Putin shirtless, riding a horse and aggressively attempting to redraw the map of Europe.
Hypermasculine image no accident
The world isn’t angry that Putin is acting like a macho strongman — the world is angry he is invading a sovereign democratic nation whose people have pushed with their votes and their protests to join the European Union, murdering citizens and shooting at childrens hospitals. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is terrifying. And for Europeans, Russia’s expansion is closer to home than conflicts in the Middle East.
(The West is likely angrier still that the Ukrainian victims are European — with some media rhetoric around seeing people killed with “blonde hair and blue eyes” and from “developed” nations who are “intelligent” — laying bare some of the racist tendencies at the bulk of the West’s support.)
But one of the reasons the backlash against Putin has been so brutal is that he has been so public in his aggressive image.
Some academics have referred to “Putinaina”: a personality cult that surrounds the Russian leader. The cult is no accident, but has been carefully curated to appeal to mostly Russian males.
Across his 22-year reign, his PR team has released photos of Putin riding a horse shirtless and demonstrating his black belt in karate, and videos of him “saving” a crew of journalists from a Siberian tiger.
Women are also dragged into this narrative, but as worshippers rather than voters: there’s the 2002 Russian pop song used in his campaigns “A man like Putin”, which endorsed Putin as an “ideal man” who doesn’t drink (never mind the murders), and a group called Putin’s Army who set up a “rip it for Putin” contest where chesty women ripped their tank tops open, asking “What are you prepared to do for your president?”
Putin’s team often pits him against his “feminine” opponents, showing pictures of former US president Barack Obama holding a poodle next to Putin patting a leopard. His team has photoshopped his political opponents wearing dresses (although when one artist gave Putin the same treatment, he was thrown in jail).
To some extent, this PR campaign has been successful both in Russia and in the West — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was been accused of having an “embarrassing crush on the swaggering statesman” and Trump’s adoration for Putin is well known.
But it also inspired anti-Putin groups, with performance art group Pussy Riot famously protesting against Putin’s anti-LGBTIQA+ agenda, abortion restrictions and authoritarianism.
While already outdated across the 2010s, these aggressive reinforcements of masculine and heterosexual status look even more aged in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
Meanwhile, there’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy — the Ukrainian president every straight woman has a crush on, if social media is to go by — who has won Ukraine’s version of Dancing With the Stars, performed a comedy sketch in latex and platform stilettos, and who is standing in the trenches with Ukraine’s soldiers until the end. A man who appears to be comfortable with his sexuality and aligned with the ideals of his nation.
(We can’t pretend Zelenskyy is ideal either: Ukraine’s gender disparity is poor, and he’s been embroiled in the very same allegations of corruption he says he’s against. Frustrations have been raised by some men’s rights groups that women and children are permitted to flee the country, but men of fighting age must stay. But that all pales in comparison to Putin.)
But as the swift and severe sanctions and backlash show, there’s a shift away from the “strongman” leader in recent times.
The world is rightfully alarmed. So are young women
Feminist, academic and scholar Eva Cox AO says one of the reasons the public backlash has been so immense is that Russia’s threat, and the threat of a large-scale war, is something new to younger generations.
“There’s this sudden shock when you get Putin behaving in this bizarre manner doing things that don’t mirror [what younger generations] have seen before … where he believes he has the right to invade another country,” she said.
“It’s a very macho picture … and there’s been a reaction to this almost naked masculinity.”
While China’s Xi Jinping might not be popular among some, he’s never crossed a line so brazenly in an international context — and doesn’t go around cultivating a hypermasculine image. While the Taliban is unpopular, they’re contextualised as religious zealots, Cox said, and have a clear motive. Meanwhile, Putin’s logic is less clear, with allegations of genocide and Nazism and frustrations at NATO influence to justify his invasion.
Feminist historian Michelle Arrow tells Crikey it seemed Putin was acting on his own. Emerging videos of captured Russian soldiers appear to show young men and boys crying, saying they felt like cannon fodder and had no idea they were heading to war or that they’d face backlash from the Ukrainians, while Russians took to the streets to illegally protest against the invasion.
“It’s like he’s high on his own power. Is it expansionism, it it nostalgia, or is it men who think that they need more conquered territory?” Arrow said.
Are we moving away from hypermasculine leaders?
The “strongman” leader image isn’t new. Former US president Donald Trump in some ways attempted to embody a masculine image – although, Arrow said, he appealed to a different kind of masculinity.
“He appealed to men who felt disenfranchised, arguing men had become too soft and was going to remasculinise the electorate,” she said. Trump, like Putin, reacted poorly to negative coverage, responding multiple times to insults about the size of his hands.
As the Capitol riots showed, this aggressive image can be dangerous. But that hasn’t stopped Australian politicians from attempting to embody a strongman image. Every election cycle, Australia’s politicians quickly drum up the threat of war, with Dutton regurgitating the threat of China over and over.
But it seems the appetite to fight is no longer there.
Arrow points to former prime minister Tony Abbott’s historic loss in his electorate of Warringah. His Speedo-wearing strongman persona stopped resonating with voters: “A lot of people in the electorate didn’t respond to his blustery sort of masculinity … and I think people would be worried if he were in charge today.”
She said that historically in the West, anti-war movements had been led by women, and the current wave of feminism could lead to greater support for peace movements.
“[The wars] seem pointless, and I think it’s being read that toxic masculinity is going to ruin the world.”
I’m currently watching Alexander Illarianov, a former economic adviser telling us ‘What makes Putin tick’ at westminster-institute.org. He’s no Putin apologist but he does let us know what he feels is Putin’s motivation in what he is doing and has done. Very well worth spending an hour watching and listening, for Crikey readers and writers. Illarianov knows Putin well from working with him for some years.
Thanks for the lead.
Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer
Search YouTube. He is a professor in Uni of Chicago.
Sweaty Tom used to have him on RN’s Between the Lines but he constantly sliced, diced & showed Heidi’s RWNJs to be utter fools so hasn’t been called upon recently.
“It’s a very macho picture … and there’s been a reaction to this almost naked masculinity.”
The stuff that comes out of the radical left these days is as daft as the radical right.
The world couldn’t care less about Putin’s masculinity naked or otherwise. The real matter of concern is the invasion of the Ukraine, an aggressive action which is reminiscent of Hitler’s 3rd Reich.
Anyone who thinks Hitler or Putin are poster boys for masculinity need their heads examined.
It’s naive to think that a leader’s image doesn’t matter, that people only look at their political actions in forming their opinion.
Very true. You just have to look at Scummo…..
A hero to emulate.
The observation is worth making, machismo does resonate still in large sections of the Russian population. Women have made inroads but I would suggest Russia more resembles seventies Australia or a young Liberal meeting, in terms of notions of masculinity.
Of course the Putin images are also homoerotic, usually the other side of the coin from machismo and not unrelated to the third part of the tripod, homophobia. Pussy Riot pushed all the buttons, uppity women, sexually transgressive and mocking the machismo. As women know to their cost, laughing at such men can result in getting you killed. And for Putin, killing is doubtless part of proving your manhood.
Interesting how much common culture is shared by supporters of Trump and/or GOP, with Putin’s Russia, especially the Evangelicals, white Christian nationalists and alt right (old & young), who are not really keen on liberal democracy; till days ago RT and Fox, like MAGA & Kremlin bots, seemed indistinguishable on many issues.
Agree are overlaps but I think what you have more of is Trump supporter projections on to Russia. While racist and sexist assumptions doubtless function in Russia, precisely because they aren’t as embattled they are not so central to regime domestic propaganda. Likewise while defaming the opposition is part and parcel of the regime’s domestic narrative the opposition is so reduced it’s not so important to stoke up the hate. The danger is the West so the propaganda is directed around that. Particularly around the threat, the decadence and at the same time living there is no different to living here. Or here is better. The former narratives are seized upon by the Western right and left, the latter is what has been effective domestically.
I’m not talking organic or grassroots individuals but ‘architecture’ running across some nativist and/or libertarian think tank networks, both Tories (& many Labour) & GOP, far right politicians in EU e.g. Le Pen, Orban, Bolsanaro etc. and through media inc. RT, Fox, Spectator etc. swishing round in Russian money and influence, plus ideology; it has become absolutely stark in UK (now the GOP in past week where Trump’s use by date is approaching…).
Martin Lee’s excellent 1997 ‘The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups & Right-wing Extremists‘ was prescient in highlighting movement of far right ideology post WWII including former Soviet Union, but also that a Putin like figure would emerge (funding far right in both Europe and US).
The Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin highlighted by Teitelbaum in New Statesman (8 Oct ’20) ‘The rise of the traditionalists: how a mystical doctrine is reshaping the right Steve Bannon, Russia’s Alexander Dugin and Brazil’s Olavo de Carvalho are united by their affinity with a spiritual movement that fundamentally rejects modernity‘
‘Repudiating the Enlightenment, traditionalists instead celebrate what they regard as timeless values. They honour precedence rather than progress, emphasise the spiritual over the material, and advocate surrender to the fundamental disparities – as opposed to equality – between humans and human destinies‘
Bannon’s muse was the deceased former fossil fueled ZPG, white Oz policy admirer (visited too) and white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton, known in US as the #TantonNetwork which informed the Trump administration on immigration restrictions, views environment through an immigration and /or population growth prism which supports ‘the great replacement theory‘
In addition to Putin’s ‘project’, related is the UK oligrarch and (not limited to) Tory scandals the US fossil fueled nativist libertarian ‘project’ which is being challenged, especially with the benefit of hindsight and scrutiny of Brexit and Trump; both the latter were described by former PM Howard as ‘tremendous’?
Good thing, neither appreciated by Putin nor ideologues and grifters in the Anglosphere, is that the great replacement is well under way and we’re all becoming browner and more diverse, cheers for miscegenation.
Some quirk of the differing IT format/wotevs. always delivers an email link to a comment at the end of the verbiage.
I never have any doubt when it is Drew’s and therefore do not bother to read the full scrawl.
Always the same F7 hotkey krapola.
You have clearly not been on social media for the past decade or so. That photo of him shirtless on the horse was all over the place and revered by the alt right. It was often juxtaposed with photoshopped photos of Trump looking all hyper masculine. Putin did build an image on the back of photos like that, and he probably did think it would stand him in good stead. It hasn’t. And that’s the point of this article.
There is a US (duhh..) cartoonist who draws Trump as an all conquering cross between Apollo & Adonis, in apparent seriousness.
info@grrrgraphicsDOTcom
Agree, it’s absolutely embarrassing listening to (mostly) ageing and uninformed left and/or right justifying Putin through glib one liners, no experience and old ideology aka NATO, EU, Ukraine etc. (avoiding detail like names of nations & geography); heuristic shortcuts and (collective) narcissism of the masses for populist policies aka Brexit, Trump, etc. via same media.
Hold up !
Boris de Pfeffel (Brexit) Johnson is doing his darnedest to slow down the legislative progress towards legalising the seizure of the assets of Russian kleptocrats.
His self preservation is the nation’s priority apparently……….and the London realty industry doesn’t see anything wrong with that either.
Boris and his crime gang got a lot of donations from those same kleptocrats. At least let him spend the money first.
The Kleptocrats should never have been allowed to buy up posh London in the first place.
London is renown as the money laundering capital of the world ……and The City wants it to remain so.
yes taken over from Switzerland – the country which has been an accomplice of Dictators and large scale criminals –
Opel and Ford both had factories in Nazi Germany and continued to operate, and Germany paid all their dividends into their respective bank accounts in Zurich until Pearl Harbor and Germany’s declaration of war against the USAshortly afterwards.The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Thatcher’s brilliant idea of abolishing industry and substituting the Big Bang ensured that.
It was Londonistan before it became Londongrad – no City banker ever mistook the side on which the cheques were buttered.
It’s being nudged away by legacy media, but Private Eye and now ByLine Times have kept the blow torch running: Tories, hard left of Labour (& SNP), with 55 Tifton Street’s US Koch linked fossil fueled think tanks, up to their necks in dodgy Russian money, helping Brexit, then Trump.
Tufton Street.
I’m hopeful that the next generation of voters have been better informed by new media less compromised by editors who have abandoned their journalistic principles.
That’s what Byline Times is endeavouring to do, not unlike Crikey, but has resources to fund an investigative team, they have science guy too and YouTube TV channel; every Saturday recording available free.
A Different Bias (Phil Moorhouse) is a good site for Brexit Britain exposed.
Why does everyone keep bringing up the nukes? As if they are an option. Just ridiculous.
It’s the last resort for all of us so we’re told though I think there would be some survivors so we can start again with brave new hates and brave new wars.
Moscow would look like Hiroshima and would be the ultimate Urban renewal project – but stupidly all countries seem to rebuild their DRAB style architecture after wars – i never understood that.
Correction. Every city worldwide would look like Hiroshima in 1945.
The perspicacity of Einstein’s observation re the weapons of WW IV was well demonstrated last year on the China/India Line of Actual Control.
If men are so bad – why have Feminist Historian ? never heard of masculine historian – this gender stuff seems to be marketing strategy for the promotion of something . Same as womens’ Vitamin D [ is it chemically different from vitamin D] womens Vitamins , womens mineral [ what is female iron, female Zinc etc?]. It seems men are not the problem, asked my wife who said it’s bizarre women.
Did the Russian soldiers think they were going to an international Mardi Gras, or a Eurovision competition? They seem scared young kids – different from the scared young kids in World War 1 and 2 who actually performed even though they were scared.
That’s what you took from this? Ammunition to have a go at women? How utterly pathetic. And what is wrong with young men questioning why they are going to war? How dare you poke fun at them like that. The scared young kids in the 20th century world wars might have been heard to question wtf they were doing as well if there had been social media then.
There wasn’t – they went
If they didn’t go they were given white feathers by women
If they didn’t go they were more often imprisoned or shot by their fellow men.
That was the law virtually around the world. It was called “conscription” here.
A friend was in the ballot but opposed the Vietnam war so fled the country. He and draft resisters in jail had charges dropped by Whitlam govt. Another friend very opposed to the war had a brother who was conscripted. He was killed very soon after being sent to Vietnam to fight people he didn’t consider “the enemy”. That was life in those days.
Now you know what happens if you follow the US as Australia irrationally does.
That is SOP pf the Lying Nasty Party whose predecessors saw fit to march off lock step on GOP US military adventures, first up committing the Cof A military to The Viet Nam Farrago,
Then recently, not one but two more GOP US military adventures.
The Afghan Imbroglio, AUD 9 billion+, now “finished” in its 20th year and The Iraq Fiasco,AUD 5 billion+ that which clearly led to The Da’esh Disaster, AUD?
And are now are preparing to spend AUD 500 million on creating a vast Son et Lumière for the Military Industrial Complex at what should remain a place of remembrance and reflection on the horrors of war,
“Social Media” is a plague upon all societies and should be outlawed worldwide. Moronials and Gen Y-Did-their-Parents-bother have a lot to answer for.