Introduction

In recent years, critical masculinity scholars have suggested that a basis for feminist masculinity politics is for men to embrace their own vulnerability, as well as the vulnerability of others (for example, Cover, 2014; Mellström, 2016; Pease, 2020a; Keddie, 2022). These discussions draw inspiration from wider feminist debates, which argue that acknowledging vulnerability can be beneficial for feminist activism and serve as a politically mobilizing force (Butler et al, 2016). In these discussions, Butler’s (2004; 2009; 2016) work has been central to highlight the importance of recognizing a universally shared, but socially unevenly distributed vulnerability to counter the masculinist discourses that value sovereignty and invulnerability. They argue that whereas vulnerability is a human condition, precariousness (or social vulnerability) is induced by political processes that affect individuals and groups differently, often along intersectional lines of class, gender, race/ethnicity and sexuality. However, Butler’s argument has been criticized for being overly abstract, primarily operating on an ontological level and thus seeing a changed ethical stance as the basis of feminist politics, rather than questioning the social and material processes that render some bodies more vulnerable than others (for example, Dean, 2008; Fax, 2012; Gilson, 2013; Cole, 2016). While providing invaluable insights for critical masculinity studies, these feminist debates tend to overlook men’s vulnerability and view such narratives as always being a means of strategically claiming being victimized without substantial base in a systemic vulnerability (for example, Butler, 2016; Banet-Weiser, 2021; Chouliaraki, 2021). This article aims to nuance these recent discussions on vulnerability in feminist theory and as a tool for feminist masculinity politics by highlighting that heterosexual men experiencing various forms of vulnerability may not necessarily develop more progressive masculinities, but rather may lead them to endorse male identity politics and ideals of sovereignty.

I will begin this article by presenting recent arguments advanced within critical masculinity studies about the political possibilities of men recognizing their own and others’ vulnerability. I will then summarize feminist debates about vulnerability, particularly zeroing in on Butler’s (2004; 2009; 2016) conceptualizations and the critiques of their theory of vulnerability. In a next step I will discuss how vulnerability is used in male identity politics, particularly within the manosphere. To illustrate my argument, a longer section analyzes Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), a loose network of men’s rights activists that encourages men to separate themselves from women and from a society that they argue has been corrupted by feminism. In particular, I analyze books written by, or for MGTOWs, which contain antifeminism, misogyny, and sexism, but also various accounts of social vulnerability. I will show that these experiences are not necessarily used strategically, but are experiences of social and psychological adversity and, particularly, economic precarity. However, these experiences of vulnerability do not lead to a recognition of others’ vulnerabilities or an ethics of care. Instead, the MGTOW response to vulnerability is characterized by ‘ressentiment’ (see Brown, 2019) and invests in a masculinist and highly individualist ideal of sovereignty. Based on these findings, I argue that feminist scholarship on men and masculinities has to start taking seriously men’s experiences of social vulnerability and develop tools to critique neoliberal capitalism, rather than simply encouraging men to recognize a shared, ontological vulnerability.

Masculinity, sovereignty and vulnerability

Feminist scholarship has for long demonstrated that masculinity is often enacted through ideals of stoicism, which discourages men from expressing emotions and weakness (see Reeser and Gottzén, 2018) while idealizing ‘invulnerability and heterosexual bravado’ (Mellström, 2016: 8). This can lead men to hide their social, economic, and psychological difficulties, and avoid any signs of vulnerability, all the while pressuring other men to adopt similar stoic attitudes (Shefer et al, 2015). When men feel vulnerable, they may try to ‘exert agency in some way, at their own and others’ expense’ (de Boise, 2021: 140). As the hegemonic form of masculinity is characterized by ‘a denial of the risks and vulnerabilities of freedom’ (Mann, 2014: 41), it thus appears to be antithetical to vulnerability in the current gender order. While human being inherently involves accepting ambiguity and risk, Mann (2014) argues that men may try to eliminate such vulnerability by attributing the unsettling aspects of this ambiguity to women. Consequently, masculinity ‘represses, mystifies and hides the absolute embodied human vulnerability to others that is the original condition of every human existence’ (Mann, 2014: 44) and turns it into a fantasy of sovereignty, which promises invulnerability by transforming insecurity and precarity into domination and control (Garlick, 2022).

Sovereign masculinity seems particularly idealized in the contemporary forms of men’s activism often referred to as the ‘manosphere’. This is a loosely connected network comprising social media accounts and communities that adhere to the Red Pill ideology, a collection of antifeminist beliefs supporting male supremacy and claiming that feminism has subverted men’s privileges, particularly on the sexual market (Johanssen, 2021; Rothermel et al, 2022). Red Pill ideology selectively incorporates evolutionary psychology and asserts that sexual differences are both essential and natural, arguing that men and women have developed dissimilar reproductive strategies and mating preferences (Botto and Gottzén, 2024). Groups and collective identities within the manosphere include, but are not limited to Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), Pick-Up Artists (PUAs), incels (involuntary celibates), Red Pillers, MGTOW, and to some extent also NoFap. Lately, the manosphere’s discourse has been popularized through influencers such as Jordan B. Peterson and Andrew Tate. It should be noted, though, that while many manosphere activists align with the Red Pill ideology, there are also many differences between the groups. Incels, for instance, tend to have a grimmer worldview (referred to as ‘the Black Pill’), as they argue that genetics makes it impossible to change their low status on the sexual market (Rothermel et al, 2022). Also, while PUAs, incels and redpillers focus on sexual market grievances, MGTOW primarily harbours resentment about financial issues. Manosphere groups further seem to relate somewhat differently to vulnerability. MRAs often highlight adversities and issues men face to a greater extent than women, such as suicide (Jordan and Chandler, 2019), to ‘emphasize the vulnerability of men and center their masculinity on the status of victimhood in modern societies’ (Rothermel et al, 2022: 125). Similarly, incel identity largely pivots on social and psychological vulnerabilities that affect their status on the sexual market (Johansson Wilén, 2024). However, the manosphere has also been argued to be a ‘renewed backlash against vulnerable, reflexive and emotional kinds of masculinity’ as it aims to give strategies to eschew vulnerability (Johanssen, 2021: 71). For instance, in her ethnography of the seduction community, O’Neill (2018) shows how PUAs attempt to deal with the challenges they experience on the sexual market by embracing heterosexism and hypermasculinity. She argues that embracing such norms of masculinity may obscure men’s precariousness since ‘heteronormativity often means denying the vulnerability inherent in us all’ (O’Neill, 2018: 156). By disavowing vulnerability, PUAs may experience a ‘crushing loneliness… as they attempt to navigate the dictates of a culture that scorns weakness and punishes vulnerability, especially among men’ (O’Neill, 2018: 183).

Although Pease points out that social dimensions such as class and race influence experiences of what he calls ‘situational’ vulnerability, he does not discuss how, for instance, less privileged men could use such experiences to critique late capitalism or the current gender order. Instead, he repeatedly calls on men as a collective to recognize ontological vulnerability. For instance, he argues that ‘Men must move from the centre of privilege and power which grants them supremacy before they can open themselves to the decentred, embodied, affective, vulnerable and relational self’ (Pease, 2020a: 116, italics added). When Pease specifies how to help men to recognize universally shared vulnerability, he focuses on ethical responses arguing that feminist scholars and activists ‘must foster an awareness of relations of dependency’ that ‘will involve an experience of discomfort for men’ (Pease, 2020a: 113).

While Pease and Mellström primarily utilize posthumanist feminism, Cover (2014) draws on Butler’s (2009) poststructuralism in his discussion on how to develop violence prevention strategies with young athletes. As male sports contexts are characterized by ideals of ‘toughness, machismo and inviolability… literally a disavowal of vulnerability’ (Cover, 2014: 437), violence prevention interventions should therefore assist young men in overcoming their sense of inviolability, and enhance awareness of their own and others’ vulnerability. Following Butler, Cover claims that recognizing the shared vulnerability compels us to engage in ways that are responsive to that vulnerability. This requires men to change their ways of thinking about others and about masculinity, as men need to learn to recognize vulnerability as a fundamental aspect of social life. While Mellström (2016) sees homoerotic and non-phallic intimacy as a way to promote men’s vulnerability, and Pease (2020a) emphasizes discomfort and challenging stoicism, Cover (2014) underscores embodied woundedness as a way to develop a recognition of the vulnerability of oneself and others. Similarly to Mellström and Pease, though, he does not detail how men might embark on this journey, but simply notes that athletes are ‘well-positioned’ (Cover, 2014: 446) to recognize the vulnerability of others because they are accustomed to feeling vulnerable to physical injury. Cover may also be somewhat optimistic about the possibilities for male athletes to recognize their own bodily vulnerability, as research shows that they tend to develop toleration of pain, accept that injuries are normal aspects of many sports, and deny the long-term costs associated with intense training and competition (for example, Spencer, 2012). But most importantly, he does not explain how an awareness of one’s own bodily vulnerability in sports practice could translate into a recognition of a shared ontological vulnerability, let alone women’s vulnerability in sexual encounters.

Among recent scholars discussing vulnerability and masculinity, Keddie (2022: 408) is perhaps the most specific in how to help men ‘become vulnerable’. Discussing educational settings, she contends that pedagogies must help boys to an ethical self-reflection on issues of gender, masculinity and power. In a first step, educators should draw ‘attention to the shared vulnerabilities of masculine experience’ (Keddie, 2022: 408), particularly the difficulties in meeting standards of masculinity, for instance by using the metaphor of ‘the man box’, which is a popular tool in gender-transformative violence prevention (Jewkes et al, 2015). Second, educators need to help boys to become aware of their entanglements with those they may have harmed, by teaching empathy (Keddie, 2022). Keddie’s suggestions may be helpful in educational interventions with boys to recognize a shared ontological vulnerability, but questions remain of how to achieve this in wider society. Further, while she points out that ‘vulnerability is experienced differently in relation to intersections of identity and socially constructed privilege’ (Keddie, 2022: 409), vulnerability ultimately becomes a matter of an ethical stance. Like the other masculinity scholars, she does not discuss how boys or men could learn to critically examine how late capitalism contributes to gendered inequalities and different exposures of social vulnerability.

Critical masculinity scholars attempting to find a means to move away from sovereign masculinity are optimistic about the potential for men to recognize their own vulnerabilities and those of others. However, it is not entirely transparent how men are concretely supposed to do this, more than by starting to acknowledge their own physical, sexual, or psychological vulnerabilities, or becoming more empathetic. This lack of clarity regarding how men should recognize shared human vulnerability might stem from the fact that these discussions mostly depend on ontological arguments. While they acknowledge that social vulnerability is unequally distributed, their focus on ontology prevents them from critically analyzing economic factors or experiences of social vulnerability, and how these can affect individual men in various ways, and either enable or hamper a feminist politics of masculinity. I am not suggesting that recognizing shared, ontological vulnerability is inept, but to be effective it needs to be supplemented with a thorough analysis of social vulnerability. I would also argue that the hope attributed to vulnerability is slightly unrealistic, as experiencing difficulties in life does not necessarily translate into recognizing shared vulnerability. As I will show, manosphere activists may fully recognize their own and other men’s vulnerability, but this awareness does not lead to progressive masculinities or an ethics of care. Instead, it becomes the foundation of a male identity politics marked by resentment against women and an idealization of sovereignty. Before moving further and exploring this process whereby men combine a vulnerability discourse with sovereign masculinity, I will briefly outline Butler’s discussions of vulnerability and the feminist critiques of their theories, as it will illustrate the challenges of expecting too much of men’s recognition of vulnerability.

Feminist debates about vulnerability

Butler (2004; 2009; 2016) has perhaps provided one of the most sustained and useful articulations of what it means to be vulnerable, by way of a renewed understanding of what it means to be an embodied, relational subject. Their conceptualization of vulnerability is based on the idea that subjectivity is dependent on what they call interpretive frameworks (that is, discourses), but also that subjects are constituted in relation to each other. Essentially, Butler (2009) views vulnerability through a Hegelian lens of intersubjectivity, famously illustrated in his Master–Slave dichotomy, where the existence of both parties is mutually dependent and they both have the potential for destruction or to be destroyed. In this scene, the subject requires recognition from the Other. However, the subject does not only become self-aware through encountering the Other, but comes into existence through the Other, which implies that there is no existence prior to this encounter, no unified subject that meets the Other, but the subject is beyond itself from the onset. Consequently, the subject’s existence is not self-determined but is conditioned by others; it is vulnerable to the Other even before any further relationship can be established. This mutual vulnerability applies to both parties in the intersubjective interaction, who in the exchange not only recognize that the Other deserves recognition, but also that they share the same need (Butler, 2004).

All humans are vulnerable, but interpretative frames create a ‘hierarchy of grief’ (Butler, 2004: 32) where some lives and deaths are publicly mourned while others go unnoticed. This means that vulnerability is not evenly distributed and we respond differently to individuals’ suffering. To highlight the difference between ontological and social vulnerability, Butler (2009) introduces the term precariousness, which refers to the insecurity caused by policies that promote economic inequality and leave some individuals more susceptible to violence than others. Here, interpretive frames are essential, as they render some subjects recognizable and worthy of support, while others’ vulnerability may not be recognized. However, it is worth noting that while Butler’s emphasis on interpretive frames sheds light on how cultural and political discourses influence who is considered vulnerable or a ‘proper’ victim worthy of protection, they tend to overlook material and historical processes.

Butler (2004; 2009) initially developed their theory of vulnerability in response to the ‘war on terror’, but in recent years they have increasingly focused on how progressive social movements can use vulnerability as a political mobilising force (Butler, 2016). While acknowledging that vulnerability is socially structured, they primarily use vulnerability to develop an ethics of care where bodies depend on each other within support networks. This ethics is contrasted with bodily independence, which they view as a masculinist ideal of sovereignty (Butler, 2016). At the same time, Butler (2009) cautions against idealizing vulnerability. Merely perceiving another life as vulnerable is not sufficient; one needs also to encounter this life, an encounter that is dependent on interpretative frames. Additionally, simply disavowing ‘injurability’ (Butler, 2009: 178) is not sufficient to develop non-violence politics: vulnerability needs to be acknowledged as a shared ontological condition, rather than using victimhood and shared wounds as cultural identity markers, as collective political subjectivity based on what Brown (1995) has called ‘wounded attachments’ risks legitimizing its own violent actions.

Rather than emphasizing a shared experience of vulnerability, Fax (2012) argues that political struggle should be based on what feminist and other progressive social movements aim for, that is, social justice. This criticism extends beyond Butler and applies to a general ‘vulnerability discourse’ (Fax, 2012: 323), which is argued to have promised to solve too many issues for feminism. Since vulnerability is a condition and not an identity, it has often been regarded as a more constructive foundation for progressive political mobilization, as it avoids the pitfalls of identity politics. It further allows universalist claims, connecting individual experiences with larger structural challenges, all the while avoiding portraying vulnerable groups as passive victims by highlighting how they can leverage their vulnerability in political struggle (Fax, 2012).

A key criticism is that the concept of vulnerability can be used both as resistance to neoliberal power structures and to reproduce a neoliberal logic, as the vulnerability discourse aligns well with the neoliberal idea of an agentive individual (Johansson Wilén, 2019). Whereas neoliberalism places blame on individuals for economic failures that are structurally caused, the discourse on vulnerability reinterprets the passive state of the vulnerable subject as a form of resistance and makes it a foundation for political agency (Johansson Wilén, 2019). Furthermore, since vulnerability discourse primarily operates on an ontological level, it struggles to explain inequality and how people may be exposed differently, and may, as a result, even conceal differences in social vulnerability (Cole, 2016). Simply acknowledging one’s own and others’ vulnerability is therefore not sufficient: social differences, contexts, processes and other structural conditions also need to be taken into account. Butler partly addresses this through their concept of precariousness, but Johansson Wilén (2021: 281) observes that ‘although Butler describes ethics and politics as intertwined, [they end] up emphasizing the ethical conduct of the subject’. Butler’s theory helps differentiate between an existential condition and political oppression, but fails to explain the causes of oppression, particularly economic exploitation, since emphasizing ethical dimensions makes it difficult to understand how capitalism and other structural circumstances affect individuals (Dean, 2008). Such theoretical shortcomings make vulnerability politically ineffective (Fax, 2012).

Critical masculinity scholars such as Cover, Keddie, Mellström and Pease aim to use vulnerability for political purposes. While they are aware of how vulnerability is unequally distributed along lines of intersectionality, focusing on ontological vulnerability leads them to propose an ethics of care as a tool in feminist masculinity politics, rather than exploring how material and social circumstances may produce social vulnerability among some men. What is perhaps most surprizing is that the masculinity scholars do not acknowledge that vulnerability is increasingly being used not only by feminists but also by male supremacists to gain traction for their masculinist identity politics.

Vulnerability in male identity politics

A significant challenge to the idealization of vulnerability within feminism, particularly when applied to men and masculinity, is that vulnerability has been appropriated in anti-feminist and masculinist discourse. This is largely associated with the rise of male identity politics that has grown increasingly visible in recent years, particularly when aligning with the far right and gaining political influence in many Western societies (Brown, 2019; Sauer, 2020). Male identity politics largely counter those movements typically associated with identity politics, asserting that the recognition of women’s and LGBTQ+ rights compromizes men’s rights. However, male identity politics often employs strategies and arguments similar to those of its opponents, portraying men as victims and their rights as undermined by society. In this context, claiming vulnerability has become a particularly potent way of expressing (white) male identity (Kelly, 2020). Whereas men’s rights activists historically have portrayed men as structurally disadvantaged in custody battles and victims of domestic violence, contemporary activism increasingly revolves around men claiming that they are being falsely accused of rape, accounts that according to Banet-Weiser (2021) often lack substance and are instead strategies to garner sympathy.

At first glance, claims of vulnerability would seem to be of no use for male identity politics, as it opposes dominant notions of sovereign masculinity (Mann, 2014), but it nevertheless appears to be a viable political strategy, potentially because vulnerability has become prevalent in contemporary political activism (Oliviero, 2018). While Butler (2016: 23) recognizes that some privileged groups, including men’s movements, ‘are using the discourse of vulnerability’, similar to other feminist thinkers (for example, Banet-Weiser, 2021; Chouliaraki, 2021), they presume that these groups always employ vulnerability strategically and their claims are therefore already regarded as illegitimate from the outset. In Butler’s account, legitimate politics of vulnerability are by definition always progressive and rooted in the needs of minorities. But as vulnerability discourse primary operates on an ontological level, it neither helps to understand when relatively privileged men feel vulnerable, nor when they actually find themselves in precarious situations. How can we foster a politics of vulnerability for men when, for example, they do not resist but rather embrace their vulnerability, while they still advocate politics grounded in masculinist fantasies of sovereignty? Butler does not help us answer this question, but other scholars have highlighted the traction of a victim position. Robinson (2000: 9) suggests that the logic of victimhood ‘exerts a pull that even the privileged seem unable or unwilling to resist’. Cassino and Besen-Cassino (2021: 8) write that victimhood appeals to some men because ‘moving from dominance towards equality feels like discrimination to those accustomed to having the upper hand’. Therefore, as Sauer (2020) contends, when used in male identity politics, the vulnerability discourse promises to restore male supremacy.

As noted, some scholars see manosphere activists as primarily trying to distance themselves from vulnerability (O’Neill, 2018; Johanssen, 2021), but others have shown that men in the manosphere in fact often embrace their own and others’ social vulnerability. Men in a variety of manosphere groups openly discuss difficulties, including social isolation and mental health issues (Botto and Gottzén, 2024; Johansson Wilén, 2024; Smith et al, 2024). MRAs have long highlighted issues where men are often more vulnerable than women, such as suicide, claiming it to be caused by both changing job markets and a ‘misandrist’ (man-hating) society (Jordan and Chandler, 2019). In a study of NoFap forums, members were not only willing to share their vulnerabilities but were also often supportive and accepting of each other (Smith et al, 2024). In an online ethnography of radicalization into misogynist extremism, Botto and Gottzén (2024) show that the young men were largely attracted to the Red Pill ideology due to an experienced pressure to live up to standards of heterosexual masculinity, including being physically attractive and sexually successful, which seemed unattainable and made them feel vulnerable. The young men’s self-identification as vulnerable could be understood as an example of male identity politics and its emphasis on victimhood (Kelly, 2020), where the Red Pill ideology appeared to speak particularly to a sense of being marginalized on the dating scene and promised ways to restore the young men’s sexual market value and, consequently, their masculinity. In contrast to arguments that recognition of vulnerability fosters more progressive masculinities, these findings suggest that acknowledging your own vulnerability is in fact central to many manosphere groups and may radicalize young men into misogynist extremism.

Vulnerability thus seems to have become a critical component of Red Pill discourse. But in contrast to social justice movements, which use vulnerability to highlight injustice and achieve equality, manosphere activists aim to maintain or restore male privilege. This is, however, not necessarily a strategic manoeuvre, nor is it always conscious or intentional; it could be a response to actual social, economic and political changes that have undermined white men’s privileges in society, leaving some feeling wounded and like victims (Bebout, 2020). In the next section, I will detail how one of the groups in the manosphere, MGTOW, relate to vulnerability.

Men Going Their Own Way

In contrast to other groups in the manosphere, whose politics primarily revolve around the sexual market, MGTOW’s grievances mainly focus on economic difficulties and men’s financial relationships with women. They advocate for men to distance themselves from women and a society they perceive as corrupted by feminism, which they perceive as misandrist and ‘gynocentric’ (woman-centred). My discussion in this section draws from a study of 14 (mainly self-published) books authored by, or for MGTOWs (see Gottzén, 2025).¹ Despite being characterized by antifeminism, misogyny, and sexism, these MGTOW books also present accounts of men’s individual experiences of social vulnerability. I contend that these experiences are not necessarily employed strategically; instead, they represent instances of social and psychological adversities and, particularly, economic precarity.

The idea that women abandon men after using them for their own economic benefit is, according to the MGTOW authors, a representation of hypergamy, which they claim is due to biological predispositions. In essence, this means that women desire ‘alpha males’ (high-status men), but if such men are unattainable they may seek access to the care and resources of ‘beta males’. This echoes research showing that incels tend to see women as exploiting particularly beta men for financial gain, and that women’s preferences are driven by men’s economic status (Menzie, 2022).

One reason why I find MGTOW helpful when discussing vulnerability and masculinity is that the authors so effortlessly transition from acknowledging their own vulnerability, or that of other men, to asserting sovereign masculinity. This is a key question not only for understanding the male identity politics of MGTOW but also for discerning the limitations of using vulnerability as a political tool. Here, the concept of ressentiment is useful. Drawing on Nietzsche, Brown (1995) defines ressentiment as an affective response to perceived failure or inadequacy, which is projected onto an external scapegoat, regardless of the scapegoat’s actual responsibility. Ressentiment often triggers a sense of injustice, leading to anger and self-righteousness. In an early essay, Brown (1995) recognized ressentiment in feminist and antiracist identity politics, but more recently she has identified this affective structure in the far right’s anger towards migrants and non-whites, and in the male identity politics of incels (Brown, 2019). According to Brown, the uninhibited ressentiment of these movements is much more toxic than the instances she previously examined. Following Brown, MGTOW’s victim positioning can be understood as, at least in part, a result of neoliberalism inducing a sense of powerlessness. As the men do not feel in control of their destinies and lives, neoliberal culture reinforces the sense of inadequacy that is inherent in ‘the liberal capitalist order’ (Brown, 2019: 57). This individual, ‘assigned great responsibility yet utterly powerless, is literally seething with resentment’ (Brown, 2019: 58). While neoliberal austerity politics and economic insecurity affect many people of various genders, it presents unique challenges for men because it strains ‘the androcentrism of the male breadwinner model’ (Grieg, 2010: 221). The erosion of the breadwinner model, coupled with the disappearance of traditional working-class occupations and the fact that higher education does not guarantee permanent employment or financial security, has posed new challenges for men. In the past, particularly white men managed to partially shield themselves from the effects of neoliberalism, but now ‘masculinity offers limited protection against the displacement and damage that forty years of neoliberalism has wrought on the working and middle classes’ (Brown, 2019: 179).

While MGTOW authors encourage men to disassociate from society, they appear to take the neoliberal system for granted. Their resentment is not directed at the system causing precariousness, but follows the logic of identity politics, which rarely critiques capitalism and economic policies (Brown, 1995). As one MGTOW author insists, ‘woke culture and modern feminism are responsible for creating our current situation. Can you blame men for being increasingly resentful of what women have become?’ (Savage, 2021: 4). MGTOW attributes the blame to women, while taking the pressures of late capitalism on the individual man as a given. To cope with the anxieties stemming from social vulnerability experienced in a neoliberal culture, directing one’s aggression towards women may be a way to regain a sense of control over one’s own life. Consequently, resenting and blaming women can be seen as a method to ‘re-sovereignizing masculinity’ and ‘re-establishing dominance’ (Sauer, 2020: 32).

Systematic or strategic vulnerability?

MGTOW articulate their social vulnerabilities through a resentful and misogynist discourse. In this final section I will discuss how this challenges the proposition that recognizing vulnerability can be useful in feminist masculinity politics, and suggest ways we can move beyond just encouraging men to acknowledge their own and others’ shared ontological vulnerability. I would argue that what I have observed in the MGTOW books, where the authors accept individual vulnerability but simultaneously attempt to restore sovereign masculinity through ressentiment, is partly possible since vulnerability discourse is framed as an ethical imperative, rather than an experience of precarity based on historical and social injustice. Johansson Wilén (2019: 276) writes that, ‘The desire to unite people under a concept such as “all vulnerable” risks pushing away more specific political concepts such as exploitation, homophobia and misogyny’ (author’s translation). In other words, a focus on shared ontological vulnerability risks obfuscating the specific social and material processes that create precariousness in the first place, and enables MGTOWs and other male identity politics to adopt vulnerability and pair it with a fantasy of sovereign masculinity.

Does this make vulnerability a dead end for a feminist masculinity politics? Not necessarily, but I am far more sceptical about the political possibilities of men recognising their own and others’ vulnerability than Cover, Keddie, Mellström and Pease. As my analysis of the MGOTW books suggests, the issue with vulnerability is not primarily that men are unable to acknowledge their social vulnerabilities or may use it strategically, but that recognizing one’s own vulnerability does not necessarily translate into an ethical responsiveness to others. As shown, MGTOWs easily identify their own precariousness, but it does not lead to a recognition of a shared ontological vulnerability: instead, they revert to a masculinist fantasy of sovereignty.

Instead of calling men to recognize their own vulnerability or an ontologically shared vulnerability, feminist scholarship on masculinity needs to develop analytical tools to explore social vulnerability. One way, I believe, to start unpacking the social processes that produce differences in vulnerability, is through Chouliaraki’s (2021) discussion on victimization. Chouliaraki agrees with Butler that vulnerability is a universal human condition, but also seeks to understand how this common vulnerability translates into victimhood in ‘a battlefield of competing claims to suffering’ (Chouliaraki, 2021: 12). Chouliaraki contends that our analyses must not presume a preexisting link between claims of suffering and the structural conditions from which they originate, since there is no stable connection between the individual’s affective state and their objective trauma or injury. Instead of identifying vulnerability in general, she suggests analyzing who claims victimhood, the position they speak from, and the effects of this positioning. Posing such questions would help to differentiate between strategic claims of vulnerability and who is vulnerable to systemic oppression.

Chouliaraki’s heuristic model is insightful but, like Butler, she presupposes men’s vulnerability as an affective tactic. This seems to partly be due to basing her argument on an analysis of public rape allegations against rich or famous white men. In these cases, the men’s unsubstantiated claims of victimhood are relatively evident as they typically hold privileged social positions, especially in comparison to the women who have been sexually assaulted. However, one could imagine other cases where the man’s vulnerability has a more substantial foundation (for example, in terms of race and class), and where the binary of the ‘privileged White man’ and the ‘less privileged woman’ (Chouliaraki, 2021: 23) is far less stable. Also, recent feminist research suggests that manosphere activists’ accounts of vulnerability are not necessarily strategic claims, and that it is ‘important to acknowledge that many incels express a real vulnerability’ albeit ‘their conceptualization of what causes this vulnerability is misogynist and largely inaccurate’ (Johansson Wilén, 2024: 17). Assuming that some of the stories in the MGTOW books discussed in this article are true, regardless of their misogyny and resentment, then at least some of these experiences cannot be dismissed as mere claims of victimhood but are examples of vulnerability. The men appear to have experienced pressures to be financially successful and work hard to make ends meet and live up to standards of masculinity. These pressures often left them with little time to spend with their families. After divorce, some found themselves unable to see their children and continued to struggle financially. These experiences of individual vulnerability could perhaps even be seen as examples of ‘systematic victimhood’ as the men had to deal with adversities partly due to neoliberal politics. However, the problem is that the MGTOWs do not consider themselves as victims of neoliberal capitalism and do not turn their critique towards the complex economic systems that primarily caused the harm, but only see themselves as wounded by women and feminism. When scapegoating women, what can to some extent be viewed as precariousness based on systemic injustice of neoliberal capitalism is transformed into an affective masculinist identity politics.

In this article I have shown that embracing one’s own vulnerability does not necessarily lead to recognizing the vulnerability of others but could rather foster ressentiment that supports sovereign masculinity. A model of universal human vulnerability alone does not seem to promote feminist politics for men, but neither can we assume that men’s vulnerability claims are always strategic. To help men towards a path where they recognize a shared, ontological vulnerability, masculinity scholars need to take more seriously men’s experiences of the pressures of neoliberal politics, and develop tools to critique late capitalism. I do not suggest that this is a solution to all forms of male identity politics, or that it will help all groups of men to develop more progressive masculinities, but it could potentially direct some men to associate their financial struggles and precariousness with late capitalism, thereby shifting their resentment from women towards neoliberalism. It could also possibly assist these men in moving beyond the cruel fantasy of sovereign masculinity.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.