ABSTRACT
The warrior is the most extreme example of virile manhood-the ultimate in power and ruthlessness. A machine without feelings-muscular, agile, capable of instant decisions to kill, maim, destroy.
The warrior-killer is the clearest expression of the emotional and social processes that shape aggressive masculinities. It is a defensive masculinity that’s organized around the splitting off and denigration of conventional femininity. The processes are the splitting off of feelings from bodily action;1 the inadmissibility of empathy; the cultivation of physical strength as a supreme virtue in itself; the celebration of insensitivity to brutality; the glorying in being ‘hard’; the acknowledgment of physical strength as the ultimate arbiter of conflict; the celebration of male bonding in action.
