ABSTRACT
This chapter hopes to demonstrate that the people can better understand “alt-right” groups such as the Proud Boys through the lens of male supremacism and masculinity rather than solely through the lens of white supremacy. It demonstrates how masculinity can supersede the racial aspects of the “alt-right” in multiracial groups like the Proud Boys and explores the possibility that cis men join these groups due to the appeal of performative masculinity and male supremacist ideology. The chapter argues for an intersectional approach that recognizes how appeals to whiteness and masculinity both function within the alt-right and broader far right. It offers an in-depth analysis of one far-right “thought leader,” Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes. The Proud Boys organization has attempted in some of its public rhetoric to distance itself from the alt-right. It is difficult to separate McInnes’s political ideology and his views on masculinity, which implies a deep connection between the promoted ideal of manhood and the far right.
