There is a very common social stereotype that men love cars and that a man’s car represents him in the social world. This men’s health article overflows with examples of men identifying deeply with their cars and even references academic studies about how driving cars make men feel more connected to their masculinity and that men derive measurable increases in self-esteem from gaining access to an automobile. The article goes so far as to state that “Men romanticize things that embody power, fearlessness, speed. But what accounts for the tremendous intimacy between men and cars? Men don’t simply own cars — they have relationships with them.” This is to say that, to the author of this article, and many men who would agree with him, a man’s car is a mechanical representation of his own freedom, power, and social status. As such, cars occupy a place in men’s hearts that is much deeper than just existing as material objects. The article goes on to suggest some reasons why that is problematic, especially focusing on environmental impacts, and then goes on to suggest that the issue won’t really be a problem, because men will adapt to identify with electric cars instead of gasoline fueled ones.
What is completely missing in this analysis, and missing from the vast majority of conversations I see happening about the automobile generally, and especially in the context of the relationship men have with their vehicles, is that this whole metaphorical connections between automobiles freedom and power are all predicated on massive governmental infrastructure enabling cars to have any value to human beings at all, and I think there actually is a very important and valuable lesson in looking at how that relates to masculinity.
Ok, I don’t intend to write a massive essay here about how expensive car culture is to maintain, in the US or globally. There is actually a whole lot of folks out there writing and making online media content about: how suburbs can’t afford to maintain their own road networks through property taxes and how older suburbs are going broke throughout the US, leading people to move into new ones that fund initial infrastructure spending with grants or worse, loans, and will experience the same problems down the the road (pun intended) when their infrastructure starts needing repair; how cities prioritizing parking and car accessibility into commercial districts over pedestrian access decimate those commercial districts; and how high speed road networks lead to increased fatalities from accidents. There is perhaps no more obvious of a symbol for government dependency for a private industry than the automobile, which has required subsidization of every aspect of its development and evolution to accomplish its place as being the way people move in the United States, and around the world. Without roads, fueling stations, government regulation and enforcement (on everything about cars, from their manufacture to usage to disposal), signage, parking, and complicated international supply chains subsidized by many world governments, automobiles would probably have never become more than novel oddities, like hot air balloons.
So how does this relate to masculinity? Are all men as useless as an automobile in an environment not built up around their every need? Maybe. But even if you don’t take it that far, I think would be pretty easy to see that the there is a disturbing parallel in the way people talk about the necessity of both automobiles, and many unhealthy masculine behaviors that are all dependent upon a massive amount of infrastructure (physical for cars, social for masculinity) to even exist. It might feel like I am trying to slam on both automobiles and masculinity by making this point of social dependency, but I actually think that seeing negativity in pointing out that dependency is actually representative of the real problem.
The more invisible the actual cost and labor associated with maintaining massive infrastructure projects, the less value people place on that labor, and the more likely that people take for granted that it will always be there. Movies like Mad Max, and other post-apocalyptic media that feature very unrealistic portrayals of how automobiles will still be useful in a future where no one is building roads or regulating the trade of oil for its refining into gasoline are essentially telling a fantastical narrative that might as well include dragons and wizards. The same can really be said of the patriarchal misogynistic construction of masculinity that is deifying people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Even the UFC tough guy macho guys like Joe Rogan (who I don’t think is intentionally trying to put himself forward as role model of masculinity) and Andrew Tate (who very much is trying to put himself forward as role models of masculinity) are dependent upon massive networks of other people giving them power and authority to sustain any of their accomplishments. Survival is not about individual super men/Tarzans who can do everything for themselves, that is just not how humanity has ever worked. Hunter-gatherer societies are almost always more egalitarian than agricultural or post-agricultural societies in how they distribute labor, including along lines of gender. Hyper violent masculinity has never been about being more capable of protecting one’s self, or keeping one’s self alive, it has always been about seizing control and power from others, usually by trying to be just violent enough to get other people to stop resisting their authority. The freedom and power that PM versions of masculinity seeks is never some uniquely independent vision of the self, it is a self squarely situated at the top of a hierarchy that other people just accept because they don’t have the will to resist it. This is pretty much exactly where the automobile industry sits in the world of transportation today. It is not that cars are just innately and universally the best way of moving people and goods from point A to point B, it is the case that the automobile industry has made it incredibly difficult to develop other methods, because it has monopolized the money, energy and time of public infrastructure projects to make it seem like doing anything else is just going to be impossible…while simultaneously existing in state that is unsustainable for individual communities and for the world as whole.
So that is why I think there is a real, subversive power behind the metaphor of “automobile as a symbol of (PM) masculinity.” It is really an ironic mockery of reality based upon ignoring the cost of maintaining either. I don’t think I did the best job here of explaining the cost of (PM) masculinity, and the infrastructure required to maintain it. That is really too big of a topic for any one post, and something I will probably have to break up in future posts, but it is also something that I have touched on in many of my past posts already. (PM) masculinity is exhausting, and self-destructive, and something that wears out quickly when actually required to be put into use. The people that idolize (PM) do so in the same way as people who personify and adore an expensive car. It is something they want everyone to respect and ogle, and maybe occasionally take out and put to the test, but they really don’t want everyone to come up and touch it, and the more they have to use it in their actual daily lives, the more quickly it erodes into a valueless hunk of junk.