# Josh Hawley — "epidemic of men" > [!quote] "Can we be surprised that after years of being told they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness, and pornography, and video games?" > — Josh Hawley, National Conservatism Conference keynote, Orlando, October 31, 2021 ## Context From Hawley's keynote, "The Future of the American Man," at the second [[National Conservatism]] conference. Hawley argued that the political left was working to redefine traditional masculine virtues — "courage and independence and assertiveness" — as toxic, and that this "attack on men" was driving them into pornography, gaming, and worklessness. He has since built a book (*Manhood*) and a political brand around the theme. ## Why this matters This is where the antifeminist current updates itself for the 2020s: the grievance shifts from policing women's behavior to defending an embattled masculinity, with feminism cast as the aggressor that has wounded men. It launders the same anxiety about [[Patriarchy]] into the respectable language of a sitting U.S. senator and a [[National Conservatism]] policy agenda, and it provides the elite-electoral counterpart to the manosphere's masculinity panic. The "men are under attack" frame is the connective tissue between [[Antifeminism]] and the broader male-grievance politics that surged around 2024. ## Verification - **Reporting:** [Washington Post, Nov. 2, 2021](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/02/josh-hawley-pornography-video-games/); [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/11/1054615028/is-masculinity-under-attack-sen-hawley-wants-to-defend-the-men-of-america); [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/politics/josh-hawley-masculinity-video-games-porn/index.html). - **Status:** Verbatim, undisputed; delivered from a public conference stage. ## Related quotes - [[Tucker Carlson - extremely primitive]] — the cable-and-radio version of the masculinity-versus-feminism frame. - [[JD Vance - childless cat ladies]] — the same NatCon-adjacent gender politics turned toward women's fertility. - Featured in [[Misogyny on the Right]].