The rise of angry white men

Abstract

This chapter analyses the gendered dimensions of populism and its expression in the grievances of angry white men. The chapter argues that to critically analyse populism, it is important to interrogate white masculinity and the sense of entitlement associated with it, and how this whiteness intersects with class and other social divisions. The chapter illustrates how, while white men’s experiences are an outcome of neoliberalism and economic restructuring, they often face what they feel is a crisis in their masculinity. Populist rhetoric claims to ‘empower’ such men in opposition to movements for racial and gender equality, and is thus grounded in an ideology of masculinism and hegemonic masculinity. Social workers are encouraged to understand why so many white men feel aggrieved by what they experience as the loss of gendered and racial entitlement, to enable them to develop strategies to critically engage with such men.