When masculinity is policed more harshly than morality: from World War I to Trump

Yes, let's criticize Trump, but can we not reinforce the patriarchy while we're at it?

“Ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba?”

This was a question posed by Mark Epstein to his brother Jeffrey Epstein via email. It came to light with the 20,000 Epstein files that were released November 12, 2025.

Bubba was a nickname of Bill Clinton’s.

Cue a collective freakout.

Mark Epstein has come out and said that his email was not referring to Bill Clinton. But too late. The ridicule was well underway and would not be deterred.

Monologues from every late-night show, op-eds, jokes, memes, songs, TikToks, endless “Donica Lewinsky” jokes all joined the fray. The White House tried to repair Trump’s masculine¹ image on their socials:

But the public would not have it:

source: vidsthatgohard

There are moments when a culture tells on itself—not through official statements or laws or speeches—but through what it freaks out about.

A freak out is a window into what we do and don’t value.

Public bullying, systemic corruption, outright lying, funding a genocide, ruining the environment, casual cruelty, 36+ felonies, grabbing women by the pussy?

Eh. Let him lead our country.

A potential sexual act between two consenting men?!??!?!??!?

HE’S DONE FOR!!

In this upside down moral universe, state violence somehow causes less of a stir than the thought of a powerful man allegedly kneeling before another man.

The unspoken belief is: harming others is acceptable, violating masculinity is unforgivable.

In Trump’s first press interviews after this email was released, what did he do?

His first act was to reinstate his masculinity by de-humanizing a woman.

Of course.

When a female reporter asked, “If there’s nothing incriminating in the files sir, why not take….”

Trump cut her off sharply saying, “Quiet piggy.”

source

His first move after having his masculinity insulted was an attempt to reassert masculine dominance.

Because apparently homoeroticism is disqualifying and humiliating, but misogynistic cruelty is stabilizing and placating.

Weirdly, everyone has obsessed over the alleged sex act more than Epstein’s own description of Trump’s morality:

“I have met some very bad people… none as bad as Trump. Not one decent cell in his body.”

Or over Epstein saying that Trump knew and perhaps participated in sex trafficking saying, “Of course he knew about the girls.” And “Trump knew of it. and came to my house many times during that period,”

Yet there have been more headlines, jokes, memes and attention over the Bill Clinton thing than either of these.

Being called the worst person by the world’s most depraved pedophile is pretty damning, but moral depravity doesn’t threaten patriarchy.

Sex trafficking girls doesn’t threaten patriarchy.

Failed masculinity does.

So we freak out over that. We insult him over that.

That’s how highly we value patriarchy.

It’s why there have been more memes made about this image:

source

Than this one taken the same day:

source

Because why would we make fun of powerful politicians being with swimsuit models 30 years younger than them?

But those two men photographed in a compromising position? Sound the alarms.

It’s why there has been more press about the size of Trump’s small hands than his administration’s 74 acts to weaken environmental protection.

One upholds his masculinity. One threatens it.

And over and over again, we tend to focus on whatever threatens his masculinity.

Trump doesn’t get made fun of when he does something immoral. He gets made fun of when he does something unmanly.

We tolerate male violence and incompetence at astounding levels. What we do not tolerate is a man who fails to properly embody the patriarchal ideal.

Watching the world jump to insult our dictator’s masculinity reminded me of another time the world jumped to insult a dictator’s masculinity.

That time it led to a world war.

World War I as an attempt to reassert Germany’s masculinity

When asked about the events that spurred World War I, most people would point to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

Most people would not point to Germany trying to reassert its masculinity after an internationally-known “homosexual scandal” among its leading politicians.

But that is exactly the through-line that the academic article “The Homosexual Scare and the Masculinization of German Politics before World War I,” published by Cambridge University Press draws.

Here’s how it went down: In 1907 Kaiser Germany, journalist Maximilian Harden wrote an article accusing the Prince of Eulenburg—then best friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II— of having a homosexual relationship with the military general of Berlin, Lieutenant General Moltke.

Journalist Harden also accused 15 other members of the Kaiser’s inner court of homosexual relations. And called for their immediate resignations.

Cue a massive collective freak out.

The press had a field day. Outrage ensued. Multiple articles and think pieces were written. Cartoonists came out with the 1907 version of memes:

A satirical political cartoon reimagining of the Prussian coat of arms depicting Eulenberg and Moltke. source

Around twenty leading German officers were convicted of homosexual acts.

An astonishingly sad figure—six military officers died by suicide during the trials.

The Kaiser Wilhelm II suffered a nervous breakdown as his entire inner circle resigned or went to jail. And he wrote to his best friend, “I want no homosexuals at court and I never want to hear from you or see you again.”

Here they are together- Kaiser Wilhelm II and Eulenberg. source

The Kaiser’s reputation as a strong leader went down the drain. Suddenly Germany became widely known for homosexuality² and became a laughing stock on the world stage.

Before the scandal, Eulenburg’s anti-imperalism rubbed off on Wilhelm as his closest friend. At a conference in Algeciras, Spain in 1905, Wilhelm declared to the world that he desired peace and did not wish to fight France or England.

After the scandal? Well, the Kaiser had his own “QUIET PIGGY!” moment with the press as he attempted to repair his damaged masculine reputation.

In the thick of the trials in 1908, Wilhelm II was interviewed by The Daily Telegraph in London. Throughout the interview, he managed to insult or bully every single major world power. He said, “You English are mad, mad, mad as March hares.” He blamed the French and the Russians for provoking Germany into a conflict. He said that Germany’s naval build up was meant for Japan.

Historians say that Wilhelm’s viral rant against England, France and Russia helped fan the flames for a world war.

An article called The Gay Panic World War put it this way:

“The fall out of Eulenburg’s trial… left Kaiser Wilhelm II urgently trying to assert his own “masculinity” in the face of these scandals… and so was filled with fear that the hysterical homophobia unleashed by the fall of Eulenburg could cost him his throne if he didn’t visibly and publicly ‘man up.’”

Even more devastating than his words were his actions. In the years after the Eulenberg trials, Wilhelm II embraced an aggressive “weltpolitik” (“world power”) stance, strengthening Germany’s nationalism and colonialist control, itching to expand Germany’s empire.

So when Austria came to him and said, “Hey one of our colonies (Serbia) is resisting our rule. Will you help us show our other colonies who is boss by helping us attack Serbia?” Wilhelm II responded, “Gladly!”

With Germany’s “blank check” of support, Austria attacked Serbia. Then Russia backed Serbia, France backed Russia, Germany invaded Belgium, Britain backed Belgium and suddenly the whole world is at war.

The German people—far from telling him to stop— were also desperate to repair their weak and effeminate image. And what better way than to kill thousands of people?

Speaking of the embarrassment of the Eulenberg Affair on Germany’s reputation, the original whistle blowing journalist, Maximilian Harden, actually penned the sentence, “To clear ourselves of shame and ridicule, we will have to go to war soon…”

(Wut.)

The mindset seemed to be: Staging one of the bloodiest wars in human history to expand your empire?

Fine.

Consensual affection between men?

Absolutely unacceptable. A crisis. A national emergency. The greatest threat to public life.

An article called How Germany’s Eulenberg Affair Helped Lead to World War I puts it this way:

“Germany was in crisis mode, to say the least. The German people were questioning everything about their government, national identity, morality, and how all of those things played with each other, and all of a sudden, they were also being insulted by the French. All they knew was that something needed to be done, and that became the perfect place for German imperialists to step in and offer a solution: war.” - Mina Nakatani

France was particularly intense in their mocking of Germany’s effeminate image:

“it was the French who really saw all of this and decided to run with it. Warmongering newspapers explicitly attacked the German sense of masculinity by poking fun at Wilhelm II, painting him as an effeminate leader surrounded by scores of adoring men.”

Some French cartoons from the time. The first image is of Kaiser Wilhelm II with red lipstick on with a caption of “the enemy.”

When reading about France’s delight in poking the bear, I couldn’t help but think of our current delight in poking our bear.

There are some similarities:

Spot the difference.

On the left we have a meme from the early 1900s insulting a German leader by depicting him as a woman. On the right a meme from 2025 insulting our leader by depicting him as a woman.

Clearly both Wilhelm and Trump have masculinity at the core of their identity, so it’s fun to have a giggle when their masculinity takes such a public hit.

But I can’t help but notice just how devastating and long-lasting the effects of Wilhelm’s emasculation were.

While publicly proclaiming that Germany would surely emerge the victor of World War I at the onset, three short months into the war, in October of 1914, Wilhelm II told his cabinet that he didn’t see any way that Germany could win.

Despite this, he chose to send his troops in to attack Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Russia. Despite this, he kept sending troops out to fail for four more brutal years.

This is a cartoon from the end of World War I depicting Wilhelm II stubbornly clinging to the world saying “The world is mine” despite the look on his face showing he knows he has lost. Still he clings.

Maintaining a masculine image is just as important to Trump as it was to Wilhelm II. As Theresa Vescio, a psychology professor at Penn State who studies Donald Trump says, “Everything he says and does is about masculinity.”

Her research found that after political affiliation, how strongly someone embraces hegemonic masculinity was THE strongest predictor for supporting Trump, even stronger than someone’s gender, race or level of education.

I get the urge to hit him where it hurts, but I can’t help but wonder if emasculating the man with the world’s most fragile ego desperate to make himself seem as manly as possible through any means possible, who just so happens to have access to nuclear codes that could literally blow up the entire world, is maybe not the best idea?³

Also, each time we insult Trump by calling him a girl we reinforce the idea that being a girl is insulting. When we try to humiliate Trump by calling him gay, we reinforce the idea that to be gay is humiliating.⁴

Whenever women and queerness are used as insults, patriarchy is strengthened.

Yes, let’s criticize Trump, but let’s do it for the right reasons. Let’s criticize his cruelty, his policies, his bullying, his incompetence, all the jobs he has cost the American people, cutting SNAP and USAID, the dire effects of the incompetence of his cabinet on healthcare and the economy.

Criticizing his masculinity actually upholds the patriarchy by upholding the idea that the most important thing a man can be is masculine. And to not do that is worthy of ridicule, embarrassment and shame.

And boy does that idea not make the world a better place.

If the boys out there who want to be leaders one day are taking notes, their notes would read: to maintain power- say whatever cruel insults you want to whoever you want, hurt whoever you need to hurt to do to grow in money and power, but whatever you do—do not be gay and do not act like a girl.⁵ You will be crucified for that.

Can we stop policing masculinity as if it’s a sin to not perform masculinity? Let’s police the true sins instead: war, cruelty, corruption, and structural violence.

Because the real freak out shouldn’t be over an alleged sexual act between two grown men.

The real freak out should be over how normalized it is for men with power to do unconscionable harm to prove their manliness.

1. When I talk about masculinity in this article, I’m talking about patriarchal masculinity. I’ve written before about how there’s nothing wrong with masculine attributes (like confidence, strength and independence), but there is something wrong with the patriarchal masculinity- which is the rigid mandate that men are never allowed to be “feminine.”

2. Fun fact- throughout the early 1900s, the question “Do you speak German?” became a code phrase for “are you gay?” in Paris. Homosexuality throughout Europe became known as “the German vice”

3. Publicly emasculating Wilhelm II didn’t go well. An estimated 15-22 million soldier and civilian lives were lost because of World War I. Wilhelm wasn’t responsible for all of those of course, but he was for a decent chunk.

4. I can’t help but think maybe instead of poking the bear by calling him gay and or a woman, maybe instead we should award Trump a trophy that says “You’ve done it. You’ve won masculinity. You are the manliest man on earth. Good Job.” Maybe then he could take a break from terrorizing the world in an effort to prove his own manhood.

5. Not like boys don’t already know that the worst thing they could do is act like a girl. That message is plenty reaffirmed as it is.