The Authoritarian Male: we need to talk about him
You know the type; very likely you’ve witnessed or experienced the behavior: mean-spirited, critical, never acknowledging weakness or error, melodramatic, totally lacking in empathy, always acting like the smartest guy in the room.
“I know these boys,” says clinical psychologist John Robertson. “I know their use of exploitation and manipulation as strategies to gain and exert power and control, how they avoid responsibility for that behavior, their objectification of others, particularly women, as being other than, therefore less than. So, I don’t know Harvey Weinstein personally, but I know his type.”
Robertson’s experience is based on a decade of clinical work with more than 1100 professional men, doctors and lawyers mostly. They were all referred to a specialized treatment clinic in Lawrence, Kansas, due to their mistreatment of patients or clients, colleagues or staff. Often, they’re ordered into therapy by their professional licensing boards.
In case you’re wondering, there are women authoritarians. At the end of his tenure, females were only 10% of the referred professionals in the clinic. Robertson believes, “authoritarian traits are more aligned with traditionally socialized masculinity expectations.”
Robertson says authoritarian is not a diagnostic category, but these men share certain traits at a significant level: narcissism, defensiveness, obsessiveness, and histrionics (high drama). Give them authority and watch out for what happens. “There’s not a problem with the existence of power inherently. Societies function with decision makers. But authoritarians pursue the exercise of power as a rush, simply for the experience of exercising it to control others, rather than in constructive ways.”
It’s rare in social science research to state absolutes. But based on his practice, he says “every one of these men, without exception, had terribly disruptive childhood relations with their fathers. Sometimes, the father died early, or was chronically ill, alcoholic, drug dependent, abusive, or would disappear for months or years at a time. There are a dozen ways fathers can harm their sons.”
What happens, then, down the road? “The sons carry an awareness what it feels to be vulnerable. In order to combat that, they develop a set of strategies to make sure no one is going to do that to them again. So, they need to be in positions where they can control the behavior of others. The end point is always justified, so they can say, ‘I’m going to be safe.’”
From Robertson’s experience “male abusers of women typically have this internal sense of self-doubt that only they know about. No one who knows them can imagine that they really feel vulnerable inside. But they do.” Yet, because of their lack of empathy, they have no regard for the impact their abuse is having on others.
If you’re hoping for an optimistic prognosis from this piece, here are three reasons to be disappointed:
- Treatment for the authoritarian male is difficult and lengthy. Dr. Robertson says it often took months of daily group and individual therapy with these men to engender any meaningful self-awareness.
- The largest factor in a successful therapeutic outcome is whether the men’s professional lives were on the line. “They knew if we didn’t say they could go back to work, they were finished. That’s a very powerful motivation for professionals.” But as #MeToo has shown, too many supervisors ignore warning signs of abuse, so there are rarely consequences for that behavior.
- Despite #MeToo, or maybe because of conservative blowback, Robertson says the problem is getting worse. “That’s because you’ve got a president with at least 22 accusations of sexual assault against him, yet nothing has happened to him.”
I do see a positive. But first, a full disclosure. Dr. John Robertson is a personal friend. About a year ago, he introduced me to his hypothesis of Donald Trump as Exhibit A for the authoritarian male. I’ve been chewing on this ever since, to identify the link between Trump and the abusive men that we interact with daily, and what can we do to stop them.
John’s the psychologist. But I respectfully disagree with his take on the downward spiral of the treatment of women and other marginalized groups. I believe we can now call out these men (and women) when they say something denigrating about a person of color, direct anger at women or LGBTQ people, or belittle random subordinates. We can’t continue giving abusive men a pass under the mistaken belief they alone are responsible for the success of the team, the company or the country. Nor should we offer them the excuse that they’re not accountable for their actions because of stress, overwork, or enemies out to sabotage their efforts.
To my male readers, I offer this challenge. It’s easier for an authoritarian to dismiss a claim, or blow back on an accusation, from a woman. Men, particularly white men, specifically white men in positions of power or stature, need to be stepping up and calling out. Let’s use our white male privilege for good. For change.
