Gun buyers at the Houston Gun show at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Photo by Wikimedia.

The United States is a hotbed of both gun violence and toxic masculinity, ranked 28th in the world for gun violence and 42nd for gender equality (which may seem to be an average ranking but Saudi Arabia, a country where women were only given the right to drive one year ago, is ranked 50th.) Further, the American Constitution differs from other nations’ fundamental legal codes across the globe in that the Second Amendment has been interpreted to grant citizens the right to bear arms. In fact, there are only three other countries in the world where citizens have the right to bear arms. When this amendment was first established, only white male landowners were allowed to own firearms. Nowadays, a person of any race, sex, or economic standing can own a firearm. However, gun owners are still overwhelmingly white males who live either in the South and/or in rural areas. Scholars of gun culture have done research to understand why this is the case, and have concluded that American gun ownership is almost inseparably intertwined with white masculinity. Because despite the fact that there are no de jure restrictions on gun ownership based on gender identity, race, socioeconomic status, etc., white men still overwhelmingly represent gun owners in the U.S.

Why then are gun owners mostly made up of white men? This is because white men use guns as a phallic symbol to represent power and domination in order to reclaim their “lost” status in the social hierarchy. However, it still stands to ask why people of other races and genders have not jumped on the bandwagon and began purchasing firearms. Despite white men’s fears that they have lost social standing, women and people of color remain less likely to purchase guns because they don’t have the privilege of being able to use a firearm for protection. Women in cases of domestic violence are often blamed for the violence put upon them, and a woman who was to use a gun in order to protect herself from an abusive partner would often have severely punitive actions taken against her. As well, women who own guns may often have them used by their partner in violent situations, which can ultimately result in their own death. Similarly, people of color are unable to use guns for protection because of the permeation of systemic racism into the police force and justice system. If a person of color were to use a firearm in order to protect themself, once again they would frequently face severely punitive action against them for enacting their right to protect themself with a firearm. Even without using firearms, people of color are blamed for their own deaths after situations in which the police force uses brutality. Now imagine having a gun in that situation. It certainly would only make the matter worse. Thus only white men through de jure privilege have the right to protection with a firearm.

Therefore, as mass shootings continue to rock the nation, it is vital to understand gun culture in the U.S. manifests itself. By analyzing how toxic masculinity and racial resentment in American society has rooted itself into gun culture, one can get a clearer picture as to how gun violence has embedded itself within society.

Many have come up with reasons to try to explain aspects of contemporary American gun culture. One such theory is the connection of modern day gun culture with racial resentment and/or toxic masculinity based on the psychological analyses of the phallus and its relation to whiteness, and how this manifests itself in representations of gun ownership and gun culture..

Gun ownership is not just a vague emblem of white masculinity. At the center of this relationship is one of the most loaded symbols of masculinity: the phallus. A phallic symbol is any object that is shaped like a phallus, which, according to Freudian psychology,reaffirms masculinity. According to Freud, men desire symbolic phallic objects--such as guns--to reaffirm their masculinity. I argue that gun ownership in the U.S. is emblematic of men’s constant search for a phallic symbol.

As American society grows more inclusive, with women and various racial, religious, social and ethnic minorities gaining rights, white men's role in the hierarchy has become unstable, which has led many white men to search for ways to regain some semblance of power and control through asserting their masculinity with gun ownership. Men who feel a threat to their masculinity, end up purchasing a firearm not only to reassert their sense of lost masculinity, but also to lay claim to a phallic symbol they fear will be taken from them, rendering them emasculated and phallus-less. This profoundly emasculating fear is a driving factor behind vehement opposition to gun control: the threat of taking away their masculinity and the symbol that embodies it.

I use advertisements in my article as a placeholder to represent the culture being pushed by the firearm industry and organizations like the NRA, which are setting the narrative around firearm use. By using published advertisements in recent years I demonstrate how the insidious nature of gun culture has permeated itself into our daily lives.

White Toxic Masculinity and the Phallus

Scholars like Peter Squires have explored the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) creation of modern-day gun culture and how it uses toxic masculinity as a political weapon to mobilize their supporters. According to Squires, the NRA pushes a social identity of “frontier masculinity”:self-sufficiency, individualism, and the romanticism of the frontier, a time and place where white men had little threat to their social standing from people other than white men. Likewise,Alexanda Filindra explores how white privilege relates to gun culture, finding that racially resentful whites are more likely to be gun owners and/or be strong supporters of gun rights. Although whites make up 63% of the U.S. population, they comprise 84% of gun owners. Whiteness, white privilege, and racial resentment are a significant part of gun culture.

NRA’s Promotion of White Toxic Masculinity

In the realm of gun culture, the NRA uses gendered language to promote stereotypically masculine values, such as self-reliance and independence from the government. The NRA’s “Refuse To Be A Victim” program (which the NRA calls a “personal safety and crime prevention training program”), even in its title, promotes stereotypically masculine values of protection, elevates the masculine savior complex, and rejects femininity. In contrast, victimhood is associated with being female. The idea of being able to protect oneself or others from harm, especially using physical force, is a core tenet of the toxic masculinity complex. Thus, being unable to use physical force to stop violence can be emasculating. Squires refers to “frontier masculinity” as the mythologizing and glorification of the Western frontier, which romanticizes males’ use of physical strength and aggression in a modern world. In contrast, our post-industrial society mechanizes most physical labor, rendering many blue collar jobs obsolete. As minorities gain rights, white men feel a loss of privilege and social standing, leading to resentment and a strong desire to return to traditional values of masculinity (brute strength, occupations involving physicality, females being subordinate, etc.)

All of the above simply says that white men feel that their hierarchical position is threatened, and guns give them the symbolic and physical ability to reclaim their place in society. Guns hold power not only in their concrete ability to inflict violence and death over others, but also in their symbolic power as a phallic symbol to reassert the owners’ masculinity and dominance over others.

Gun culture is not just about racial resentment and toxic masculinity. Firearms are specifically marketed to encourage citizens to take hold of the phallic symbol. Gun culture feeds into our society’s hyper-polarization, and increases racial resentment and hostile sexism. The advertisements below are demonstrations of what the gun manufacturers and the gun lobby want our society to look like: a white and hyper-masculine based hierarchy. These advertisements are also reflective of what modern day gun culture looks like in its current iteration. The advertisements give us a direct glimpse into gun owners’ slanted view of the world.

An advertisement, portraying a firearm as a “man card.” Photo by Bushmaster Firearms.

Advertisements and the Marketing of Firearms

In the Bushmaster Firearms advertisement (see above), gun ownership is directly correlated with gender identity and masculinity. The Bushmaster Ad stands as a direct representation of what the gun industry and the gun lobby are trying to sell: white toxic masculinity. The gun lobby and industry thus are representative of gun culture.

The assumption that one has “lost their man card” relates directly to loss of power in the white patriarchal social hierarchy. The language reflects the experience of white men. The ad demonstrates white men’s loss of social standing by describing modern culture as a “world of rapidly depleting testosterone.” The ad also describes the white hyper masculinized man as a “dying breed.” Their perceived loss of social standing, the ad argues, can be responded to by reasserting their masculinity through gun ownership.

Bushmaster released this ad following the Sandy Hook shooting and referenced the shooter, Adam L., as unworthy of a “man card” because of his soy eating habits, and not because he shot children. Violence is not condemned because it is seen as a masculine trait and is typically perpetrated by white men. Rather, the ad encourages its target demographic to “reclaim” conventional masculinity by equating this to purchasing a gun.

The ad claims that “the Bushmaster Man Card declares and confirms that you are a Man’s Man, the last of a dying breed, with all the rights and privileges duly afforded.” This evokes the nostalgic symbolism of frontier masculinity, and is reminiscent of the pre Civil Rights Era, when white men had even greater power than they do now. The ad uses the word privilege, which further demonstrates white males’ feeling of loss in the social hierarchy. The ad also claims that by owning this gun, one can “consider your man card reissued.” While men have lost the rights they once had, they can be regained by buying a firearm, or, in other words, a phallic symbol.

The ad’s imagery and language play to notions of the phallus and white male gun owners’ identity. The ad has a plain white background with a large automatic rifle taking up most of the forefront. The gun evokes the phallus and implies masculinity. The large biological difference between males and females lies in the genitals, and without a penis, men are presumed effeminate (a derogatory state of being). “Adam is unmanly” is equivalent to “Adam is effeminate,” demonstrated by the female figure above the text. As Freud described, the possession of the phallus has to be contrasted against the phallus-less female in order for the masculine power of the phallus to be fully realized.

A gun advertisement, playing upon the “damsel in distress” trope. Photo by Business Insider.

In this advertisement, frontier masculinity is once again reintroduced. The sexist trope of the “damsel in distress” is repurposed to drive fathers to buy guns for their daughters. This recalls the NRA language that implicitly equates victimhood to femininity (“Refuse To Be A Victim”). The patriarch acts as the guardian/caretaker over the woman. The phrase “protect her” demonstrates that the gun, or the phallic symbol, represents power, especially in the case of the female who is victimized because she does not possess a phallus.

The advertisement promotes self-reliance and independence from governmental agencies, such as the police. This once again relates back to the concept of frontier masculinity, in which it's every man for themself. Refusing to rely on governmental programs would thus be a way of reasserting one’s masculinity, in a time where white males’ social status feels threatened. The ad also rejects relying on public health guidelines, i.e. using a condom, for one’s safety.

The ad itself is directed towards fathers rather than daughters, and most likely directed at white men, given the demographics of gun owners. Although the advertisers are stating that the gun is a good tool of protection for a woman, they advertise the product as something men are responsible for managing and controlling. By making the decision to create an ad that is directed towards men to give to women, the advertisers assume the male is the patriarch/“protector” in the household, which recalls the sexist and archaic idea of men being the sole decision maker in a household.

A gun advertisement, making use of sexually suggestive imagery. Photo by ThinkProgress.

In this ad, the image uses both suggestive language and imagery in order to sell firearms. The image shows a young woman wearing an unbuttoned men's shirt and an untied tie. The image is clearly supposed to be provocative, with the woman wearing little to no clothing. Sex and guns are once again intertwined, tying together sex with violence. The tie depicts an eagle and an American flag to symbolize that gun rights are inherently American. Firearms are thus embedded in the American psyche and cultural zeitgeist.

The language mirrors the provocative imagery, with suggestive phrasing such as “want to see my… M88,” equating the gun with the phallus. The similarly shaped weapon takes position as the phallus’ placeholder. The ad then states that the M88 is “all steel, with the natural curves and feel you want,” which provokes provocative imagery of a woman’s body, once more equating sex with guns. The use of the word steel, a hard substance, also evokes imagery of an erect phallus. The language used in the advertisement is sexualized and aims to both arouse and produce a feeling of longing for the viewer. It equates sex with guns in order to sell more firearms, and to suggest that by carrying a gun, men will be more sexually desirable to women. The ad ends with the phrase “cause thin just ain’t right,” which conjures imagery of both the human body and a large phallus. It plays on males’ insecurity surrounding their penis, and promotes the idea that if they were to possess this gun, it would serve as a replacement phallus with all the power that this object possesses.

Conclusion

The white male gun owner’s identity is demonstrated in recent shootings. There have been a large number of unarmed black people often shot by white male police officers. This demonstrates the powerful nature of the white male gun owner’s identity and its insidiousness. The identity is so powerful that one feels empowered to take an innocent life because of it (albeit including other circumstances that affect the shooter’s identity, such as mental illness.) The policy implications of gun culture’s insidiousness are vast. At the time of writing this, Texas passed a law that made handguns permitless. Ads like the ones I analyzed, and many others, are at the crux of fostering the gun culture that is reflected in state legislation.

The phallic symbol is unattainable, yet firearms and, consequently, violence are used to promote white masculinity. Gun advertisements use phallic imagery and language that promotes toxic masculine ideals. Due to the demographics of gun owners, the majority of the consumers of these products are white men. These advertisers know their market well and accurately demonstrated the anxiety white men have in a world where they feel a loss of rights and/or privileges. By using imagery of the phallic symbol, the advertisers have used their consumers' fears and anxieties in order to sell more firearms, which, in turn, can at least partially demonstrate the white male gun owner’s identity.

Jenna Bergman just graduated from Barnard College with a BA in Political Science in May 2021. In January 2021, she started a non-profit called heRoe: Access for All to help people access abortion care resources. She also works for a non-profit called Circle of Hope that provides support to abortion clinics. She currently lives in NYC with her fiance and cat.

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Firearms and the Phallus: Using Guns to Reclaim Masculinity