The expression ‘toxic masculinity’ has recently entered the vocabulary of the politically and socially aware, especially in the States. It describes an angry and aggressive attempt by men to control the levers of power in society and elsewhere. From the perspective of women, this takeover reflects a continuation of an age-old patriarchy in society. This declared that men have a God-given right to be supreme and take control over women and children. The voices of women are thus not always heard because men have occupied many of the places of influence and control.
This week, in the forum of the American Senate, we have seen this ancient conflict on display. A woman who credibly claims to have been assaulted by a rich privileged young man 36 years ago gave her testimony. Against her was the accused, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He responded with the angry impetuous male voice of someone who seems never to have had his male superiority challenged. The anger was directed not only against the female accuser; it was also aimed at anyone who asked him to give some account of his actions and memories of the time. The responses were often simply petulant and bad-tempered. To me they seemed like the response of a child who has always been pampered and allowed to have anything he wants.
After listening to the judge’s unconvincing defence, we have learnt certain facts about his religious past. The private school he attended was a Jesuit school and subsequently Brett Kavanaugh became involved in an extremely conservative group called the Federalist Society. This is a group of lawyers dedicated to promoting right wing causes. These centre around issues that inflame all religious conservatives, and they include birth control, anti-abortion and the restriction of gay rights. Of the 18 senior lawyers on Trump’s long list for Supreme Court nominations, 16 have been suggested and backed by this Society. With Supreme Court opinion now finely balanced, Trump’s nominations are all designed to push the Court into making future judgments which will promote the values and ethics of the Right. These are typically the masculine values that want to control women and their bodies.
It would be right to claim that Biblical patriarchy and ultra-right politics are close allies. The Church of Rome, to put it mildly, has always had a problem with understanding the perspective of women. This blindness to the complexities of female experience is shared by a large swathe of Protestant ‘biblical’ opinion. There the vagaries of female experience can, it is assumed, be swept away by declaring that every woman should come under the ‘covering’ of a man. This may be her husband or father. We have on this blog discussed the ‘biblical’ commands for women to obey men in every sphere. Clearly such sentiments have little to commend them in the 21st Century. But pressure groups like the Federalist Society, Bible Colleges and other fundamentalist/right-wing groups within American society still provide a home for people who are drawn to these reactionary ideas.
At the IICSA hearings in July, on Peter Ball, we heard evidence for what appears to be a ‘toxic masculinity’ at the heart of the Anglican Church. A men-only dining club that meets regularly at Lambeth Palace, known as Nobody’s Friends, appears to be a gathering for socially very well-connected Anglicans. Although originally high church in its origins, the club provides an opportunity for a privileged church group to network and sometimes lobby those in authority in the Church. Lord Lloyd, a long-time member, sent a letter to Archbishop Carey on behalf of Peter Ball. His letter contained the words ‘May I presume on a brief acquaintance at dinners of Nobody’s Friends?’ The IICSA hearing referred to a Daily Mail report about Nobody’s Friends as ‘centred on a strong core of bishops, ex-Tory ministers …. a highly secretive, all male group representing Britain’s most entrenched professions and institutions.’
The Nobody’s Friends dining group has been described as ‘private’ rather than a secret group, but it still represents an exclusive world of male privilege within the heart of the Anglican establishment. When Bishop John Bickersteth once revealed that his appointment to Bath and Wells followed his being ‘spotted’ at a Nobody’s dinner, we began to get the feeling that the values of our church may incline towards corporate and institutional interests rather than a personal morality based on the Sermon on the Mount. Is this perhaps a male versus a female thing? Are women perhaps better at understanding the imperative of always keeping personal morality to the fore while men value the power and privileges of the institution as things to be protected at all costs?
The experience of survivors of sexual abuse reporting to authority seems to take two forms. Sometimes they meet genuine compassion and care, whether from individual bishops or Diocesan Advisers. On other occasions they encounter the harsh edge of a system whose chief value seems to be to protect itself. I have loosely described these two approaches as female and male respectively. Obviously not all men are comfortable with the world represented by men-only dining clubs. Such groups all too easily use the power of their connections to believe themselves naturally at the pinnacle of entitlement within the institution. Similarly, not all women in power are necessarily going to stick up for an individual survivor when the weight of the privileged institution threatens to crush them. Nevertheless, my crude simplification picks up something important that is active both in American society and in ‘private’ places within our national church. Toxic masculinity and the ‘old-boy network’ are still forces to be reckoned with. We also saw it in operation among Iwerne connected evangelicals when they succeeded in spiriting John Smyth out of the country to Zimbabwe where he could no longer embarrass his old friends.
Sexual abuse scandals in the Church of England are never just about failing individuals such as Ball and Smyth. These scandals go further, to implicate others who influenced them in institutions, sometimes those which were the providers of great privilege. Subsequently, similar groups gathered round to protect them as best they could when things went wrong.
Toxic masculinity seems to be found as an underlying value in both politics and religion. It takes as a given the underlying assumption that the male of the species is superior to the female. All the morality that flows out of this assumption is inevitably toxic. It needs to be constantly challenged and exorcised from our thinking and our theology.
Further information on Nobody’s Friends can be found on the Wikipedia page
Interesting! I am sure toxic masculinity is a real effect. It’s the way we bring up our sons. I would just like to say that I do not believe women are inherently better than men! I really do believe that there isn’t that much difference. So in general I would suggest that women would probably abuse their power, too, and in much the same proportions, given the opportunity. My own experience would tend to bear that out.
I read it as women being different, not better.
Oh, it wasn’t a hugely critical comment. But I don’t think women are very different. That’s the point. Men are still brought up to be “manly”, but it can morph into aggression. Women can be aggressive, but we bring up our daughters to be meek and submissive. So we are not on the whole in the habit of thinking aggressive behaviour is normal and good.
Couldn’t agree more Athena! Women in hierarchy in the church are anything but powerless they are often extremely corporate, without compassion, ambitious to a dangerous extent and more interestingly feared by their male staff and counterparts. They are often used as the ‘firewall’ to stop survivors getting to the clergy and my goodness some of them do that with great relish. Of course there are good women as there are also good men. I once commented to a Bishop about his ‘cloaked’ misogynistic tweet about one of his female members of staff – on reflection he was completely right and I wish I hadn’t bothered! Perhaps toxic masculinity exists in the church because men actually feel emasculated by these dominatrix.
It’s my observation that women who ‘succeed’ in a man’s world (big business, law, politics, the Church) tend to operate like the men do – only more so. So they can be very toxic indeed. Others aren’t so much toxic as collusive. As the numbers of women increase and the environment is less male-dominated, women who are collegiate and empathic are more able to succeed. But the pioneers are likely to be either mice or ball-breakers.
😁 . Or just absolutely superb!
Yes, or 3 times as good as any of the men!
Good article Stephen. Interesting that Nobody’s Friends is coming into increasing spotlight since Lord Lloyd’s testimony at IICSA hearings.
I’m currently working on a wiki article on this somewhat arcane and secretive club. In origin it was a ninenteenth century dining club to honour William Stevens, a leading and much respected lay figure in the Church of England. Stevens, a wealthy hosier and philanthropist, was a major player in the High Church movement and lauded for his piety and general goodness.
Somewhere along the way it seems to have become a sort of ‘vetting shop’ for high office in the Church. A place where a going-places cleric might be checked for whether he handled peas on the plate correctly and would fit in. If you have time go check out the wiki article and also look at the questions I’m asking the current Treasurer/Secretary of Nobody’s on twitter. There are further questions that need to be asked…
Were the efforts by Prime Minister Blair successful? Historians will be interested to know why Blair was so keen to join in 2003.
Traditionally, Westminster figures invited to be Nobody’s came from the Tory party. Has that now changed?
Does Nobody’s dine at the Athenæum?
Do members still ‘justify’ themselves during coffee and mint thins?
The custom of toasting “immortal memory of Nobody” – does this continue?
Historians and commentators will be keen to understand this strata of English society and how the quiet locus of power is formed through these secretive organisations. It’s not a great surprise that the club has developed as it has. Lambeth Palace, Westminster, Church House, Royal Courts of Justice, Number 10, Whitehall, etc are all within bun-throwing distance of each other. Nobody’s is just one of the circles within which these worlds can quietly glide and meet. And where power meets power, it’s inevitable that there’s often more than simple conviviality at play.
Survivors will be interested in asking whether other cover-ups had any kind of root in this club (in addition to leverage of Nobody’s membership by Lord Lloyd to influence Archbishop Carey and possibly others). Might it be that others who write letters of influence in that case were also members?
Or in my case: it would be extraordinary if both Chancellor Garth Moore and Bishop John Eastaugh had been members in the 80’s. A bishop dining regularly with a man who he had been told by a victim had raped a teenager.
So many similar questions about this membership to ask. Shall we find out. No, not if the club has anything to do with it. Membership is private. They are probably mopping their brow in relief at the paucity of questions at IICSA about it. But one thing we can be certain …
To be a Nobody, you have to be a Somebody.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody%27s_Friends
Yet an ecclesiastical judge for the C of E ruled against Freemasonry, something ignored by Welby in 2017 when he hosted a full Masonic thanksgiving service in Canterbury Cathedral after receiving a donation of £300,000 for building works.
Wasn’t one of the objections to Freemasonry its secretive nature!
So what are they saying the difference to that and this dining club is?
You can get lists of notable Freemasons amongst them religious leaders such as Billy Graham so it would at least suggest they were proud of their connection and had no wish to keep it secret, why not these chaps?
Billy Graham was a Mason? Have you got evidence for that?
I have undertaken a little research and I understand that the allegation of Billy Graham being a Freemason is a false one. Certainly no reputable website is repeating it.
My father knew Billy quite well and sometimes worked with him, and I would have been astonished if it were true. Billy wasn’t perfect, but he was basically honest and quite rigid in his Christian principles. I really can’t see him swearing oaths by fabricated pagan ‘deities’.
Incidentally, he could be naive (like a lot of very good people) but he was unassuming, certainly earlier on his ministry. In the days when he travelled between engagements by road, he and his team once stopped to have lunch at a roadside restaurant. When they got back to the car Billy’s Bible had been stolen from it. ‘I can’t understand it,’ said Billy, ‘it had my name all over it!’
He also tried to stop people saying that those who came forward at a rally were “saved”. My best friend who was my best woman when I got married had her big conversion experience at a Billy Graham rally. And she got me going back to church! So I’m a second generation convert!
Sorry Janet wasn’t ignoring you, was away from home and clearly got it wrong and caused offence which obviously wasn’t my intention, but I would like to stick up a bit for the masons, regardless of church doctrine and personal choice in who to worship. The masons have given huge amounts of money to community causes in my area, anyone with cancer now receives better care, the old folk now have a place to meet free of and I play darts down the local with many of them, so hardly secretive. The local church has done none of that so I tend to judge by action not words. The problem as I see it is not the exclusive membership of Nobody’s Friend but the worryingly non-exclusive. There are many exclusive gentleman and ladies only clubs in London usually made exclusive by profession, and research, debate and advancement emerge from them. The problem with Nobody’s Friend is that the exclusive nature of membership seems to be about how powerful you are and not what profession and particular learning you have so what can emerge from this!
No offence, Trish.
It’s true that the Masons do a lot of fund-raising for charity. But then so does the Church (using the word in its widest sense), even though your local church may not. I was reading today that one Christian charity alone, the Campaign Against Poverty, is calculated to contribute £6.59 million annually in social benefit to society. (The figure is supplied by the London School for Economics). And then there are all the other charities – Cafod, Christian Aid, Tearfund, etc. In every town I’ve lived in since food banks began, Christians have been the driving force behind them.
It’s pity your local church doesn’t do much. If you look behind the scenes, though, you may find that its members quietly volunteer to work in charity shops, help in hospitals and hospices, clean beaches, run social clubs for the elderly, or any number of other activities. A lot of that happens without any advertisement, but it’s lying out the love of God in practice.
Actually CAP is Christians against Poverty. The BBC had a documentary on Friday about them called “The Debt Saviours” available on the iplayer. The BBC’s Sunday programme had to have a tilt at the “Christian” part of the title but was well answered by (I think) the Director who just said that that was what they were.
Gilo – is it known if Peter Ball was ever a member of ‘Nobody’s Friend’s’?
I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be surprising. They will want to reveal as little as possible – so all I’ve been given is tidbits: we now have women members and our membership is 150.
It is remarkable really that such a significant club should have remained wiki-less for so long. Especially given its history and origins. There are things I couldn’t include in the wiki page – as I have available citation. But hopefully that might change with increasing interest in this hidden dinner .
Thank you Stephen. The expression ‘toxic masculinity’ does sum up for me what I experienced whilst trying to minister as a Reader when in my 30’s: bullying, shouting, sexual talk, and more. Apart from the pain of those experiences was the difficult realisation that whilst my mind was on matters spiritual, the minds of the perpetrators were on something completely other – something obviously of much more value and interest to them than my thoughts and words. The goings on in the American Senate have brought a lot of this back to me this last week, especially in the contrast between Dr Ford’s vulnerability and the aggression of Judge Kavanaugh. In reply to others above, I agree that women are more than capable of bullying and shouting, but, I feel, much less likely to sexually harass/abuse.
Yes. But they stay silent.
We gather from the Secretary/Treasurer of Nobody’s that it now has women members and total membership is 150. Not sure what the percentage of women is.
The Secretary is Registrar to four dioceses and Registrar of the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Deputy Registrar of another diocese. He’s very busy. Interesting to see this pattern in which CofE Registrars have numerous dioceses in their legal demesne.
Another Registrar in the Church of England, John Rees, is provincial registrar to the Archbishop of Canterbury and registrar of the Diocese of Oxford. And partner in a firm with several other diocesan Registrars and legal advisors to bishops. We don’t know whether John Rees and his partners are also habitués of Nobody’s. But it does all seem a very small world. Rees, one of the most senior legal figures in the Church, has recently been found to have stayed silent on a major conflict-of-interest issue in his handling of one abuse case. Registrars are the people who are chiefly advising and instructing bishops on abuse cases.
Is Nobody’s masonic? It’s been referred to as “quasi-masonic” by one journalist, and is certainly secretive. It has some rather arcane rituals, but these may simply be historic accoutrements handed down through time from the 1800’s when the club began. We don’t know whether the waiters are still referred to by the same name. This apparently used to be one practice. I suppose it’s the obvious method by which a club doesn’t need to remember names of old retainers – just call them all James. It would be faintly comical if adhered to today. But I suspect that custom went with the admission of women into the club. One can imagine some fustian bishop back in the 1980s saying “First Magdalene! Now Nobody’s! Where will it end?”
In my research on the club, I was struck by the contrast between the early history of the club which yields quite a lot of information – and recent times which yields hardly any. Noboby’s has kept itself out of the limelight in the modern era. A few stories pop up here and there. One story about a bishop in the 1960s who left a particularly convivial evening at Nobody’s somewhat the ‘worse for wear’ and was later found by his friends singing “I’m a Space Bishop!” Apparently he met his future wife amongst his friends. His singing and general air of contentment made a favourable impression.
In past times, this club possibly represented the one safe watering hole for a bishop where, in all-male company, he could get gently znozzled and be ferried home by an obligin’ chaplain. A chaplain who might have half an eye on a piece of patronage for the future …. anywhere but Puddingdale!
Personally, I don’t mind bishops getting drunk as long as they’re happy drunks and don’t beat up on their spouses. They are human. Humans sometimes drink too much. I like an occasional negroni, but have to be careful as my bi-polar causes low tolerance and I hate getting drunk. But if a bishop gets a bit ragged of an evening I don’t think it’s anything to get high ground and moral about. As long as they don’t drive under the influence and someone decants them safely into a taxi. We’ve all been there. Difference is that most of us are private citizens. But a bishop might get a pasting from the Daily Mail. Hopefully that plus an alka-selzer should teach them to go easy next time. Maybe get help to address the issue. Bishops at AA are possibly not uncommon.
But where bishops, individually or collectively, harm and re-abuse survivors with complicity, dishonesty, cover-up, structural malevolence, legal games …. then that needs daylight bringing to it.
“A woman who credibly claims to have been assaulted by a rich privileged young man 36 years ago gave her testimony” — you don’t belong to the Columbia MD Country Club and attend Holton Arms School and consider yourself something other than this descriptor, viz., rich privileged teenager, and then sorority girl at UNC Chapel Hill.
I don’t think gender mix is the real issue with Nobody’s or the Masons for churchmen/women but that any member of the Church of England feels it is appropriate to join an exclusive club – any exclusive club. I would have the same objections if a bishop, priest or even a lay Christian joined any club or society with limited membership. That’s not how we are supposed to behave.
There are a couple of items on toxic masculinity in this week’s Church Times.
While it’s perfectly true that women who have succeeded in a patriarchal structure can misbehave in much the same as the men who promoted them, I think there is one key difference: I don’t think there is a woman alive who doesn’t know what it is to be frightened of sexual violence – this can make it easier to empathise with a victim/survivor and be more willing to address the institution, perhaps?
“I don’t think there is a woman alive who doesn’t know what it is to be frightened of sexual violence – this can make it easier to empathise with a victim/survivor and be more willing to address the institution, perhaps?”
I wish that were true of the Church of England. That’s why I asked for a woman bishop to address all the issues raised by the Elliott Review. But my experience has been that the women bishops have shown very little authentic voice. In fact they have mostly kept quiet. And there has been little ambition to tackle the malevolent structures the church employs in its toxic response to survivors. I felt two years ago that the women had the potential to make a huge cultural difference and be drivers of change. But it never panned out like that. Like many other survivors I recognise fully that only survivors can be the drivers of change. The church as an institution is too sclerotic and too dominated by its lawyers to effect any real change. It will only do the right thing when it is up against a wall and forced to change – and it is not in that place yet. It is scraping by on absorbtion of embarrassment still.
When a woman bishop steps up and questions publicly why so many bishops have denied, been dishonest, acted dishonourably… you’ll see a woman in touch with her own deepest instincts and starting to make a difference. When a woman bishop asks compassionately why does her church put victims through a toxic and re-abusive response and a bitter redress process – that’ll show us the potential for leadership that a woman bishop might have. When a woman bishop speaks clearly of the need for the Church to find many 100’s of £million to kickstart healing of lives and mending of so many broken economies – that’ll be a woman unafraid of mothering justice for survivors.
At present the women bishops seem as caught in the headlamps of their church’s moral and theological crisis as their male counterparts.
I agree with Rachel that most women know what it is to be afraid of sexual violence. However, the Church is not going to promote women who have a strong sense of justice – it’s going to advance those who have been acculturated to behave largely as men. I remember returning from one job interview commenting, ‘They didn’t want a woman, they wanted a man in skirts.’
I think Stephen’s latest blog on Acquired Situational Narcissism applies here. There’s no reason at all why it should happen o only to men. And when it happens to women, they can be even more toxic.
I’ve been interested in this debate and wonder whether the move away from the word ‘complement’ in favour of the word ‘equivalent’ is playing a part in the power-play of the male sex. There is no doubt that in a physical battle of male vs female the male wins but this is not meant to be the area in which the sexes are to find their fulfilling relations. Is a masculine assertion of power finding its outlet in other ways but which are nevertheless severely crushing to women? I just ask.