Why do some men fear women—and what happens when that fear turns into hate?
This haunting and deeply researched video essay investigates the psychological roots of misogyny, tracing how unresolved childhood trauma, separation anxiety, and narcissistic wounds can warp male identity and foster violence and control. Leaving together the insights of therapist Adam Jukes, the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein and Sigmund Freud, and scenes from Mad Max, The Sopranos, The Penguin, and other cultural texts.
Watch the premiere of the public video here: Mad Maxculinity: Why Men Fear Women
Transcript
Why Men Fear Women
(Monday May 12th 2025)
Thirty years ago, Adam Jukes, a UK therapist and author, published Why Men Hate Women, a groundbreaking exploration of the psychology behind misogyny. Jukes identified fear as a core motivator for why some men seek power and control over women. He argued that this hatred often stems from early psychological experiences, particularly unresolved issues with their mothers
In this essay, we’ll explore how the ideas presented in Jukes’ book resonate within the Mad Max film series, and elsewhere.
This essay relies heavily on the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein and Sigmund Freud.
But it should be noted that reducing complex societal misogyny to individual childhood trauma ignores systemic factors like patriarchy, social and economic inequality and general cultural norms. I suggest that the Citadel stands as a dreadful symbolic representation of both these personal and institutional issues.
Here we see Immorten Joe’s dominant patriarchal code, with its cult-like worship of power and control exhibited by the warboys, the slavery and indoctrination of the children as young factory workers, and the dehumanising forced labour of the women whose bodies he has colonised.
Immorten Joe is an authoritarian dictator who controls the production of milk, water, and babies.
He rules over an impoverished population, who are kept in a state of degraded powerless. The works cited in this essay not only reflect the inner personal dynamics Jukes describes, but also reveal the broader societal structures that perpetuate male dominance and control.
Not least among these factors is the masculine development of young boys who must first experience the sometimes traumatic separation from their initial close, symbiotic relationship with their mothers.
This is followed by their introduction to the patriarchal world of the father. But this world may be one with its own difficulties.
Jukes argues that many men’s negative attitudes towards women originate from early childhood experiences during the so-called Attachment phase.
This is when the emotional bonds between the child and the mother are crucial for the infant’s sense of security and survival, and they influence how individuals perceive and interact in relationships throughout their lives.
From this earliest time of infancy at the breast, feelings of abandonment or rejection by the mother, can leave lasting emotional wounds.
This perceived or actual sense of rejection or abandonment is reflected in the life story of Canadian Gabor Mate, a physician with a special interest in early childhood development and trauma.
Mate relates how his Jewish mother gave him to another woman when she feared for her baby’s life in German-occupied Hungary in World War 2. Mate believes the themes of abandonment, loss and rage have continued to play out in his adult life.
(See “Uni of Melbourne; “Gabor Mate claims trauma contributes to everything”
Nick Haslam Melb School of Psych)
Its interesting to imagine how this abandonment may have affected the crazy War Boys in Fury Road, who were given away and forced to adopt the brutal patriarchal code of Immorten Joe’s Citadel, a question that hints at the importance of the role of the father, found elsewhere in this series, and hinted at in John Lennon’ s song.
A strong attachment to the mother provides a child with a secure base from which to explore the the world, essential for emotional and psychological development.
This sense of security is crucial for personal identity and autonomy,
It helps the child feel safe and supported, fostering confidence and resilience.
On the other hand, separation is essential for the child’s process of individuation where they develop a sense of self distinct from their mother.
While attachment is essential for healthy development, over-attachment can lead to a range of problems, that affect emotional, social and psychological well-being.
Balancing attachment with the promotion of independence is key to fostering healthy development in children. An overly harsh or demanding paternal figure, may be just as harmful to the welfare of the child.
By providing a secure base, encouraging independence, setting boundaries and offering emotional support, fathers can significantly contribute to their child’s healthy development, avoiding overly harsh or demanding behaviours – and maintaining a balance of authority and warmth are key to developing a positive and supportive environment.
We can only wonder how the warboys feelings of separation might have affected their emotional development.
Because boys who struggle with these unresolved feelings of rejection or abandonment, may grow into men who carry resentment, trauma, and even hatred.
To cope with these vulnerabilities, many men develop a narcissistic facade, a protective mask, first seen in childhood and later in adolescence, then often carried into adulthood.
Consider the case of Elliott Rodgers who felt rejected by young women with whom he believed he was entitled to have a relationship. Rodger’s narcissism is clearly in evidence, as is his preoccupation with the external signs of what he considered are evidence of his desirability.
This mask is not about confidence but defence, shielding a fragile sense of identity from external threats, constructing a personal identity and narcissistic worldview based on concepts of personal superiority, of power and control.
In The Penguin we have an example of this sense of abandonment when Oswald, as a young child, feels rejected by his mother when she turns away from him, and focuses on his siblings.
In writing about sibling rivalry, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis wrote; what the child grudges the unwanted intruder is not only the sucking from the mother, but the desired signs of maternal care. It feels that it has been dethroned, despoiled, prejudiced in its rights. It casts a jealous hatred upon the new baby. We rarely form a correct idea of the strength of these impulses, of the tenacity with which they persist and of the magnitude of their influence on later development.
The late Christopher Hitchens would famously feud with his brother Peter throughout their life. Hitchens puts it down to sibling rivalry, being displaced as a two year old by the birth of his younger brother. (11.19)
This image from the Renaissance seems to illustrate aspects of what Hitchens has described. Including the sense of the infant’s possession of the mother, as well as the erotic idea of marriage with her.
In the case of The Penguin, Oswald is so jealous of his brothers, so annoyed by their teasing and humiliation of him, and so desperate for his mother’s attention, that he goes to the most extreme lengths.
It could be said that the rest of The Penguin’s life is dedicated to achieving dominance and control in his world in order to be the central focus of her life, the apple of her eye, the alpha male in the family.
When his mother has a stroke it leaves him shattered, exposing the depth of his attachment on the one hand, and the emotional void her apparent abandonment of him creates for Oswald.
An emotionally immature child-man, he has has never been able to accept his separation from his mother, continually seeking her love and approval.
The primal scream of pain and rejection by a lover, arguably a mother substitute, is expressed by Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Edward Munch’s painting The Scream is frequently associated with existentialist ideas, particularly the sense of alienation and despair that can arise from the human condition. It might also be seen as a reflection of Munch’s own life which was marked by tragedy, including the early deaths of his mother and his sister.
In Episode 8 of Pandore, a Belgian tv drama series, an ambitious rising politician is given the dreadful truth by his wife about his mother.
Later he sits by the bedside of his hospitalised mother and dreams of himself dancing on a stage, perhaps a symbol for his life on the political stage where, like many politicians, he hopes to fill his own emotional void with the love and approval of the voting public.
Hoping for her undivided attention and praise, he is forced to face the fact that she is rejecting him,
With an image that reminds me of the penultimate scene in Hitchcock’s Pyscho, we could say that with the mother’s rejection of the politician, she has become dead to him……. And him to her.
Many people who watched The Sopranos began to realise that it is Livia, Tony’s mother, who exercises the most power of everyone in the series. Tony is very much at her mercy and is ultimately almost killed when his mother tacitally agrees to her son being dealt with.
In this scene, by not objecting to Uncle Junior’s suggestion, Livia allows Junior’s plans to kill Tony to go ahead.
The Roman poet Lucretius described the life of an infant as being like a sailor cast forth from the fierce waves, lying naked on the ground, unable to speak, in need of every sort of help to stay alive.
(Those Who Kill)
In another tv series, a little boy, locked up and deserted by his mother, deprived of a drink of water, finds an alternative, arguably a breast substitute.
In adult life and younger, many boys and men will find comfort in other breast substitutes like cigarettes, drugs or alcohol, as well as money and power, and the material joys and toys they bring.
Or men find ways to construct a world around them that evokes those narcissistic early years, or remake that world according to their own desires.
Consider the idea of the man who claims his home is his castle, and he is the king.
Look at Immorten Joe who has recreated the mother’s body with The Citadel. His world now gives him access to all of her functions, including the making of babies and provides him with endless access to milk and her breasts.
This is White Heat from 1949, where James Cagney’s criminal character, is strategically placed at an oil refinery on top of two enormous, breast-like storage tanks, arguably another version of Immorten Joe’s Citadel, where he famously declares, “Top of the world, Ma!” before his downfall — emphasising the unresolved over-attachment and emotion he has linked to his mother.
An earlier scene has already aquainted the audience with the psychological dependence the gangster has with his mother. Here we see him being comforted while sitting on her knee like a little boy.
The Penguin wants his mother to recognise that he is the king, and Cagney proudly proclaims to be “top of the world”.
Immorten Joe at the top of his world makes his own claim to greatness as a god-like deity.
A recent claim to kingship and the power and control it brings with it has been the elevation of Donald Trump. His niece Mary, a psychologist and author has written that, “as an infant of two tears of age, little Donald was abandoned by his mother for at least a year due to hospitalisation and ill-health. As a result, Donald has been scarred for life with personality traits including displays of narcissism, bullying and grandiosity.
The little boy was then left under the dominant force of his father, a man described as a sociopath. Donald Trumps attitude to women has been the subject of much media as well as the American judicial system.
Tony Soprano is another king of the jungle who has been traumatised as a child by his vicious, narcissistic mother.
Tony’s psychiatrist tells him that his fantasy about the beautiful Isabella is his deep-seated, unconscious wish to return to the comfort and support at the breast of a loving mother, someone who never existed for Tony.
In ancient Goddess Mythology, it is the seat in the lap of the mother which endows kingship, an element that continues in the Christian iconography of the Madonna and child, where the infant Jesus is recognised as the one true king of the world and its redeemer.
“His Majesty the Baby” is a phrase used by Sigmund Freud in his 1914 essay “On Narcissism” to describe the feeling of an infant believing themselves to be the centre of the universe, completely powerful and entitled, essentially acting like a “king baby” due to their primary narcissism; it refers to the exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement that can be present in child women. (21.06)
Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein writes that at this earliest time of the infants life, at the mother’s breast where she represents the whole world for the child, he first believes that he is in control, a phase Klein calls Narcissism.
In this Narcissistic Phase, the infant believes that it is the centre of all experiences and external reality is not yet fully distinguished from the self.
The infant projects its feelings of satisfaction and nourishment by splitting these projections into the “good breast,” representing love and security, while frustrations and unmet needs are projected onto the “bad breast,” symbolising hate and fear.
Sigmund Freud called this the Madonna Whore Complex. It describes the psychological dichotomy in which men perceive women as either Madonnas or Whores. According to Freud this complex arises from unresolved Oedipal conflicts, and reflects a man’s inability to integrate feelings of love and sexual desire towards the same woman.
Over time, the infant begins to recognise the mother as a separate, independent, whole object, with her own wishes and desires. The infant, and later the boy and the man begins to reconcile love and hate, and develops a more mature, nuanced, empathetic understanding of women and relationships.
However, Joe’s arrested development, his infantile oral greed for the breast and the mother’s atttentions, can be seen in the fearful mask he wears and the world he has created at The Citadel.
An immature, stunted development, will leave the infant, the child or the man, with an obsessive desire to dominate and control, just like Immorten Joe who has taken control of the mother’s body, for which the Citadel stands as a symbolic representation.
Here Joe dominates the women’s bodies, their production of babies, and milk, as well as water – arguably another bodily function .
Bartertown too can be seen as an architectural version of the mother’s body. Here the pigs represent babies inside the mother’s womb. And the environment here reflects the frequently expressed infantile idea that babies are born from faeces.
Max appears to be offered a partnership of joint control of Bartertown.
But Max refuses the bad mother Aunty Entity’s incestuous offer, unlike Oedipus, who in the myth of the same name, marries his mother for joint control of the City of Thebes.
As a result Max is rejected by Aunty and cast into the barren Wasteland. For some infants, separation from the mother and her breast, can be experienced as a rejection, even a kind of death. It may be either the actual, or the imaginary, death of the mother.
But separated from her breast and her apparent undivided love, it can also be experienced as a kind of death for the infant. Where the child is unable to accept the state of separation it may project its own wishes for domination and control onto other women it its life.
Because these women can stand in as other representations of the mother, either the bad breast, or various possibilities of the good breast.
Consider this scene with actor Jack Palance intriguingly holding a glass of milk, rather like Immorten Joe. Palance’s character quotes lines of a play to his wife (possibly a mother figure), played by Joan Crawford, interestingly some years older than the actor himself.
John Lennon frequently referred to his wife Yoko as “mother” . His own childhood with his birth mother had been dramatically interrupted when he was separated from her at around five years of age and he was given into the care of his Aunt Mimi. John’s mother was killed in a car accident when he was 17 years old, an event that left him profoundly traumatised.
This process where the female figure may represent multiple identifications for a man, is further illustrated in The Penguin where Oswald has his girlfriend Eve, a prostitute, dress up as his mother. Instead of keeping the categories separate, as Freud theorised, Oswald’s fantasy attempts to merge them. He transforms the prostitute, normally placed in the whore category into a maternal figure, complicating the usual split.
This suggests an unresolved conflict where he simultaneously desires and resents the maternal figure. With Eve dressed as his mother Oswald’s complete fantasy is brought to life. He has given himself licence to break the incest taboo and have sex with his mother, literally possessing her but also be told the words he wants to hear.
Like Immorten Joe, Oswald has achieved control of both the city and his mother, two elements that have been inextricably linked since his childhood.
The resentment he has for his mother may be read in the fact that he keeps her trapped in her frozen brain-damaged state, against the wishes she had expressed earlier, never to be left that way.
Her tear expresses her suffering. But its a pain that Oswald not only ignores, but callously reinterprets saying that its what she always wanted, an apartment above the city, with her son as the king of the world.
When an adult form of masculinity is unable to resolve its own deeply buried hostility towards the mother, it can result in a profound hatred of women.
These underlying and generally unconscious emotions include simultaneous feelings of both love and hate, sexual feelings towards the mother, jealousy towards the father and other siblings, guilt about these frightening attitudes, and fear of rejection by the mother as well as the co-existing wish to be embraced and even engulfed by her.
Mens disconnection with their inner feelings, their thoughts and emotions, their own sense of the feminine is often the result of a dominant form of masculinity that says attachment to the mother and the little boys inner world must be rejected for him to achieve his masculine identity.
Men’s inability to accept these emotions can put them at war with themselves.
This is projected outwards onto the women in a man’s life, often violently, frequently seen in domestic violence, and at its most extreme in the case of the serial killer.
Consider the Toecutter in Mad Max, arguably an earlier incarnation of Immorten Joe. Here Toecutter espouses his philosophical worldview about women. This lack of trust and fear of betrayal by a woman is evident elsewhere in the film.
The gunshot to the mouth reflects mens fear of women’s sharp tongue, their ability to deflate mens pride, their fragile ego. But in Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, the weapon is to be directed elsewhere.
Elliotts jealousy. 08.38.
The jealousy exhibited here is predicated on the idea of ownership of the woman and her body. The idea of male entitlement to women and their bodies is captured here in this documentary, made at the time of shooting the Australian film STONE, that featured a gang of bikies, not unlike The Toecutter’s entourage.
These final remarks suggest pack rape and the views about women were recorded 50 years ago. But a tidal wave of hateful attitudes towards women are today promoted worldwide to millions of boys and young men who apparently feel uncertain about their masculinity and adopt a mask of toxic misogeny.
When men are rejected by women, or find that they do not have access to, or control over women, the results can be deadly.
As Margaret Atwood claimed, “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.”
Not all men harbour an overt hatred of women, and the examples cited in this essay may seem extreme. However, they do reveal deeper, underlying fears that many men experience in relation to women.
These fears include the dread of abandonment or rejection in relationships, and the jealousy that can emerge from such vulnerabilities. There is also the fear of being criticised or humiliated by women, of having their masculinity challenged or undermined. For some, there is the fear of being alone—without a sexual partner—and what this might imply about the men’s identity or sense of self-worth.
Tragically, across the world, many men who have grappled with these feelings have seen them echoed and amplified by individuals consumed by hatred, often with devastating consequences.
