My opinion on toxic masculinity and the need for a better, more productive term

matrixislife · 2020-07-08T12:10:47+00:00

It's an attempt at a slur, trying to conflate toxic with masculinity so that people in the long run consider all masculinity as toxic.
Note the pushback on "toxic femininity" despite there being equally as many negative traits there, presumably because they don't want anyone to link toxic with femininity or feminism.

mhandanna · 2020-07-08T17:36:46+00:00

This has been discussed many times. Feminists have no interest in helping men. Your average run of the mill feminsits on the street might, but that is a coffee shop feminism or as marxists say a "useful idiot"..... the overlord masters of feminism have no desire to help men.... toxic masculinity and also intersectionality are designed to forward feminist agendas and also split male groups so they join feminism as they falsely believe feminism can help them or dont form their own groups.

Its also a great example of whataboutism.... if feminsits say ohh its toxic masculinity its a great way of diverting actually doing something e.g. more money, funding, awareness, policy... speciically for suicide its to stop peopel from looking at real reasons e.g. higher homeless rates, family court, etc

https://youtu.be/h2DQ4TWAmIg

Banake · 2020-07-08T09:56:32+00:00

I wanted to post here an article by Ally Fogg on "InsideMan" called "Masculinity isn't toxic -- the debate is". Unfortunatly, it appears that it, and the website, went off line. :-/

Edit: Apparently it is on again. http://www.inside-man.co.uk/2018/08/21/masculinity-isnt-toxic-debate/

BCRE8TVE · 2020-07-08T16:31:36+00:00

Completely agree with you. I've taken to calling it toxic male gender expectations, because they are toxic expectations that are gendered and put on men. I'm definitely going to use the toxic social pressure angle you're talking about for sure, it definitely fits in neatly.

A small, but extremely important distinction. Go for the source, not the symptom.

Ah yes, but clearly the source of the problem is men!

/s

Very well said for sure.

Blauwpetje · 2020-07-08T19:27:29+00:00

With 'toxic masculinity' is often meant 'not expressing your emotions'. And imho expressing emotions is overrated. I should know because, from quite young (early 20s), I was in therapy groups, support groups, self-help groups, all stimulating people and especially men to be openly emotional, honest about feelings, cry etc. It felt like I was really doing something, opening things, getting somewhere. Afterwards it was more like a placebo that actually worked worse than a sugar capsule dressed up as medicine. It didn't really get me somewhere, my life is not better or healthier than that of more stoic men.

The point of expressing emotions is not the expression as such - the safety-valve function works only for a very small part - but making the world know what it's like for you and get empathy. And as we all know, men get less empathy than women, and men expressing their emotions not more, but maybe even still less.

peanutbutterjams · 2020-07-09T19:35:12+00:00

Yeah they always explain away the phrase by saying it doesn't say that masculinity is toxic, despite that being the most obvious impression, but it's always men that have to "get rid of their toxic masculinity" instead of it being men pressured by society and how to stop that pressure...which is how the idpol left talks about it when it comes to every other identity.

It's also worth considering that we as a society never discuss the inverse of toxic masculinity. If their claim is true - that the term isn't meant to deride masculinity as a whole - then we could expect to see discussion about positive aspects of masculinity, if only to ensure that young boys aren't growing up with a toxic view of themselves. Yet we don't see this happening. We don't discuss positive aspects of traditional masculinity, such as honour, perseverance and nobility.

Why? For two reasons.

Firstly, we live in a society dominated by a feminist narrative that views men as part of an oppressor class and therefore feels that any encouragement of anything intrinsically male will contribute to continuing oppression.

Secondly, we have (correctly imo) universalized these traits. They are NOT inherently masculine traits. Everybody has access to honour, or perseverance, or acts of nobility. It's irrational and destructive to say that these qualities are limited to biological sex or even gender. The more people that act in these ways, the healthier our society will be.

The problem is, we haven't universalized all the feminine traits. It's a common trope amongst feminists to believe that the world would be a better place if women ran it. They believe this because the positive qualities of femininity have been biologically restricted to women. If men show these traits, it's because they're "learning from women" or "acting like a feminist", not because they're, you know, a fucking human being.

So we've taken all the positive male traits, scooped them out and universalized them, leaving all the negative traits behind to be defined as toxic masculinity.

We don't talk about the positive traits of masculinity because in the feminist world, there are none.

Anything good that was traditionally male is now universal. Anything bad that was traditionally male is toxic masculinity. Anything good that is traditionally female remains traditionally female. Anything bad that is traditionally female is a reaction to toxic masculinity.

It's quite the system.

[Edit: Everything after the first paragraph.]

azazelcrowley · 2020-07-11T10:28:29+00:00

"Misandry" and "Internalized misandry.".

The only reason they started using toxic masculinity is that they are toddlers who couldn't admit to themselves they were wrong for opposing those terms for decades, and because it's a dethatched term that removes "Misandrist" from discussion and subtly frames the issue in rhetorical terms differently, even if they'd deny that.

pyschoandie · 2020-07-08T11:00:00+00:00

I agree it doesn't always effect men either, im nb n deal with more toxic traits assoicted with being masculine. As an afab sometimes my brains like i need to go all da way extreme toxicly toxic socitial pressures of men n masculinity to b recognized as masculine. Did i make sense or should i just delete comment

excess_inquisitivity · 2020-07-08T17:24:36+00:00

Toxic masculinity is also way too subjective.

...

Societal pressure could be anything and it makes the discussion become "how do we stop these toxic pressures" instead of "how do we stop these toxic traits"

One term is just as subjective as the other.

The problem with coining new terms is that their meaning is held, communicated, controlled, and changed by the person who coins the term.

If you don't like the fact that 2 ÷ 2 = 1 then there are 4 characters (5 if you count the space) that you can redefine.

a-man-from-earth · 2020-07-09T23:49:13+00:00

"Toxic gender expectations" is a better term, which is both gender-neutral and more precise.

Sonic-Oj · 2020-07-08T22:44:30+00:00

This is because the issue isn't masculinity. The issue is the pressure men face. Masculinity is a narrow description of a specific set of traits.

It's both. Men are pressured to be masculine, or in other words, fit within a narrow description of a specific set of traits.

Saying the issue is toxic masculinity makes the whole argument fit into a neat little box that only helps very specific people. And it still ignores many other issues they could have.

Can you elaborate on this? This seems really vague.

Toxic masculinity is also way too subjective. That's why it causes arguments. Everyone has different opinions on what is masculine and what is toxic.

But everything is subjective. Every issue causes arguments. I don't really get this point.

Ciceros_Assassin · 2020-07-08T21:38:25+00:00

Interestingly, the term was originally coined by men; specifically, the mythopoetic men's movement, who contrasted "toxic" masculinity with what they called "deep" masculinity (the key distinctions being masculinity as competition/comradeship, male social isolation/male group bonding, and male emotional suppression/expressiveness, respectively).

Xemnas81 · 2020-07-08T21:48:03+00:00

The original term was 'hegemonic masculinity'...

Title	My opinion on toxic masculinity and the need for a better, more productive term
Author	steamedhamjob
Upvotes	67
Comments	60
Date	July 8, 2020 6:47 AM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/hnc7d4/my_opinion_on_toxic_masculinity_and_the_need_for/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/my-opinion-on-toxic-masculinity-and-the-need-for-a.1063165 https://theredarchive.com/post/1063165

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