~ archived since 2018 ~

Let's Talk About Toxic Masculinity (And why we should stop using it!)

AnuroopRohini

March 21, 2025

85 upvotes

/r/MensRights

https://youtu.be/JvjY9z2LveQ?si=Hrz0F_gWUQcCShKI

Archived from /r/MensRights

r/MensRights is a community advocating for the social and legal equality of men and boys since 2008.

TheRedArchive is an archive of Red Pill subreddits and blogs. This page is our copy of the original post.

/r/MensRights archive

Download the post

Want to save the post for offline use on your device? Choose one of the download options below:

PDF TXT EPUB

Support the archive

Everything here was supposed to disappear. Banned subreddits, deleted communities, cancelled blogs — much of what is archived here survives nowhere else.

It stays free — no paywall, no account — for the next man who comes looking, the way it was free for you.

I pay for the servers, the storage and the bandwidth myself. If you want this record still standing in ten years, become one of the people who keeps it online.

Support the archive

Post Information

Title	Let's Talk About Toxic Masculinity (And why we should stop using it!)
Author	AnuroopRohini
Upvotes	85
Comments	32
Date	March 21, 2025 7:44 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1jgbhqu/lets_talk_about_toxic_masculinity_and_why_we/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/lets-talk-about-toxic-masculinity-and-why-we.1547287 https://theredarchive.com/post/1547287

Comments

[–]hendrixski 25 points26 points27 points 1 year ago (10 children) | Copy Link

[–]antifeminist3 11 points12 points13 points 1 year ago (9 children) | Copy Link

Toxic masculinity is often a smokescreen for Toxic femininity:

"but the toxic expectations that women in my life"

I think this is an excellent example of how toxic femininity is falsely referred to by feminists as toxic masculinity.

Dr. Brene Brown was a feminist sociologist who studied shame--the negative feeling you get when someone criticizes you--"you should be ashamed". Women get shamed from a variety of sources. For years she never studied men. When she did, she found men rarely shame other men. Men's shame comes almost exclusively from women and almost exclusively from women's perceptions of men being weak.

'Toxic masculinity' includes 'not showing weakness'. I think 'toxic masculinity' is better framed as women shaming men and women having toxic femininity.

If women suppress men talking about issues, then the only issues that will be discussed are women's issues. This is the matriarchy asserting itself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/frj4np/how_brene_brown_discovered_that_male_shame_was/

“Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust. And men are very smart. They know the risks, and they see the look in our eyes when we’re thinking, C’mon! Pull it together. Man up. As Joe Reynolds, one of my mentors and the dean at our church, once told me during a conversation about men, shame, and vulnerability, “Men know what women really want. They want us to pretend to be vulnerable. We get really good at pretending.” -- Brené Brown

https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/messages-of-shame-are-organized-around-gender/275322/

Teach women to stop shaming men. Teach women to stop this toxic femininity and teach feminists to stop blaming men for women's toxic femininity by falsely referring to it as toxic masculinity. It's imposed on men by women--blame the perpetrator.

[–]Spirited_Ad_2063 -1 points0 points1 point 1 year ago (8 children) | Copy Link

[–]antifeminist3 -1 points0 points1 point 1 year ago (7 children) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_2063 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago* (6 children) | Copy Link

Start giving women access to funding that will help them keep their babies instead of shaming them for having an abortion, having kids she can’t feed, or giving her baby away for it to have a better life.

Start funding free pre-school. Fund free lunches for all children. Mandate paid parental leave for new mothers AND fathers. Stop mocking men who are stay at home dads. Stop calling women “gold diggers” for supporting your career with her free labor inside the home and her free labor raising your children. Without their wive’s free labor, most men could not afford to provide their children with everything they need physically, emotionally and psychologically.

Men want to be seen as providers, until it comes time to pay for the children they co-created. Tell men to stop ejaculating into women if they don’t intend to financially and emotionally support the children that are a result of that ejaculate.

Also: I am curious whether you are genuinely upset about the rape of men and boys, or whether you just use it to downplay and deny the fact that 1 in 5 women have been victims of either an attempted or completed rape. And that statistic doesn’t include other instances of sexual assault like molestation.

Please tell me about the cases of rape against boys and men that you have worked with, as an attorney or paralegal; or legislation you have proposed as a member of government; what protests you have organized or attended in support of awareness and action against the rape of men; what books you have written or read on the topic; what rape crisis center you volunteer for; or any organization that you have donated to this year that helps men and boys who have been victims of sexual assault?

I understand that it’s probably frustrating to constantly hear statistics about the bad things that other men or “some men” do. But it’s not okay to blame women for being upset about those situations and blame women or try to deny our lived experiences.

I know a lot of upstanding men, mostly family members and a few friends who never made a move on me. Women are not saying “all men rape.” We are saying that there is a pervasive history of women being harmed, at the hands of men. It’s very serious.

I came to this sub because I’m genuinely curious about the lens with which American men and boys are viewing the world in 2025.

I’m not surprised that certain antagonistic viewpoints exist, but it is frightening and frustrating to see how pervasive these viewpoints and attitudes are in 2025. Statements like “feminists hate men,” and “women just want your money,” and worse, will never cause women to feel sympathy for you. Women do care about men and boys. Many Feminists have husbands, sons, nephews, brothers, brothers in law, fathers and grandfathers that they love dearly. We believe “Toxic Masculinity “ hurts men as well as women.

We do want you to start your own forums like this one; not to denigrate women but to encourage and uplift men and boys who do treated women with respect, and to hold serious dialogue amongst yourselves about how you can get more men to do so. Your personal stories are always valid. But don’t use them to deny our stories. Don’t become indifferent to rape and violence because “so what, it happens to us too.” One does not obviate the other.

I read the article that you posted in its entirety, and nowhere in the article do the authors use the term “false female narrative,” however it makes good points about the difficulty in basing research off self-disclosure from various members of the population, for various reasons (for example, they stated that it is dangerous for prison inmates to disclose abuse.)

They mostly focused on the fact that sexual violence against men and boys is often ignored, overlooked, or given less attention than violence against women. That’s a fair point, and there definitely should be attention and resources devoted to helping boys and men who are victims of rape.

What I find problematic with the article is that they did not define the term “forced to penetrate” discretely. They said it includes instances where a perpetrator orally took the victims penis into their mouth but did not say that this is the sole or complete definition. This article did not include the survey questions and so we cannot be sure that the answers from self-disclosing males from this survey are accurate. Therefore, we cannot assume that men understood what the researchers meant by the term “rape.” The authors did not list a definition of rape or whether that definition was explained to the survey participants. And so, we cannot assume that the results of the survey claiming that men are raped at the same rate as women are accurate.

For example, I have heard men who have said, “Men are raped all the time. In fact was raped by my wife. She wanted to have sex but I didn’t, but I did it anyway.” This is very different than being “forced to penetrate.” Do you see how those two things are not the same?

The authors of this article also lost the thread of their “forced to penetrate” narrative when they veered off on a tangent about the rate of rape amongst the incarcerated. Which, of course is awful, and from my understanding, based on news articles I have read, extremely high. No argument there. However, the authors started citing statistics about the victims while leaving out statistics about the perpetrators. While they did state that some of the women correctional officers were perpetrators, they did not mention whether that was solely against incarcerated women, or whether it somehow included victims who were incarcerated men. So you can’t infer much, if anything, about female to male rape statistics from this particular article.

The authors also stress that many men and boys fail to disclose their rape or sexual abuse, but fail to mention that many women and girls fail to disclose their rape or sexual violence.

Feel free to post more articles, because I will read them. I applaud you for seeking out peer-reviewed research.

So what now?

It would help if men started saying things like, “That statistic is staggering and it must be so frustrating and scary to be a woman in the world today. I’m interested in advocating for women’s rights, men’s rights and children’s rights. What are some causes we can donate to? Who can organize a March or Protest Rally? What are some books I can recommend to friends on the topic? How can we encourage more young people in this country to go to law school and become lawyers that fight against this injustice?”

I have heard many men say things like, “Yeah so-and-so is a player, he treats women like shit.” But yet, they remain friends with the guy and never call him out for his awful behavior.

And there ARE men who are doing it. Check out the group “The Dad Gang,” who film instances of black men taking care of their children and working to dispel the myth that all black children grow up in families with absent fathers. Check out “Dope Black Dads,” too.

Look into RAINN, NSVRC, and more specifically, Male Survivor at malesurvivor.org

[–]antifeminist3 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago* (5 children) | Copy Link

[+]Spirited_Ad_2063 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago* (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]antifeminist3 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[+]Spirited_Ad_2063 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]antifeminist3 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_20631 point 1 year ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]IntelligentVisual955 9 points10 points11 points 1 year ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Mobile_Lumpy 3 points4 points5 points 1 year ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]beowulves 3 points4 points5 points 1 year ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Thebaddad22 1 point2 points3 points 1 year ago (16 children) | Copy Link

[–]CooperSterling-4572 3 points4 points5 points 1 year ago (15 children) | Copy Link

[–]Thebaddad22 1 point2 points3 points 1 year ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]CooperSterling-4572 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_2063 -1 points0 points1 point 1 year ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]CooperSterling-4572 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_2063 -1 points0 points1 point 1 year ago (10 children) | Copy Link

[–]CooperSterling-4572 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (9 children) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_2063 -2 points-1 points0 points 1 year ago (8 children) | Copy Link

[–]CooperSterling-4572 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (7 children) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_2063 -2 points-1 points0 points 1 year ago* (6 children) | Copy Link

[–]CooperSterling-4572 1 point2 points3 points 1 year ago (5 children) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_2063 -2 points-1 points0 points 1 year ago* (4 children) | Copy Link

Yet, I didn’t ask you if men and boys have more mass and strength. I asked you why you think they are more athletic.

Do you know a man who can complete the gymnastics routines of female American Olympic Gymnasts? Of course you don’t, because there aren’t any. So does that mean that female gymnasts are more athletic than their male counterparts? No. And vice versa.

Serena Williams won the 2017 Australian Open, completing her 23rd Grand Slam, while PREGNANT. Tell me, can a man do that? Of course not.

You also didn’t respond regarding why you think men and boys are more competitive.

Katie Ledecky is a 4-time Olympian who has won 14 medals (9 gold, 4 silver, and 1 bronze.) She is the world record holder for NINETEEN of the top 20 world records in the ENTIRE HISTORY of women’s swimming. Not just in the US; in the WORLD. Would you say she isn’t as competitive as a man? Of course not; that would be ludicrous. *Editing for clarity. I misspoke. She broke 14 world records, and holds 19 of the 20 fastest times in the 1500m freestyle. Apologies.

At the height of his career, Michael Phelps, had 8 gold medals, and held 5 world records.

[–]CooperSterling-4572 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_20631 point 1 year ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]CooperSterling-45721 point 1 year ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]Spirited_Ad_20631 point 1 year ago [recovered] | Copy Link