Hot take: (CMV) The "Healthy Masculinity" feminism pushes is more toxic than the toxic masculinity

toasterchild · 2025-07-28T17:04:02+00:00

Where did you come up with the feminist approved masculine traits you listed here?

It's hard to argue against a list of traits that doesn't exist.

Superb-Foundations · 2025-07-28T17:00:26+00:00

Maybe I am confused. Can you explain what masculine traits you support and what healthy masculine traits feminism supports that you dont agree with?

lesliecarbone · 2025-07-28T16:59:11+00:00

Sacrifice yourself for others for nothing, have less boundaries, serve others and expect nothing.
... cry about it (but only in approved ways. Also never expect empathy from anyone. Get an expensive therapist that is trained to believe that mascilinity is a mental illness).

What about these actions would be "masculine"?

Kreeps_United · 2025-07-28T18:21:16+00:00

Without examples this post won't go anywhere.

OliveBranch233 · 2025-07-28T19:11:21+00:00

I think any imposition of gendered standards from an outside force is dangerous, but I'm not entirely certain the standards you're seeing are the ones being imposed.

Superannuated_punk · 2025-07-28T17:05:17+00:00

Dude - who are these feminists, and where are they saying it?

And “it’s the vibe I get” isn’t a valid answer.

Sea_Life654 · 2025-07-28T17:14:46+00:00

I feel like there’s a narrative that therapists are all left wing psychos. If anything my therapists have taught me lots of things that Reddit feminists might call toxic masculinity.

They have helped to enforce that I should take up space and be assertive, call balls and strikes in my social circle and put my foot down when I hear the spewing of bile. It’s tough because ladies are not used to being challenged on this stuff.

Downtown_Cat_1745 · 2025-07-28T16:53:33+00:00

Wow, that was a huge straw man. You’re allowed to have any boundaries you want. You just can’t demand that other people be around you if they don’t like your boundaries. You can’t use the idea of boundaries to control other people’s behavior.

Sad_and_grossed_out · 2025-07-28T21:02:15+00:00

I feel like men at large especially on the right completely misunderstand the whole toxic masculinity conversation very deliberately on purpose because I just don't see how y'all just go so completely off the rails twisting yourselves into pretzels so blatantly not getting it.

Adept-Entrepreneur61 · 2025-07-28T19:34:29+00:00

Just be like Pedro. He's the safe option being pushed on everyone.

DGenerationMC · 2025-07-28T20:41:32+00:00

I think trying to police/influence masculinity in general is silly and dishonestly self-serving. The whole "real man" thing now swinging to both ends of the pendulum is so ridiculous to me.

The toxic folks (ex. dads) back in the day, the more progessive folks (ex. women) doing it now, they all can fuck off with that talk of about what people "should" and "shouldn't" be stuff.

GorgonzolaJam · 2025-07-29T23:20:18+00:00

Feminists are so far out to lunch they don't see anything wrong with proscribing how men should act and behave.

Imagine one race doing that to another. It's too bad r/menkempf was shut down because it's sadlarious that the people who speak about men in such ways think they are at all capable of deciding what men should be.

Feminism hurts men and doesn't care that it does so of course their concept of "healthy" masculinity doesn't respect men's personhood or rights.

NockerJoe · 2025-07-28T17:55:20+00:00

One thing that always gets me is their examples of good masculine men are near invariably on the far end of middle aged. "Healthy masculinity" is never a 20 or 30 year old dude who's actually out there playing sports or dating women. Its the nonthreatening father figure who's sexual identity is either already in a 20+ year marriage or virtually nonexistent.

They always wonder why those dudes never take off but it never occurs to them that highschool and college students trying to figure themselves out don't want to suddenly become Mr. Rogers.

My_House_on_Mars · 2025-07-28T17:03:07+00:00

I'm not religious but I was raised catholic.

isn't this basically Jesus?

Sacrifice yourself for others for nothing, (...), serve others and expect nothing.

Do you think Jesus preached toxic traits?

Sqweed69 · 2025-07-28T18:09:28+00:00

Sacrifice yourself for others for nothing, have less boundaries, serve others and expect nothing. What you get to do is cry about it (but only in approved ways. Also never expect empathy from anyone. Get an expensive therapist that is trained to believe that mascilinity is a mental illness).

So first off, no therapist believes masculinity is a mental illness, you've been told that by red pill guys I'm guessing.

Second point I have for you is that sacrificing yourself for others is not what people ask of men. Having boundaries is very attractive and also nobody expects men to serve others.

Health masculinity is characterized by emotional intelligence and empathy. Two basic traits for becoming a virtuos and good person. It is also characterized by REAL stoicism, not the kind of fake ass stoicism the manosphere loves to romanticize, in which we men are taught to suppress emotions and seem nonchalant and cold always. Real stoicism is much more wise than this and here we come back to your point of never getting anything in return:

"What more do you want when you have done good to a man? Is it not enough that you have acted according to your nature? Do you seek a special reward? As if the eye demanded payment for seeing, and the feet for walking! And just as the eye and the foot are created to have their due in the fulfillment of their natural functions, so also man, created to do good, whenever he has done a good work and somehow outwardly assisted others, has only done what he is destined to do, and in this he receives his due." Marcus Aurelius - Meditations 9.42

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Hi-Road · 2025-07-28T20:43:42+00:00

You’re thinking of the trad movement types, or those who co-opt the label of feminist to push a message. Not real feminists

Vaudeville_Clown · 2025-07-29T06:58:58+00:00

I've not really seen many feminists online propose any masculinity framework whatsoever. It's really sort of impossible for them to even suggest it because then they would have to subscribe to the idea that some traits, skills and preferences are innately more male than female, and that is something they just cannot do.

They can only deconstruct but not construct.

I think OP what you are reacting to are female-centric media shills. In old media (linear tv and newspapers), there's a lot of shit being written. But they have obvious agendas. They want men to subordinate themselves to old status hierarchies of power, believe the media narratives, be servile and exploited.

But to be fair, there's been a few assholes like Michael Kimmel, a gender studies mangina who wrote "Guyland" which was exclusively about hating on men and then dictating what they should be instead. I hear he got ousted by routinely being a huge dick to his students. Only surprise is he didn't molest them. Sexual pathology seems to be very common with manhating men who want to be a feminist authority.

Same-Matter-4342 · 2025-07-30T13:51:47+00:00

I don't get why feminist have the right to tell men what a healthy masculinity is just like men can't tell women what healthy femininity is. I am also feminist but I don't like this double standard.

No-Mulberry7538 · 2025-07-28T17:07:36+00:00

Wrong. Healthy people (both men and women) express vulnerability, emotions, thoughts, and ways of being during appropriate times, places, and circumstances.

bison5595 · 2025-07-28T19:43:28+00:00

It’s not toxic it’s just them wanting you to be a simp for them. You can ignore that. I’ve never met a guy who was successful with women that followed that version of masculinity

caption291 · 2025-07-28T17:13:00+00:00

There’s evidence to suggest that selflessness results in more enduring happiness, while selfishness results in ups and downs.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5429736/#:~:text=According%20to%20this%20model%2C%20while,selflessness%20and%20authentic%E2%80%93durable%20happiness.

I’m not saying that this is why women to tell men to behave a certain way. There’s obviously self-serving reasons for that.

But there is something there.

ThatBitchA · 2025-07-28T16:57:19+00:00

Feminism doesn't push "healthy masculinity".

Feminism pushes equality and equal access for women.

Y'all continually misunderstand Feminism.

KayRay1994 · 2025-07-28T17:08:29+00:00

My dude’s so deep into strawman territory that his strawman doesn’t even resemble the usual strawman anymore. But the mods will remove this comment if I don’t genuinely try to respond to others.

Nobody is saying sacrifice yourself for nothing, though what people are saying is acting for the good of others without expecting a reward is a virtue in itself. You don’t need a reward to be a good person.

Literally nobody is saying “have less boundaries” - then again I find that many in manosphere spaces often don’t understand what a boundary is to begin with sooooo

I guess both of these also extends to “serve others and expect nothing” - nobody is saying be a doormat, but also this point basically ties to the first two so see my responses to those for this

And now the point I really want to look at. You don’t go to a therapist because you’re mentally ill, and if all you do with a therapist is ‘cry about it’ - you’re seeing a bad therapist. Also you’re now owed empathy from others, that’s the point. Empathy is given with consent, if a person doesn’t want to give you empathy, they shouldn’t have to. Does this make a person insensitive and heartless in some cases? Sure, but also - that’s their right. As is yours if you want to be insensitive or heartless… just don’t expect others to be willing to let you to be vulnerable with them if that’s all you are

Bosefus1417 · 2025-07-28T17:03:28+00:00

It's extremely annoying to see how feminism tends to utterly disregard many of the positive aspects of masculinity and only focus on the negatives.

They will say that emotional stoicism is bad (Like in the APA guidelines, also note that true stoicism is not emotional suppression but I digress) categorically, but completely ignore there's many times where our emotions can hinder us from doing what needs to be done. When my best friends dad died who I was also close to, I wanted to start completely bawling because I too was close to his father, and it tore me up to see my best friend the way that he was. I knew that it wasn't my right to cry though and that my friend needed me to be straight more, so I sucked it up and told him a joke and got him to laugh and stop crying. It felt incredibly meaningful for me to do that and it's frustrating to see something like that be denigrated so much.

It's also frustrating to see them denigrate things like having a higher propensity for risk taking/competitiveness/etc. While these things can result in men engaging in more violent or self destructive behaviors, it can also mean that we have a much higher chance of success in the business world, or a stronger ability to protect those we love.

Sacrifice yourself for others for nothing, have less boundaries, serve others and expect nothing.

Even most of these I don't really mind. I think it's incredibly meaningful to sacrifice and serve others. The problem, as you mentioned, is the "expect nothing" part. Can we not at least take time to show men gratitude for the great sacrifices they make to their health and bodies? Men in Ukraine are literally sacrificing their lives for their country and their families. Men will work incredibly dangerous or stressful jobs, or overtime for the sake of providing for those that they love. Is this not something to be honored and to show gratitude for? Instead you'll just hear people complain about men "Not being home enough with the kids", or "Not doing enough of the chores" after they spent all day trying to build a house or something, or working a high stress Software Engineer job.

Gravel_Roads · 2025-07-28T17:11:38+00:00

I don’t see feminism saying men should sacrifice, have no boundaries and expect nothing, thats a hell of a strawman.

I do see feminism saying men shouldn’t have to always be stoic, shouldn’t be the only person who works and should have lives they like even independent of women.

I especially don’t understand what you have against men being encouraged to see a therapist - NOT seeking help when you’re struggling is how you end up with higher suicide rates.

WVVVWVWVVVVWVWVVVVVW · 2025-07-28T23:21:31+00:00

100% agree. Women don't know what they want.

I thought being the perfect guy with no female friends, no flirting, no long history of exes would be attractive. It's what women say they'd want but their biology craves the James Bond type - traditional masculinity. The man that takes no nonsense. The man that can and does get every woman.

She wants the challenge of being the woman that convinces him to settle down. Take a look at every romance movie - it's not the man that wins the woman over, it's the woman that convinced the rich and nonchalant man to be interested in her.

Makuta_Servaela · 2025-07-28T18:41:42+00:00

Sacrifice yourself for others for nothing, serve others and expect nothing.

You mean "Being a member of a social species"?

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analt223 · 2025-07-29T03:22:43+00:00

nobody is really for ending gender roles, it has to be fuckable.

Automatic-Way-6359 · 2025-07-29T04:24:51+00:00

On the internet, absolutely not. All of the redpill men behave like the women that they hate on the internet, especially men in competitive gaming. 31M.

selmono_98 · 2025-07-29T10:30:54+00:00

Isn’t “Men are protectors” “men are providers” something what classic trad men say? Andrew Tate videos….or other red pill content… EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM… That’s what THEY say. If you’d ask a feminist about the very same thing… You know what they’d answer? Protect us from what—?

And Isn’t Empathy a trait that morally good people have? What’s wrong with your head? Empathy….toxic..?? What?😂😂

NoDanaOnlyZuuI · 2025-07-29T10:57:16+00:00

That take hinges on a pretty distorted view of what’s actually being pushed under the umbrella of “healthy masculinity.”

You’re describing it like it’s some masochistic martyrdom where men are told to give everything and get nothing, but that’s not what most feminists are advocating. The core idea behind healthy masculinity is to break free from the pressure to always protect, provide, suppress emotions, or serve others without care for yourself. It’s not about being a doormat. It’s about not being trapped in roles that harm you and the people around you.

No one’s saying “men should sacrifice themselves and expect nothing.” What’s actually being encouraged is:

• Emotional literacy so men don’t bottle everything up until it turns into rage or self-destruction.

• Mutual respect in relationships, not being the only one carrying financial or emotional burdens.

• Healthy boundaries, not hyper-independence or avoidant detachment.

• Vulnerability as strength, not weakness, because pretending you’re fine when you’re not doesn’t help anyone, least of all yourself.

If your takeaway is “be a protector, provider, have endless empathy, and get nothing,” then you don’t understand what healthy masculinity is. The point is to stop defining masculinity by usefulness to others.

Trad or “toxic” masculinity never benefited the average man. It gave a sense of identity, sure, but at the cost of emotional repression, shallow relationships, untreated mental illness, and high rates of suicide.

If you feel like healthy masculinity doesn’t “benefit the man,” it’s because you believe that value only comes from dominance, control, or being owed something in return. That’s exactly the belief healthy masculinity is trying to replace.

CherryConscience · 2025-07-29T12:06:04+00:00

When I, a feminist talk about toxic masculinity it’s none of whatever you’ve just spoken about.. in fact I’ve never even heard these points in my feminist circles personally or the media I see. But that is just mine I guess.

When I speak on healthy masculinity I’m just showing and asking for more emotional openness and letting the men in my life know they’re not less of a man for feeling emotions. Instead of bottling it up and getting to breaking point.

Like my little brother (19)I always tell him I love him, and that he he can tell me anything. That it’s okay to cry etc. Same with any partners I’ve had. One partner told me it was less embarrassing to be angry and hit things than cry because it made him feel weak.

I helped him unravel that mindset. It was truly toxic and harmful to himself.

SexCrispies · 2025-07-30T09:03:07+00:00

Can you link us to sources where this "healthy masculinity" is explained?

Here is what i have found and none of the things you listed are included.

https://umatter.princeton.edu/respect-matters/healthy-masculinity

https://greenhillrecovery.com/resources/toxic-masculinity-vs-healthy-masculinity

Chatgpt: Feminism's concept of healthy masculinity aims to liberate men from destructive norms without neutering core aspects of identity. It’s less about making men more "feminine" and more about removing constraints so men can form healthier relationships with themselves and others.

Feminism encourages the development of positive masculine traits such as:

Emotional Intelligence:Acknowledging and expressing emotions in healthy ways, rather than suppressing them.
Empathy and Compassion:Understanding and responding to the needs and feelings of others, including women and those from marginalized groups.
Healthy Relationships:Building respectful, equitable relationships based on communication, trust, and mutual support.
Responsibility and Accountability:Taking ownership of actions and contributing to a more just and equitable society.
Respect for Boundaries:Recognizing and respecting the boundaries of others, including those related to gender and sexuality.

Connection to Gender Equality: Feminism recognizes that harmful gender norms impact both men and women. By challenging toxic masculinity, feminism aims to create a society where everyone is free to express themselves authentically and build healthy relationships. Benefits for Men: Feminist perspectives highlight that embracing healthy masculinity can lead to:

Improved Mental Health: Reduced stress, anxiety, and depression associated with suppressing emotions.
Stronger Relationships: More fulfilling and meaningful connections with partners, family, and friends.
Increased Personal Well-being: A greater sense of self-awareness, confidence, and purpose.

In essence, healthy masculinity, as viewed by feminism, is not a fixed set of rules but a process of growth and development that benefits individuals and society by rejecting harmful norms and embracing positive, equitable behaviors.

DrDMango · 2025-07-31T22:40:46+00:00

You're interpreting stoicism, which is the general healthy masculine ideal, in the worst way possible.

anewleaf1234 · 2025-07-28T17:36:50+00:00

It seems like you pulled words out of your head and then started to argue against them.

Can you please provide a list from feminist sites that list those exact same ideas you claim they say.

From their mouths please.

_weedkiller_ · 2025-07-28T17:05:38+00:00

All of the positive qualities chosen for that version of healthy masculinity follow the same pattern: Sacrifice yourself for others for nothing, have less boundaries, serve others and expect nothing. What you get to do is cry about it (but only in approved ways. Also never expect empathy from anyone. Get an expensive therapist that is trained to believe that mascilinity is a mental illness).

The irony here is mind blowing. The things you listed are exactly what women have been expected to do for centuries.
It is expected in traditional marriage that women sacrifice themselves to serve their husband and children, while allowing husband free rein over her body, trampling over her boundaries.

If you can see it’s a problem to expect that of men then either you agree traditional marriage is unethical, or you think women are somehow less than men.

Routine-Present-3676 · 2025-07-28T21:41:43+00:00

Do you think it would have helped your understanding of this topic if you'd bothered to find how toxic masculinity is actually defined outside of Reddit posts or nah?

RealScientist2215 · 2025-07-28T18:41:18+00:00

Everything is about justifying female privledge they have

Lift_and_Lurk · 2025-07-28T16:58:12+00:00

Ok so it sounds like you don’t really understand masculinity

Let alone the difference between toxic and healthy masculinity.

Cultural_Tip2618 · 2025-07-28T17:53:22+00:00

Sacrifice yourself for others for nothing, have less boundaries, serve others and expect nothing

While you obviously need some boundaries, it seems strange to me that you'd complain about these other ones. Aren't selflessness and helping others for no reward generally good, virtuous traits for both genders?

alwaysright0 · 2025-07-28T17:57:06+00:00

Can you give examples of feminist 'spaces' saying these are good masculine traits?

the_1st_inductionist · 2025-07-28T18:26:25+00:00

Maybe? If you say traditional masculinity is men sacrificing women for god and feminist masculinity is men sacrificing themselves for women, then trad was less self-destructive when it was reasonable to believe in god. But, it is no longer reasonable to believe in god, so trad masculinity now is just men sacrificing women to themselves, which is more self-destructive than men sacrificing themselves for women.

cutegolpnik · 2025-07-28T19:18:58+00:00

Well you made a straw man of what feminists say so of course those things are bad.

AnonPinkLady · 2025-07-28T19:19:59+00:00

This feels like an enormous misunderstanding of what us actually being said about masculinity and boundaries, coming from an emotionally immature place of having never challenged your own world view and fearing any change even the positive kind because it involves working on yourself.

No-Rough-7390 · 2025-07-28T18:17:48+00:00

Feminists don’t always push this fyi.

When they have a son/sons their turn mysteriously changes. Funny how that happens.

Title	Hot take: (CMV) The "Healthy Masculinity" feminism pushes is more toxic than the toxic masculinity
Author	Thal-creates
Upvotes	163
Comments	493
Date	July 28, 2025 4:51 PM UTC (11 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1mbliok/hot_take_cmv_the_healthy_masculinity_feminism/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/hot-take-cmv-the-healthy-masculinity-feminism.1558321 https://theredarchive.com/post/1558321

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