Male abashment as an alternate term to toxic masculinity?

SuspicousEggSmell · 2026-01-07T07:10:10+00:00

I actually don't hate the term, it's definitely better than toxic masculinity. I appreciate you coming here despite not agreeing with a lot of the communities view points, so I hope everyone can still be kind.

I think my one issue that I and others will have is trying to avoid directly addressing misandry; while there are aspects of conservative sexism and patriarchal structures that are part of or the root of certain men's issues, it feels a little absurd to say, for example, that things like the CDC not including made to penetrate as rape because of Mary Koss's influence, when her beliefs about female on male rape were directly influenced by her feminist identity and beliefs, are somehow rooted in a form of misogyny, and not what just seems like an obvious discriminatory belief towards men that has had a systemic impact (and this being one sole example). Even from a conservative lens, men being viewed with innate suspicion, as predatory and corrupting forces, especially when intersecting with other traits like race and queerness still seems like something that would be aptly labled as misandry. It just kinda seems like jumping through hoops just to not have a word that recognizes a bigotted view of men as a bigotted view of men. Sure it can be connected to misogyny, but at a certain point it kinda just becomes "women are somehow the victims of bad things happening to men" even in areas where men have it worse than women on average

bodyisT · 2026-01-07T08:40:24+00:00

I know you don’t want to debate it but I would simply call it misandry, a lot of the time it isn’t even internalised because it doesn’t always come from men

Punder_man · 2026-01-07T08:34:18+00:00

Anyways it got me to realize that the term "toxic masculinity" does an awful job at communicating which aspects of masculine societal standards should be considered toxic since obviously it isn't all masculinity. I'm considering replacing it in my lexicon with "male abashment."

My question here is.. why do women feel they have the right to judge what is "Toxic" and what is "Positive" when it comes to masculinity?

In regards to male abashment, that just feels to me like a repackaged / repurposed "Toxic Masculinity"

For that matter, why do we need to gender things at all?
Instead of "Male Abashment" or "Toxic Masculinity" or "Internalized Misogyny" how about we remove gender from it and go with "Toxic Gender Roles" or "Toxic Gender Norms"?

I really don't get how this is such a hard concept for people to grasp..
If we go with a gender neutral term, then it allows us to discuss things from both sides.. we can discuss the gender roles / norms expected of men which are toxic and we can do the same for women..

This solves the problem completely as it no longer overtly deems either masculinity or femininity "toxic" in its entirety but rather allows to discuss specific aspects or roles which are toxic.

SpicyMarshmellow · 2026-01-07T07:08:03+00:00

Male abashment, as I define it, is when men are shamed, socially pressured, or made to feel less than due to not fitting imposed male expectations. Men can do this to each other (stuff like "quit crying like a p*ssy" or "oh you like ["unmanly" thing here].. what are you gay?"). However, women can do this to men too.

Internally, it lowers men's self-worth and makes them feel ashamed for not meeting or venturing out of masculine expectations like being good with the ladies, being the "man of the house", or only doing masculine past times. (At least that's the impression I've gotten from what I've read.)

These experiences are not nearly as pervasive among men as feminism has made it out to be. Yes, these things happen. Most guys will probably encounter people occasionally who push these gender norms. But those are not most people. Most people really don't care. This idea that every man's childhood is defined by 80's movie style alcoholic macho dads who will put out a cigarette on their arm and tell them to man up if they're caught crying is a total fabricated myth. And men who are not trying desperately to endear themselves to feminists routinely say as much, but are ignored. The dominant narratives do not accept our input on what our own lived experiences are, and instead constantly push to aggressively dictate our own stories to us.

So I think you should probably take some time to listen to men's experiences in an unbiased fashion, before trying to invent new terminology to describe it.

I don't think misandry is quite the word I'd use since on an individual level people can be misandrist, but institutionally society is more patriarchal IMO

Please keep it specific to the proposed "male abashment" term since I don't have the band width to get into extended arguments about if society is patriarchal or other larger topics.

I think you're precluding the very discussion you're asking us to have here. Aside from the subject of gauging just how patriarchal society is, you're basically taking the stance that systemic/institutional misandry doesn't exist, and then openly stating that this stance is the basis for your choice of terminology. If you don't want to discuss whether or not systemic misandry exists, then you're not really allowing the reasoning behind your choice of terminology to be criticized. And I think most everyone around here would take issue with any claim that systemic misandry doesn't exist.

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Ok-a-tronic · 2026-01-07T12:47:27+00:00

Hey here's a copy of my post. There was a certain unsavory comment that I felt didn't assume good faith and since I read that one first I assumed the rest would be like that. My mistake for chickening out, just had a lot of bad experiences online.

Here's the post:

Hello. I'm not really a regular in this community (I'm both a woman and dislike politically labeling myself so yeah =w=). I'm going to be honest in that I don't really jive with a lot of the criticism towards the term toxic masculinity, but I saw a meme from this community saying if it's internalized misogyny for women it should be internalized misandry for men. I don't think misandry is quite the word I'd use since on an individual level people can be misandrist, but institutionally society is more patriarchal IMO (patriarchal doesn't mean all men have it good or that always society treats men well. Yes I know divorce court and male vs female death rate stuff before you hit me with that in the comments). Anyways it got me to realize that the term "toxic masculinity" does an awful job at communicating which aspects of masculine societal standards should be considered toxic since obviously it isn't all masculinity. I'm considering replacing it in my lexicon with "male abashment." Male abashment, as I define it, it when men are shamed, socially pressured, or made to feel less than due to not fitting imposed male expectations. Men can do this to each other (stuff like "quit crying like a p*ssy" or "oh you like ["unmanly" thing here].. what are you gay?"). However, women can do this to men too.

Example: Mindy sees Gary with a little girl and glares at him, assuming he's a creep. Gary was actually playing with his daughter. He is a victim of Mindy's male abashment. Mindy was making him feel ashamed for being a caretaker to his daughter since society (and Mindy) don't see it as men's role as readily as for women. Thus she assumed he was sketchy.

The word makes it readily clear what the bad behavior is (enforcing male expectations via shaming or trying to incite negative emotions). Another thing this achieves is focusing on what's going on internally like with internalized misogyny, rather than simply the external manifestation like with toxic masculinity. Internally, it lowers men's self-worth and makes them feel ashamed for not meeting or venturing out of masculine expectations like being good with the ladies, being the "man of the house", or only doing masculine past times. (At least that's the impression I've gotten from what I've read.) Anyways, feel free to leave constructive feedback. Please keep it specific to the proposed "male abashment" term since I don't have the band width to get into extended arguments about if society is patriarchal or other larger topics. I've had those discussions before and they tend to go south real fast. Off topic will be ignored.

_vertig0 · 2026-01-07T07:53:35+00:00

Leaving a comment here to remind myself to re-read this later, my head is completely scrambled at the moment and I'm not doing very well at deciphering the post due to that, hopefully I'll be able to understand the argument once I'm feeling better. At the moment my only coherent thought is that this seems to be concerning a patriarchal society and how it can hurt men too, to which I'd say generally yes, like the post mentioned when we're talking about patriarchy hurting men, it's usually about how they're not able to meet unfair patriarchal expectations or standards, however that's not really the only problem that men face in life, but I could be completely wrong about the post's point since the contents of my head are soup at the moment, so I'll save the in depth discussion for later. Though just wanted to say about that last paragraph, don't worry we're not like that, challenges to worldviews and other viewpoints are very much welcome here.

Gathorall · 2026-01-07T09:41:28+00:00

You misunderstand the issue fundamentally and go the specific hardcore misandrist route of claiming men as individuals and collective are to blame.

Mindy is wholly a bad person yet you blame the victim for taking offense of they do, and excuse the bad behaviour if they don't. You also ignore the systemic issues related to this, like men being pushed out of entering caring professions, beyond hiring some punching bags for violent patients.

You count so firmly among your individual misandrists that is why you refuse to see the systemic parts. You misandrists make the world much worse for men even if they personally don't care about your opinion at all, because misandrist opinions are policy and culture you shape.

Furthermore insulting people in bouts of prejudice like Mindy is being personally evil even if it has no negative result.

So if you dislike labels I can assure you've earned the right to use misandrist.

Personally I wouldn't give a damn about these expectations and frankly prejudices if they weren't systematically enforced, so you can't really leave that out of the picture. And that could be a solution for it was so. If the effect was ultimately what the man thinks of it your perspective would have some worth. But in reality the issue is societal, and your take fundamentally insulting.

Title	Male abashment as an alternate term to toxic masculinity?
Author	Ok-a-tronic
Upvotes	6
Comments	27
Date	January 7, 2026 5:43 AM UTC (6 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1q6773x/male_abashment_as_an_alternate_term_to_toxic/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/male-abashment-as-an-alternate-term-to-toxic.1570617 https://theredarchive.com/post/1570617

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