Debate: About toxic masculinity

alreadyredschool · 2017-06-03T10:24:54+00:00

Terms have certain meanings. You should take that meaning not construct your own meaning in your head.

should

If you see that everyone misunderstands the term maybe you should stop clinging to a stupid term that works against your cause and just change it. It's not like there is tons of brand recognition behind it, just change it. I mean you obviously want to help men who suffer from toxic masculinity. Did you really expect them to not take offense to the name? If you really want to help them just change the fucking name. Also don't just outright tell them that they are wrong, for fucks sake according to your rhetoric they are the victims of toxic masculinity, maybe attack people who spread it with their toxic expectations about men to be honorable self sufficient hunters. It's as if you had no idea how to help people. You can't help men out of toxic masculinity by attacking them for it, that just makes them defensive.

If I start a group called "Hitler and friends against foreign trash" and our goal is solving the trash crisis in Italy I won't spend 90% of my time educating people about how stupid they are for not getting what I want to do but I would realise that they mostly take offense at the name I created and have no personal investment in and change it immediately to ~~male disposability/oppressive expectation of men~~ "mission clean Italy" especially if I actually care about the crisis at hand. Especially if I was part of a group that really spends a lot of time complaining about the implication of words (ban bossy etc) maybe I would use my brain for a second.

The omnipotent, ever present patriarchy, the invisible force that directs all of our lives, and causes all oppression and all suffering - our devil. And then the beautiful, wonderful force for justice - feminism. The way.
It sounds like religion.
And, oh my goodness, for a movement thats only about equality, and isn't about blaming of men, they named the force for evil after men, and the force for justice after women. And, this being a movement that is very very concerned about the implications of language, so concerned that if you call a firefighter a "fireman" it will discourage little girls and grown women from aspiring to become firefighters. But we can call the force for all oppression, essentially men. And we can call the force for good and justice women (feminism). And THAT kind of language, that has no implications.
We're not blaming men.
We just named everything bad after them.

-Karen Straughan

Modern feminist activists want to make feminism inclusive, claiming that it's good for men, or even that it's good for everybody. They point to the fact that our culture often gender-polices men and tells them how to act and promise to free them from that burden.

This sounds like a lie. Or feminists approach the problem from the wrong angle.

How do they call freeing men from a culture that dictates male behavior? Why is the name different than it was for women? No idea why, it's just a stupid fucking name for a problem you want to shed light on and solve. If you actually want to solve it and realize that the name you gave it is working against you why don't you just drop the name? Why would anyone be so invested in a name that he came up with to the point of losing the battle? The language implies that there is something wrong with masculinity, that is a problem that feminists can easily solve, change toxic masculinity to male disposibility or oppressive cultural expectations. Here in this 6 minute video we get to learn what it means. Why is this necessary? Because there is a backlash towards the name and instead of fixing it they persist on using that term. Instead of fixing the problem we still meta talk about the problem and will so in the future, good job. Waste more resources, calling it toxic masculinity is more important than solving it!

Then also change the whole discussion from there is a problem with masculinity to social expectations. Whenever we talked about female problems it was always society oppressing them, when we talk about male problems it's always about them doing themselves a disservice, that their gender identity and not the social norms are the problem. Maybe that's because feminists think that men own society but even then that approach is not working, don't tell them that their is a problem with them, but with what we created. It just seems like they don't actually want to help men, it's sounds like a half asked try with the typical males are pigs sprinkles. That's because society is sexist, it doesn't tackle male problems as it tackles female problems and every article I read about it just reinforces this casual sexism. Maybe it would be good and different if there were more programs to help men, if they would just use a fraction of their time they use on the wage gap it wouldn't come over that way. Use 50% of the time you spend explaining what the term actually means on working on fixing it, IF you actually care about helping men.

Masculinity is an umbrella term for a bunch of virtues. If done correctly it's great, if not it sucks. Freeing men from the pressure to be virtuous is an uphill battle since men are generally very competitive and everyone looks up to virtuous people. Another problem is that it doesn't give much credit to the original idea.

Example: men don't seek help when they need it vs men become self sufficient, self reliant people who don't pass the buck and have much self responsibility.

The former is taking the later to the extreme, by attacking the later which is virtuous you won't get many supporters to your side. What would work is re framing masculinity to seeking help in dire situations is ok/accepted/manly. Some try that but they actually tell boys that they are dysfunctional girls and should be more like them... again wrong approach. My theory is that feminists are so used to shame men that they can't stop it even when it bites them.

"Men are emotionless robots" Men and women express feelings differently, from the feminist perspective this way of expressing is dysfunctional. Actually we know that it's better, solves conflicts faster and actually works for men. Again they approach it from the wrong angle. They can tell men all day to be more like women and that they are dysfunctional women but when we try this shit once we will see negative reactions, and instead of shaming stoic men they should shame idiots who react negatively to openly emotional men, again wrong angle.

To change someones behavior you have to give them an incentive and not just shame them. Let's think of someone who is strongly suffering from toxic masculinity, does anyone really think that shaming him for that works? I think that just makes him defensive. Don't shame an emotionless robot, shame people who shame men who express their emotions overtly.

That was my take on some things that are wrong with toxic masculinity. There are more reasons but these actively prevent men from coming on board. If you want to make progress, stop doing the same shit you tried.

Words have meanings! Of course it could have been so easy! Now if it was just stupidity change the name, if it was malicious intent continue using the name.

TheGreasyPole · 2017-06-03T10:52:21+00:00

There is no such thing as "toxic" masculinity.

There is masculinity.

Sometimes the girls decide they like that today. Then it's Being Masculine and other times they decide they do not like that today and that day it's Toxic Masculinity. Often the exact same damn behaviours.

It's all just men being men. This is just women trying to shape men how they'd like them to be by attempted "shaming".

Being masculine is being masculine.... we're not the perfect little Ken dolls they want to dress us up to be. We're men being men.

If you want a ken doll, go buy one. We're not you're little play dress-up game out in real life. We're us. Live with it.

Fuck knows we've learned to live with you lot how you are (warts and all). Bit of reciprocity here please.... :)

ClarityofDisaster · 2017-06-03T11:24:17+00:00

Both males and females can be toxic, but I have yet heard anything along the lines of toxic feminism.

Because you can rarely say anything against women nowadays without being called a misogynist. The idea of toxic femininity would probably be considered hate speech in American colleges.

All in all, both males and females can be toxic. By stressing masculinity, it creates the idea that such behavior is in fact inherently male.

Exactly. We should refer to toxic behaviors without the implicated condemnation of the male sex. It's unnecessary and only serves to create hostility towards men where none need exist.

Ercole-- · 2017-06-03T20:13:58+00:00

It was made very clear that toxic masculinity is something wholly different to normal masculinity or manhood. But I cannot help but feel troubled by the nomenclature. Why does it have to include the term masculinity if such behavior is "not inherent of manhood"?

This is really all that needs to be said. I'm not having any arguments about this topic. I'm just gonna laugh my ass off anytime I hear someone call out toxic masculinity because the term is self-contradicting.

SkinnySweaty · 2017-06-03T16:18:54+00:00

Both males and females can be toxic,

Yes.

but I have yet heard anything along the lines of toxic feminism

The Men's Rights movement is not academic and are therefore not taken seriously. And because of a real lack of education their writing and research suffers. Feminists (for the most part) use peer reviewed studies and submit their work on college campuses where other high level academics from multiple fields critique the work.

Men's Rights pushes back against education in general and vilifies "liberal college campuses" and refuses to participate. Their research and overall level of work suffers as a result.

There is nothing on the red pill sidebar that is at a publishable quality, and none of it would stand up to any kind of academic peer review.

If men's rights wants the same credibility as Feminism they have to do real work.

midnightvulpine · 2017-06-04T16:27:52+00:00

Toxic masculinity is pointed out in particular because by and large actual examples are normal male behaviors pushed past reason. Being strong is healthy masculinity. Affecting strength greater than you have to avoid looking weak is the toxic edge of that which can be dangerous to the man himself and those around him. Being confident is healthy masculinity. Exerting an excess of confidence that grates on those around you or leads to offense is the toxic edge of that.

Of course, anyone can do these things. But these are being expressed in the context of masculine behavior and how healthy acts can be twisted into negative ones.

BiggerDthanYou · 2017-06-03T10:41:48+00:00

Because those specific toxic behaviors are encouraged via "be a real man" and "don't be a pussy" sentiments.

andrewisgood · 2017-06-03T13:45:44+00:00

Haha, I need a damn vacation because this is my third reddit post about work.

Toxic masculinity is thinking you're a big man and you can pull up 14 clamps in a bag because you want to look like you're strong or you've seen someone else do it but then you injure yourself. At least that's an example of it from work.

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badnews4u · 2017-06-03T13:59:50+00:00

i think it conflates general deviance (deliberately) with masculinity and shifts all the blame on men. the idea was probably invented by a man anyway, for other purposes so who cares

Rainbow_Purple_Pony · 2017-06-03T20:40:30+00:00

Why does it have to include the term masculinity if such behavior is "not inherent of manhood"?

Because we're talking about masculinity that is toxic but not all masculinity is toxic. Not sure what's hard to grasp here.

Likewise "bad apple" doesn't imply all apples are bad but if you just said 'bad' then you wouldn't convey enough specific information.

Princeso_Bubblegum · 2017-06-04T02:48:30+00:00

but I have yet heard anything along the lines of toxic feminism

Feminists have something which is called 'female socialization' which is line by line mirror of toxic masculinity, you just weren't paying attention.

ThorLives · 2017-06-05T07:13:04+00:00

toxic femininity

I happened to be reading a movie review the other day (written by a woman, by the way) and at one point, she says that the lead character (also a woman) had a big dose of toxic femininity and explained that it involves thinking that the world revolves around her. I was shocked that anyone (especially a woman) would criticize a woman with a label like "toxic femininity". I looked it up online and started laughing because the definitions I found online for "toxic femininity" all revolved around bad things that happened to women because of "the patriarchy". They didn't even have a list of bad behaviors that women did because of the patriarchy. I rolled my eyes because it was such an obvious attempt to blame men and the patriarchy, while acting like women don't do anything bad.

Here's some of the items in their list of "toxic femininity":

It is inappropriate for women to breastfeed or show their breasts in public.

Women who demonstrate sexual attitudes are attention-seeking or promiscuous, that female sexuality is shameful.

When women show that they are upset or angry, they must be 'PMSing', unreasonable, or just crazy.

That Real Women stand by their man no matter what. Women should be loyal and self-sacrificing.

That Real Women are homemakers and do not have what it takes to be strong leaders or work typically masculine jobs such as construction, firefighting, military, etc.

Seriously, WTF?

stonepimpletilists · 2017-06-05T16:26:14+00:00

If you're a woman, anything that doesn't benefit you directly is 'toxic'

All that term does, is establish a feminine point of view as objective truth.

Cunari · 2017-06-08T03:40:37+00:00

Masculinity is only toxic when a beta tries to act like an alpha. Beta's shouldn't want alpha things and should be punished for it.

Beta's should accept that in the sexual market place women and alpha's are the winners and any attempt by a beta to display their sexual desire such as looking at a woman is toxic.

wub1234 · 2017-06-03T11:05:32+00:00

Masculine simply means typically associated with men. It does not mean 'inherent of manhood'. I could list any number of behaviours and activities that women also engage in, but which could still be reasonably described as masculine as men engage in them significantly or far more regularly.

I wasn't sure what toxic masculinity is, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. It says the following:

Terry Kupers, a professor at The Wright Institute school of psychology, defines toxic masculinity as "the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence".

Writer Amanda Marcotte says that toxic masculinity is "a specific model of manhood, geared towards dominance and control. It’s a manhood that views women and LGBT people as inferior, sees sex as an act not of affection but domination, and which valorizes violence as the way to prove one’s self to the world."

Whether it's reasonable to describe that behaviour as 'toxic' is debatable, I personally strongly disagree with the assumption that sex has to be dominant or affectionate; it cannot be both.

However, I don't think you can reasonably contest its description as 'masculine'. Very few women 'valorize violence as the way to prove one’s self to the world'. Clearly that is masculine behaviour.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2017-06-03T13:41:47+00:00

Toxic masculinity is simply masculinity.

Feminists pretend they limit it to only negative behaviors but over the years it's expanded to include everything men do.

/Also if you want to stump a feminist ask them about positive masculinity or toxic femininity.

Title	Debate: About toxic masculinity
Author	Aragoa
Upvotes	11
Comments	186
Date	June 3, 2017 10:16 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/6f0i74/debate_about_toxic_masculinity/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/debate-about-toxic-masculinity.267766 https://theredarchive.com/post/267766

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