A few interesting perspectives on when attacks on "harmful masculinity" are just an attack on masculinity.

problem_redditor · 2022-01-28T02:13:30+00:00

What they typically label as toxic masculinity are behaviours that exist so that men could satisfy their role of absorbing harm/stress/damage for the benefit of others (women and children).

Men are more un-emotional, less sensitive and more self-reliant than women. This is supposedly "toxic masculinity". Well, why did this occur? Women who continued to exhibit emotion in adulthood did better because people were willing to tend to them as a result. The only reason they could have survived better than those who didn't is if there were people to summon who would effectively deal with whatever was upsetting, hurting or scaring said woman. Freezing or screaming or crying in the face of danger (which women are actually more likely to do than men) does not help you unless someone is there to handle it.

And how effective would a man be as a protector if he just broke down when there was a threat? How effective would he be at spreading his genes? Showing and displaying emotion is a sign that someone needs to help you, and this doesn't fly at all when your role is that of "protector". You're diverting resources to yourself, rather than a woman and child. I think this is partially behind the knee-jerk negative, disgusted reaction to any kind of advocacy for men's rights.

Men are more likely to perpetrate violence than women - another behaviour that feminists cite as evidence of men being broken and toxic. But if he was the one required to stand between a woman or child and the dangers of the world, he would have to have a willingness to perpetrate as well as absorb violence. It's also notable that this greater willingness of men to perpetrate overt violence is mainly towards strangers, and especially towards other men, and does not hold true when it comes to family violence, which supports my hypothesis further.

Men would also have developed a willingness to take on danger for the benefit of others. Feminists love to ignore this bit, though. They love to cite men's predominance in those who perpetrate homicides, but they also love to ignore that men make up the vast majority of those awarded the Carnegie Hero Medal for extraordinary feats of heroism. This is a trait that has been slowly un-gendered, because how dare you suggest women can't be heroic. Some woman did that somewhere, sometime, so we can't consider THAT a masculine trait.

I also don't think women are any less willing to hurt people than men are. They just hurt people in different ways. In line with women's method of getting things done by using other people acting on their behalf, they're more likely to use social aggression and hurt people by proxy using the social structure as their aid, instead of getting their own hands dirty. And that form of aggression can be very damaging. There have been plenty of cases where men have lost their livelihoods or even their lives over false accusations, but plenty of times, these methods of female aggression completely get overlooked. And that's also how women wield power. This type of behaviour such as making accusations, enlisting other people's help, and damselling so you can get what you want, is rampant in feminism.

But yeah. All this male behaviour that feminists label as "toxic" and "dysfunctional" exists largely as a consequence of men's gender role: because men were willing to stand between a woman and whatever was threatening her. But now that we live in a modern society and have deemed men to be more trouble than they're worth (because we no longer see their contributions), we want to throw them out.

It's notable that feminists are predominantly higher-class women. They don't see the immense contribution of men to the harsh, dirty work that has to be done, because they are so utterly distanced from these conditions that they have no clue about the circumstances and work that masculine behaviour is suited to and helpful for. And they sit in their ivory towers detached from the rest of us, in an unbearably privileged position of power and influence that most of us could only ever hope to achieve, and dictate to us that we should view men as toxic and masculinity as a virtual pathology in need of reform.

RockmanXX · 2022-01-28T05:30:23+00:00

Feminism is incapable of understanding Masculinity because understanding Masculinity requires engaging with Men in good faith and treating their viewpoints as legitimate.

Just like how religious fundamentalists use "God of Gaps" to explain away the scientifically unexplained phenomenon, Feminists use the "Patriarchy of the Gaps" to explain away their lack of understanding of how Men feel,think&act. POTG Example: Society is built by Men to oppress Women, ergo Masculinity must be Oppressive to Women!".

iainmf · 2022-01-28T10:41:55+00:00

And I think that a part of the problem is that the people who are talking and prescribing solutions to "harmful masculinity" don't really understand masculinity at all.

Exactly. The feminist understanding of masculinity comes from examining women's experience of oppression and extrapolating.

I read a document from the UN that describes how feminists doubled down on social constructivism an the 60s and 70s as a political move to shut down arguments about men and women being different.

So feminists start from the point of view that men and women are fundamentally the same and the differences are created by society. That is, 'gender' is created by the different socialisation of men and women. So to explain women's oppression they say that men's socialisation (masculinity) causes them to be oppress women.

There solution to this is to socialise men and women exactly the same. This would end the concept of gender altogether. So any kind of masculinity, that is socialising men differently from women, is bad.

This also relates to 'gender-based violence'. If you ignore the language games, the 'gender' in gender-based violence means 'socialising men and women differently'. And men's socialisation is called masculinity. So gender-based violence means masculinity-based violence. Or put another way masculinity causes violence against women.

A lot of things makes sense when you understand this.

Quit_social_media · 2022-01-28T04:54:52+00:00

I've noticed on AskReddit quite a long while ago there was a topic asking users of things to die out or something like that. A worrying few amount of posts and upvotes listed Masculinity by itself; not even toxic masculinity, although there were still plenty of those too.

griii2 · 2022-01-28T11:36:34+00:00

Toxic-masculinity - I consider the term a sexist slur. There is toxic behaviour and there are harmful gender roles but none of it is inherent to what is between my legs.

We should be campaigning to make the slur unacceptable.

Mr-X1 · 2022-01-28T13:12:35+00:00

They believe that masculinity requires they "engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation" (via hooks).

But as somebody who grew up in a very "masculine" upbringing.

Whether your masculinity entails that or not at a given point in time depends on your environment and disposition. If you are otherwise "normal enough" as a person but have to live in a very bad, poor, violent environment then indeed your role as a man (and even boy) might entail many forms of emotional regulation that could be seen as "psychological self-mutilation" (changed it to "psychological" because I think it fits better than "psychic").

And I think the following comment (from menslib of all places) really highlights this. Etc.

And given such conditions, you might have to self-regulate internally, and do things externally, in ways that require a huge amount of self-denial etc. Which can cause, from a conventional perspective, psychological damage.

There is no real place for men who don't feel like masculinity requires they "engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation" in more progressive gender conversations.

Depending on your disposition, your relatively unregulated self-might never qualify as masculine virtually anywhere in the world. Many men, if you get them to talk about such issues, will admit how tiring etc putting on the performance of masculinity can be. And men that do engage less in such performances are often not even seen as "men". They are instead seen as man-children etc. And even little boys get shamed for not being masculine enough, and I have even seen a video of women laughing about a baby boy crying while being circumcised, making comments about how the baby cannot be a boy, and will never be a real man etc, because it cried due to "some little pain" (this was among the most brain-dead, disgusting, sexist, "inhuman" bullshit I ever had the displeasure of hearing and seeing).

gabrielcoronel_ · 2022-01-29T04:38:01+00:00

When all traits that are seen as positive are not seen as masculinity. Then yes. What we are seeing is an attack on masculinity. and not just the "toxic" aspects

The same people who attack toxic masculinity are the same ones who say things like "gender is a social construct" (which is true). To these people, no positive trait is masculine and every positive trait that isn't feminine are neutral (this is totally fine, since associating traits and characteristics to a specific gender is pointless). However, they'll still associate negative traits with masculinity, regardless of whether they're present in a woman or a man. So, to them, any association of traits with a gender is sexist, unless it's about negative traits and a man. One knows this's true by looking at their language: Toxic masculinity is used to describe the negative traits of a man, while internalized misogyny is used to describe those of a woman. So, if toxic femininity and positive masculinity aren't things, why should toxic masculinity be? Some radfems actually use the term postive masculinity, but that's another term for femininity.

It's something I'm sure many of us have noticed. When we see those who rally against "toxic masculinity" or even "masculinity" in general. They're often presenting an unrealistic or exaggerated strawman. and they're coming from such an outside position that they're not really aware of it.

This shows, once again, how these so called "intersectional people" aren't intersectional at all. The socialization a person receives depends on many different cultural factors, more than just gender. Although, it's true that there are some cultures which are gender-selective within their socialization process, gender isn't the only factor. So when attribute the nagative traits of man to "toxic masculinity", as if it were nothing more than a gender thing, they're missing a lot of socioeconomic, racial, and cultural factors that may have influenced that behavior. I think they do so, because it's easier to demonize men than a culture.

TheSnesLord · 2022-01-29T01:26:23+00:00

"toxic/harmful masculinity" is just a shaming language method used by feminists to emasculate men so that men become weak and subservient to women, which causes men to be afraid to speak out or do anything against feminism, thus resulting in making women superior.

Zinziberruderalis · 2022-01-30T02:29:00+00:00

You're right. I've seen it on this sub.

The problem with stating positive masculinity is that what had traditionally been regarded as positive masculinity is generally not positive to the man himself. See the thread on the Federalist article. Essentially it is self -sacrifice: a real man is ready to die for his woman, country etc. A real man always accepts hardship to spare women hardship. A real man conceals negative emotions and pain so as not to upset those around him. Stoicism is lauded because it is a desirable trait in your meat shield.

marconaut · 2022-01-31T01:22:37+00:00

I agree. I'm pretty sure most people in r/menslib didn't grow up as straight men and don't understand masculinity from a conventional perspective.

Title	A few interesting perspectives on when attacks on "harmful masculinity" are just an attack on masculinity.
Author	Forgetaboutthelonely
Upvotes	69
Comments	21
Date	January 27, 2022 11:11 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/sebkb5/a_few_interesting_perspectives_on_when_attacks_on/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/a-few-interesting-perspectives-on-when-attacks-on.1099370 https://theredarchive.com/post/1099370

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