Just spitballing here. Actually just thinking "outloud" so to say.
Feminist ideas and speaking points make a notable effort to be careful with language. It explains the effects of language and its power and iterates on the importance if gender neutral language. I can actually very much agree with the sentiment, language should generally be gender neutral, because excluding people from a category implicitly teaches that they can't possibly be part of that category, if at least subliminally.
Which makes internalized mysoginy and toxic masculinity very notable exceptions. They are roughly equivalents. Internalized mysoginy refers to the idea that a woman accepted and enforced beliefs or values from patriarchy which may not serve her own best interests and inhibit their agency due to social programming. Toxic masculinity is essentially the same thing; men inherited ideas and values from patriarchy which they must enforce in others due to social programming.
But the connotations here are perhaps the most telling. It is my interpretations that the labeling of these things tells you what their original thinkers were positing.
Internalized mysoginy implies women had no agency in accepting these ideas. They were programmed into them. They couldn't even help it. Patriarchy is so powerful and insidious they had no choice but to internalize these ideas. Toxic masculinity implies something in man's nature. A man's agency is so absolute that it's their masculinity causing them to uphold these unhealthy ideals. Their resolve is so strong that it is in their nature to be toxic. It may just be how I read the terms.
These feminist ideas essentially enforce the very thing of which they are critical. Women are supposedly so lacking in agency, so incapable of self expression that they need to internalize outside ideas. Men's agency is so supposedly absolute that it is in their nature to enforce these patriarchal values. That is why you can freely blame men, because their agency is so ironclad.
What I believe is that men were also programmed. Men also accepted sick and unhealthy ideas. The only thing inherently wrong with masculinity is how it may limit one's self expression and introspection. It is just as learned as internalized mysoginy, and blaming men for essentially doing the same thing women do according to feminists is very telling of the internal inconsistencies of the ideology itself. Women = can't be culpable, they had no choice. Men = can be culpable somehow even though they also had no choice.
Feminists have also said that the term Toxic Masculinity was not in fact made by feminists, but it doesn't change its use by feminists nor the refusal to change the name. There are deliberate choices to use language. It's not like feminists don't know the power of language, it's their whole bread and butter
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That's what I mean. The framing of these issues, from my perspective, is just as solipsistic and potentially sexist as the behaviour they wish to end.
Not to mention internalized mysoginy is a great, convenient way to cancel an argument or opposing view. If a woman expresses agency in a way that doesn't work with feminism, well it's no harm no foul. She is exhibiting internalized mysoginy and is clearly not actually thinking for herself.
Terms don't just "hurt people's feelings". They communicate connotations and harm a potential discourse. It's the reason that people answer questions differently even if they cover the same topics but frames differently.
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