Originally this was a comment by /u/azazelcrowley On a post I made.

And since i've gotten a good bit of use out of it. I figured I should share it here.

I have edited it a bit. Made the language a bit softer and more palatable to a wider audience..

What I don't get is, feminists routinely acknowledge these days the "Vocal minority" who hate men.

So even from their perspective, right? Even from their view, it's like this.

They're in a group working to end sexism. There are some people they recognize are man haters in this group who use it as an excuse to be massive sexists. They try not to associate with them much, but you know, it's difficult to discern their input unless you pay close attention, still, they are a minority, so it's not a big deal, let's end sexism.

So the group come ups with this term, "toxic masculinity", to describe the problems in culture around men.

They start using it.

And men hate it. It's insulting, demonizing, and dehumanizing.

The "Real" feminists explain that those men are wrong, see, it's about describing all the problems in the area and so on, so they should get over it and accept the term.

Meanwhile, those raging sexists, absolutely fucking love the term. Can't get enough of it. Bring it up all the time, using it in the wrong ways then gaslighting people by retreating to the "Official definition", and so on.

The "Real" feminist see's this, and rather than siding with men and going "Okay, I will not use that term anymore.", they're on the same side of this discussion as the man haters.

And they have ZERO self-awareness about it.

None.

When men tell you this term is dehumanizing, offensive, and sexist, and you as a feminist decide to try and defend it, you're on the same side as people who hate men. You know you are.

Why would you rather like and use the same term that people who hate men like using, even though men hate it? Because you've got "reasons" to use that term? Doesn't it worry you the people who hate men love it and the men hate it, and has it occurred to you this is not some flaw in men that they need to be educated out of, but that you are in fact just being a shitty person?

"The problem isn't that you don't like tennis, it's that you don't appreciate me enough to value my tennis lessons.".

The reason is because you also hate men. You don't value them, their perspective, or their input on this discussion. You want to create a new relationship dynamic without taking their input seriously, because you don't view them as fully human. "This is how our marriage will go, and if you disagree, it's because you're wrong and I'll just make you agree with me".

Men don't like the term. People who you know are misandrists do. Put two and two together you absolute simpletons.

The only difference between the "real" feminist and the "fake" feminist, is the "fake" feminist has self-awareness.

You're the equivalent of the dumb racist prat who "Is not racist, but", and the "fake" feminists are the Nazi flag waving types.

It makes you honestly more infuriating.

And let's not forget, the entire reason you started using it, is you couldn't admit you spent decades denying misandry was real and arguing against it.

There is no such thing as toxic masculinity. Even if you define it like you want to, it's misandry. The only reason you use that term is your own childish inability to admit your movements historic denial of the problem and the epistemic injustice that was. In itself, you're continuing that epistemic injustice by disregarding mens testimony on the term and its impact. It's also because you're scared of what happens if "Misandrist" becomes a label like you made misogynist. Calling it "Toxic masculinity" detaches it, makes it something vague you can't accuse someone of being, and that's because you are psychologically terrified of having self-awareness forced on you.