A lot of fuss is made about so-called “toxic masculinity”. As far as I can tell, it is believed by many people who call themselves “feminists” that society encourages men to show violent, forceful expressions of their own power. Interestingly, there has been a lot more silence around the phrase “toxic femininity“, but I think this concept is just as valid to be looked at. If “toxic masculinity“ can, roughly, be assumed to refer to taking power using physicality and intimidation, then “toxic femininity” can be assumed to refer to taking power using emotional manipulation. The reason why “toxic femininity“ is not talked about is quite obviously because this appears to be the MO of the feminist movement: emotionally manipulating/press ganging well meaning men and women into identifying with this label. (”you’re not a feminist? That’s because you have internalised misogyny/toxic masculinity/fear of losing privilege/a desire to harass women. Now keep feeling bad and hating yourself until you finally decide to join up with us!”)

Now, the interesting thing is, despite the fact that feminists claim to hate masculinity, all their favourite girl-boss heroines tend to use physical power/intimidation as their defining trait. You only have to look at the explosion of modern-female action heroes (eg Rey), and the overwhelming positive response from feminists, to see this trend. But where are the more “feminine” female characters? Even Galadriel, one of the most definitive feminine heroic characters, has been reduced to this terribly tedious “tough strong stoic warrior” in Amazon’s TV series.

This has been very sad and disappointing to me considering I am actually rather a fan of “strong feminine characters” as opposed to “strong female characters” (Look at my username and profile pic if you need proof). and this whole trend of “oh nobody wants or values femininity anymore so let’s just do away with it and make all our female characters hyper masculine” really annoys the hell out of me.

Finally this attempt of writers to have female characters usurp traditionally male roles does remind me quite strongly of the story “The Fisherman and his Wife”. I was considering making that into a post of its own, but this is too long anyway. If you’re interested in reading it, its available online and there are some great renditions on YouTube.