A friend just messaged me about "toxic masculinity" in response to a post I made about the orlando shooter - how should I respond?

FFXIV_Machinist · 2016-06-17T18:39:59+00:00

ask him when the last time he saw a husband drowning his child.

rg57 · 2016-06-17T18:46:10+00:00

Masculinity isn't toxic. Without masculinity, we wouldn't have the rail lines, the interstates, plumbing, firefighting, and ... oh yeah ... the cops who saved at least 50 lives, likely many more.
Yes, mass shootings and hate crimes and terrorist attacks tend to be done primarily by young men. And yet we never focus on the youth aspect of this, just the male aspect. That suggests a sexist agenda, rather than anything about truth.
No, men are not trained to be violent. Men have more testosterone, which makes us more likely to take risks. Most of those risks are good things. But you have to take the bad with the good. We need to find ways to mitigate the problem, rather than blame men for how we evolved to be different from women.
The true problem in Orlando is toxic Islam, which is to simply say "Islam". Islam tells young gay men that if their family hates them, and if Allah hates them for being a filthy disgusting doomed pervert, they can redeem themselves and their whole family by simply slaughtering as many others as they can, and martyring themselves. When you tell people that (a) other people have to die, and (b) doing so will ensure their family a spot in heaven, is it any wonder that massacres happen? The Muslim media world has been cheering this massacre, and it's not a blip like that one pastor, or that one rabbi.
I found it telling that in Samantha Bee's rant on the response to Orlando, she noted that Omar was a loner. She maybe even called him "creepy". And her response? Stay away from him, because he's a creep. And maybe in this case, due to the religious aspect, that would have been right. But in general, isolation of so-called "creepy" men is not going to help things. The right answer is to stop being a bigot, and make a friend.

alclarkey · 2016-06-17T20:39:28+00:00

Google "Female suicide bomber." Send him the results.

Keddril · 2016-06-17T18:23:50+00:00

This was pretty recent

BriddickthFox · 2016-06-17T19:36:36+00:00

Call him on his bullshit. It's best that you don't have to tiptoe around your friends about what you think, especially since he obviously isn't.

Captaincastle · 2016-06-17T21:06:34+00:00

"85% of baby killers are women. Are you still comfortable making sweeping generalizations?"

HiberniaSon · 2016-06-17T21:00:49+00:00

De-friend and block him. He is to far gone to logically and rationally discuss and debate with.

repete66219 · 2016-06-17T19:43:19+00:00

Tell him the term is as meaningless as saying all men are potential rapists. Then ask him where he got his degree in violence from.

Fundaments-4-men · 2016-06-17T22:00:31+00:00

They don't shoot up clubs and schools because they are too use at home slowly poisoning their own children.

ABC_Florida · 2016-06-17T19:42:20+00:00

Tell him to get rid of his demons by cutting his balls.

BDMR_lurker · 2016-06-17T18:39:50+00:00

Find a better friend.

This one is a moron. Do not associate with morons.

If you really want to argue with him:

"toxic masculinity" as opposed to what? Either he admits there's a nurturing, constructive side to masculinity, or he concludes we're all bad, and should consider suicide.
"trained to be violent"? We're 'trained' by almost exclusively women until we're teenagers, often further now. Women train men to be violent? Where was I on orientation day?
women make crappy gunmen (gunwomen?). Still, there and there you go, female serial killers.

Also, I ain't seen many ladies risking their lives to save others recently. I'm being extremely unfair here, but your friend just shoots his mouth with no argument or reference, so just do the same.

If he asks for fact, just inform him it's not your role to educate him.

On a more nuanced note: yes, violence is part of us men. A bigger part than in women. We're more prone and a lot better at it. Violence has no intrinsic moral value: it can destroy, it can save. So yeah, terrorists are violent. So are those who oppose them.

apfelkuchenmiteis · 2016-06-17T21:41:59+00:00

There are about 9000 gun related deaths in the US each year.

Although most of these deaths were caused by men not all of them were caused by men.

There are about 825,000 abortion related deaths in the US each year.

Each one was directly and solely caused by the decisions of women.

Talking about toxic masculinity and toxic feminism is pretty stupid but if he wants to talk then let's talk.

If he claims that abortion isn't murder, well that's convenient for him that his perspective allows him to believe that.

BDMR_lurker · 2016-06-17T18:15:29+00:00

[permanently deleted]

equiposeur · 2016-06-17T21:20:54+00:00

Tell him that you wish he would stop using the term, despite its current prevalence (along with other anti-male terms like mansplain, etc.), because it is distracting and divisive, not to mention offensive.

He should assume that no group (certainly not a genetically defined one) is made up people who were simply born bad. That leads to a discussion of what factors in individuals' lives drive them to destructive behavior. This is more productive--although it does mean opening one's eyes to the fact that the male experience of life is not 100% better than the female one in every possible way.

lostapwbm · 2016-06-17T21:29:06+00:00

Toxic masculinity...

Definition please. Also, how does "toxic masculinity" relate or compare to "masculinity"?

...is always relevant to mass shootings.

How?

As men we're trained to be violent.

By who?

I ain't seen any ladies shooting up schools and clubs recently.

San Bernardino.

ThePigmanAgain · 2016-06-18T00:05:22+00:00

Tell them you haven't seen any Christians shooting shit up recently and then blame toxic Islam. With any luck, they will have a fit and drop dead.

PS

Men are merely men, but women are ladies. How 'bout that.

Leinadro · 2016-06-17T19:28:28+00:00

Simple.

"The only reason you are even concerned about men now is because they hurt other people. You arent interested in helping me. You are interested in making a name for yourself and getting attention. In short you are politicizing the event just like Trump, every bigoted Christian, and political sweet talker looking for screen time. Let me know when you actually want to help men rather than score political points."

Title	A friend just messaged me about "toxic masculinity" in response to a post I made about the orlando shooter - how should I respond?
Author	StarDestinyGuy
Upvotes	6
Comments	25
Date	June 17, 2016 6:09 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/4okjki/a_friend_just_messaged_me_about_toxic_masculinity/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/a-friend-just-messaged-me-about-toxic-masculinity.947209 https://theredarchive.com/post/947209

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