I've been thinking about the term "toxic masculinity", after once again being the recipient of personal attacks when I dared to criticise the concept.

The main refrain of proponents of the term, is that it merely refers to a false idea of masculinity that some men have, that is toxic; that some men hold to a definition of masculinity that can result in toxic behaviour.

I don't think anybody disagrees that some men do have a destructive notion of what it means to be male. For example, I'm sure we've all come across some men or boys, who feel that masculinity requires absolute toughness in mind and body, and total absence of weakness. This type of attitude is harmful to them and others.

However, "toxic masculinity" does not directly refer to this.

Let's break down the term into its parts.

First, "masculinity". The definition returned by Google is below.

masculinity

/ˌmaskjʊˈlɪnɪti/

noun

qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men.

"handsome, muscled, and driven, he's a prime example of masculinity"

That sounds fairly self explanatory.

Next, "toxic".

toxic

/ˈtɒksɪk/

adjective

poisonous.

"the dumping of toxic waste"

As it states, "toxic" is an adjective. Wikipedia describes adjectives as follows.

In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated adj) is word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.

If "masculinity" refers to "attributes regarded as characteristic of men", then the adjective "toxic" modifies this to refer to "poisonous attributes regarded as characteristic of men".

This is all fairly obvious; when we hear "toxic masculinity" we all intuitively knows this is what it means, but it's useful to see it so concretely spelt out.

When people discuss "toxic masculinity" they're talking about characteristics they believe men possess, which are bad. When they refer to a man's behaviour as being a demonstration of "toxic masculinity", they're saying they believe it's a characteristic common to men.

Naturally, we have a negative reaction to people (often women):

  • Stating men have poisonous attributes.

  • Discussing what attributes of men are poisonous (i.e. defining what men should conform to).

  • Trying to associate some kind of harmful behaviour to men, by describing it as "toxic masculinity".

If they really wanted to combat negative stereotypes of masculinity that harm us, they'd drop the term.

It would be very reasonable to talk about someone's idea of masculinity or what it means to be a man, as having problematic aspects. That is a very clear, unambiguous, and fairly non-threatening language. If you wanted to improve things, why not use that kind of language, rather than one which literally describes men as having poisonous characteristics? People will instinctively parse the term "toxic masculinity" in this negative way, as these are the syntactic rules we all intuitively understand.

Instead of using positive, helpful language, feminists insist on using "toxic masculinity", and react with hostility and hatred when challenged. This is because they merely want to use the term as a smokescreen for misandry.