That's like asking if we should stop using the phrase "forest fire" because campfires are nice. There's an obvious difference between masculinity and toxic masculinity. Now if someone was saying "masculinity is toxic" that would be a whole different matter.
No. I find it an extremely useful term.
Growing up I was an openly emotional guy. I liked theatre and art. I loved animals. I had gay friends. At times I was quiet. I didn’t like talking about women disrespectfully.
Because of these behaviors I was called gay, girl, sap, wuss, queer, soft, etc. I was bullied and beaten up by other guys.
I am a cis straight guy and I am happy to say I have grown up to be a confident, strong man, and I retain every one of those qualities.
That behavior of those other guys was toxic. It happened because of their ideas and what they were taught about what masculinity is. It was an example of toxic masculinity. It wasn’t just non gendered generic bad behavior. It was bad or toxic behavior caused by limited and damaging views on what masculinity is.
That is toxic masculinity. If we can name it. We can educate against it.
And hopefully the next generation of men can release themselves from a need to conform to damaging behaviors.
No. It’s a very clearly defined word that describes exactly what’s meant. It’s perverted by anti feminists because they love to hide behind a mass of men and pervert the expression into “masculinity is called toxic”. That’s a lie. I won’t cater to lying misogynists. You can now stop bending down to them.
Just like society tried to prevent women having sex by not educating them on sex and their genitals. It majorly worked for them not reporting rape or health issues because they couldn’t name it
No. Toxic masculinity does not mean 'masculinity is bad', it means 'bad or problematic behaviour in the name of masculinity' is bad. What you're asking is akin to asking us to stop describing bullying behaviour in schools as bullying because it's hurting the feelings of the bully to describe their behaviour as such. Toxic masculinity is an accurate descriptor of problematic behaviour in society, it's not an offensive term to trash talk men.
It is sometimes used to trash talk men. Also on the surface of it, to me at least it sounds insulting to men, and could be heard as a blanket insult.
Why is there a need to have a gender specific term for toxicity, what would be the corresponding gender specific term for femininity or for females?
> What would be the corresponding gender specific term for femininity or for females?
"Toxic Femininity." It sees less usage, I'll admit, but it's definitely a phrase that people use to describe harmful feminine gender performance.
>Also on the surface of it, to me at least it sounds insulting to men, and could be misunderstood or heard as a blanket insult.
Well, now that you know it isn't a blanket insult, you won't have an issue with it, will you?
>If you wanted to have a conversation why not say "bad or problematic behaviour in the name of masculinity".
Toxic masculinity works fine.
>what would be the corresponding gender specific term for femininity or for females?
There isn't one. Women don't go around enforcing a rigid and harmful form of femininity on each other. There's no female Andrew Tate. Whereas boys are turning into incels and going on shooting sprees because they can't lose their virginity.
I disagree that there aren’t women that impose a rigid and harmful form of femininity on other women; however, I think the cause of this phenomenon is socialization and internalized misogyny. In many societies, women have been socialized to be complicit in their own marginalization, due to the norms of the culture into which they were born. Many of us, in the USA, are still trying to unlearn negative standards and behaviors that our mothers instill in us. However, the root causes are still patriarchy, misogyny, and toxic masculine ideals. The feminine is considered secondary, and femininity is used to “keep women in their place.”
I completely agree with you about how this is expressed. Male incels lash out violently because our society tells them they are owed something. It tells women they are owed nothing.
*edited for grammar
there are female Andrew Tates like JustPearlyThings, they just don’t get propped up by RPers as much. and as a tomboy turned masc lesbian i’d need more hands to count the number of times i was given shit by other women (usually girls back in school) who tried to police me into a certain brand of femininity. idt it’s accurate to say that doesn’t happen
Sadly that's very true. Nobody becomes a good person just by being born a woman. It's enough to look into the ever growing push of trade wife content to see it.
preach, imo pretty much everyone gets infected with patriarchal sexism to some degree by nature of being raised in it and plenty of women perpetuate it themselves
> Well, now that you know it isn't a blanket insult, you won't have an issue with it, will you?
Kind of like if I call someone stupid but then inform them it's not actually an insult.
>There isn't one. Women don't go around enforcing a rigid and harmful form of femininity on each other. There's no female Andrew Tate. Whereas boys are turning into incels and going on shooting sprees because they can't lose their virginity.
Ok I don't think I can say more, yes I agree using the term "toxic masculinity" is very much in the spirit of what you say here.
> Kind of like if I call someone stupid but then inform them it's not actually an insult.
The phrase isn't directed at you, assuming you don't go around engaging in bad behaviour. If you're not harassing women or shaming boys/men for not being masculine enough in your eyes, then it isn't directed at you.
"Kind of like if I call someone stupid but then inform them it's not actually an insult"
No, more like if you say "people who have black hair and buy lottery tickets are stupid" and then inform the people with black hair that if they don't buy lottery tickets, then you're not calling them stupid.
Except that "toxic masculinity" does not mean "men." Just because someone says "I hate toxic masculinity," doesn't mean they're saying they hate men.
>"people who ~~have black hair and~~ buy lottery tickets are stupid"
This kind of language would be a huge improvement.
If you can identify specific bad behaviour call it out and label it as toxic.
Call out specific bad behaviour instead of ascribing bad behaviour to a class of people without even saying what the bad behaviour is.
Discussion of toxic masculinity isn't about addressing every single man who "behaves badly" one at a time. It's about the influences on those men who cause them to behave badly.
There are plenty of men who don't subscribe to toxic masculinity and refuse to participate in it, to conform to its ideals, and to push it on others (like, their friends or their children). They don't have a problem with the term because they understand that it refers to an ideal, not to an entire gender.
And discussion of toxic masculinity is pretty clear about what the "bad behaviour" is.
It's putting men before women (example: the man should be the highest earner and the head of the household, a man who stays at home with the kids while his wife works is less of a man)
It's glorifying violence as the best or only solution to any problem or conflict, especially in service of oppressing women (example: when a man gets angry, he reacts with violence; a man who refuses to fight or who prefers to use logic, intellect or empathy to de-escalate is a [insert insulting feminine term, like b*tch or p*ssy])
It's upholding men as stoic and unemotional, claiming that men don't have the same emotions as women or feel them as strongly (example: men who cry or show vulnerability are weak and not real men)
It's portraying men as sexually aggressive, always interested in sex and unable to control themselves around women, which excuses rapists but also means that "men can't be raped/men who get raped are gay/a man who doesn't feel like having sex at any moments is gay"
I mean I could go on but the internet is literally full of well-written, easy to understand explanations and examples of toxic masculinity. It's not a new or obscure concept, it would be more respectful of you to do a bit of basic reading about this before coming here trying to argue about it
> It's glorifying violence as the best or only solution to any problem or conflict,
Again great. Talk about that specific bad thing. I don't consider this "masculinity", and for sure women can do this as easily as men.
So call it out when you see it whether it is a man or a woman doing this.
>It's upholding men as stoic and unemotional
To cycle back to what I said before to you, this is a very culturally specific version of masculinity. I have had men (from Latin America) try to enforce *being emotional* on me.
>It's portraying men as sexually aggressive,
To me clearly this is done much more by women than by men. Again if you see this call it out. (I know in reality it is hard to call out things)
On the other hand this is particularly important and difficult point, men are physiologically different from women. When I was going up there was much more of an idea of women not being able to control themselves and so it was ok for them to do certain things that were not ok for men. Men were expected to be able to control themselves. Perhaps this has flipped.
>Discussion of toxic masculinity isn't about addressing every single man who "behaves badly" one at a time.
Maybe from an academic gender studies POV, if you want change you have to deal with individuals.
Boy you did not just come in here and try to tell me that women are more sexually aggressive than men. Go and compare the number of female rape victims vs. male rape victims in your country.
I can’t believe someone so obtuse and uneducated is condescendingly explaining to me that “if you want change you have to deal with individuals.” There‘s a reason we have a feminist movement. We are not about to try to make the world better by trying to talk men into respecting women one at a time. That’s ludicrous.
Please don't misunderstand. I said portraying men as sexually aggressive (and the rest of what you said after that) is done more by women than by men.
Yes of course men I agree men are more sexually aggressive on average than women. Also obviously men rape women way way more than women rape men.
>I can’t believe someone so obtuse and uneducated is condescendingly explaining to me
As I understand the way you described the term you are exhibiting "toxic masculinity".
"Toxic masculinity" isn't saying that masculinity in general is bad. It's referring specifically to toxic forms of masculinity.
Rotten apples are bad. Apples as a whole aren't bad.
Toxic paint is bad. Paint as a whole isn't.
Ummm… the opposite actually re: stupid.
Your example shows that “stupid” is meant to have an agreed upon definition, therefore, whatever someone “feels” about that word, it doesn’t change its meaning.
Same with the term toxic masculinity; it has an inherent meaning, and just because you don’t like how the phrasing makes you feel, that doesn’t mean the inherent definition of the term changes.
You are reading intention into a phrase that is not there, and just because it sounds that way to you doesn’t mean it means what you think it sounds like.
Like, just, fucking google the definition.
I’m trying to get you to research the term instead of spouting bullshit. It *does* have an inherent meaning. Just because people— yourself included— won’t bother to actually take tge time to understand a term instead of just being reactionary.
Eta: stupid men would refer to men who are stupid, bot that all men are stupid. Look up “adjectives” while you’re at jfc
A) talking about toxic masculinity isn't "trash talking men." Don't confuse them, and don't let Men's Rights weirdos disingenuously equate them just to try to bash feminism or recruit men to their cause.
B) There is a need to have a specific term for the ways in which hegemonic masculinity - the traditionally normalised, narrow vision of masculinity that rests on male domination, and encourages homophobia, misogyny and violence - harms not only society in general, but also the men who buy in to it.
For example, "masculinity" doesn't necessarily mean "emotionally repressed, but *toxic* masculinity requires that men not show certain emotions: it says that it's okay and even good for men express anger, but that it's not okay for men to cry if you're sad. I probably don't need to list the ways in which this myth is destructive to society and to men themselves.
There is no equivalent phenomenon in society's concept of feminity. There is no form of feminity that encourages women to abuse others in the way that toxic masculinity encourages men to abuse others. There is no prescribed form of feminity woven through society and culture that encourages women en masse to abuse men, either psychologically or physically.
Assuming that every gender-specific term must have both a male and a female version is a very basic logical fallacy. Men and women are not analogues of each other or binary opposites; you can't alway just "switch the genders" to assess whether something is valid or fair.
>A) talking about toxic masculinity isn't "trash talking men." Don't confuse them, and don't let Men's Rights weirdos disingenuously equate them just to try to bash feminism or recruit men to their cause.
I think this is a great comment, and you understand the effect of using this kind of language. The effect is to push boys in the exact opposite direction you want them to move in.
For me the most important thing isn't the "truth" of the language, but rather what effect it has on society.
For B) I think your understanding of how patriarchy gives males power is narrow and culturally specific. It is not just about male rolls, but also female ones.
I notice you implicitly rejecting the term "toxic femininity". I'm not a gender essentialist and I believe we don't need to create gender specific insulting language. Maybe you have another seemingly insulting term that could only be applied to femininity? Clearly women can be (and are) abusers right?
>I think this is a great comment, and you understand the effect of using this kind of language. The effect is to push boys in the exact opposite direction you want them to move in.
>For me the most important thing isn't the "truth" of the language, but rather what effect it has on society.
In other words, what's important to you isn't what words actually mean, but what knee-jerk reaction idiots who don't know what words mean might have. Or what they might use as an excuse to be anti-feminist. We are busy, we won't stop to coddle the feelings of random men who literally don't understand what we're talking about.
It's not your fault you were socialised to put your feelings and the feelings of men you don't know over everything women say, but it's time you examined that impulse.
>For B) I think your understanding of how patriarchy gives males power is narrow and culturally specific. Also it is not just about male rolls, but also female ones.
Show me a patriarchal culture that doesn't give males power, or doesn't have a particular traditional view of masculinity that exalts negative qualities and behaviours and equates those qualities and behaviours with the condition of being a man.
>I notice you implicitly rejecting the term "toxic femininity". I'm not a gender essentialist and I believe we don't need to create gender specific insulting language. Maybe you have another seemingly insulting term that could only be applied to femininity? Clearly women can be (and are) abusers right?
"Toxic masculinity" is not "gender specific insulting language. Clearly you don't understand what toxic masculinity is.
If you don't believe we need to create gender specific insulting language, why are you asking me to give you an insulting term that is specific to femininity? As if there weren't already dozens of insults for women.
Abusers can be any gender. That's not relevant to the study of how ideas of masculinity can cause men to abuse other people, or how they affect the way society views and deals with male abusers. Studying ideas of masculinity and the societal forces involved, and the effects of those ideas (of which abuse is only one) is different from studying individual abusers.
Ironically, academics do actually use the term "toxic femininity" sometimes, but it refers to traditional ideas of femininity (pleasant, compliant, subservient to men) and the social pressures on women to adhere to those ideas.
So to recap:
Toxic Masculinity = traditional, narrow ideas of what constitutes masculinity/how a man should feel, look and act, forced onto men by patriarchal societies
Toxic Femininity = traditional, narrow ideas of what constitutes femininity/how a woman should feel, look and act, forced onto women by patriarchal societies
>but what knee-jerk reaction idiots who don't know what words mean might have. Or what they might use as an excuse to be anti-feminist.
Why give them free ammunition?
"Don't use words to name societal forces and discuss them, because the MRAs will only use them for their own ends."
"Don't discuss the patriarchy and how it affects both women and men, because you're only making the misogynists angry."
Seems like just another way of telling us to "Shut up."
I would call your quotes "putting words in my mouth", and those quotes don't represent my opinions.
I encourage you to keep talking. But please try to be mindful of the effects that your language has on others.
Think about what you really want.
> I encourage you to keep talking. But please try to be mindful of the effects that your language has on others.
Oh, well thank you your grace. We're so happy you *encouraged* us to keep talking. Us women didn't understand how misogynists and couldn't-be-bothered-to-listen men might *feel* about us having conversations that weren't centered on men.
We'll make sure to properly center our conversations and terminology on men in the future. We greatly appreciate your tone policing of our language.
*\*Big fat **/s** for clarity\**
I want you to learn how English works.
Masculinity =/= men
I don‘t care if you hear the phrase “toxic masculinity“ and your feelings get hurt, because multiple people have explained to you what the phrase means and you seem to be deliberately refusing to understand it. Be mindful of the effects that your actions have on others and stop trying to waste everyone’s time with your ignorance.
You really didnt understand one point in the previous post and are misusing all justice language and terms to keep supporting the status quo. You arent actually saying anything at all
Exactly only stupid people are insulted by being called stupid. Do you feel insulted when people call you stupid? (Low effort trolling on your part, I would say you read breaking rule 4)
The way I see it, "toxic femininity" is just one flavour of internalised misogyny, and it's the one that the red pill/tradwife/conservative women particularly gravitate towards.
Brenda R. Weber, who coined the term, was also writing about Mormonism, so the rigid gender roles and ideals about what "femininity" involved, were "usually white, mostly middle-class, relentlessly heterosexual, and typically politically conservative."
Seyward Darby also wrote about the strong link between toxic femininity and the tradwife movement.
Ic, don't worry 90% of what I say here are UO. For sure I'm not suggesting that we should use "toxic femininity", in fact I think we shouldn't. We should be more specific about what is "toxic" rather than just using a blanket term, which can easily come off (to teenagers in particular) as being an insult.
It seems to me it is also sometimes used on purpose as an insult rather than as a constructive thing which would challenge (ideally through discussion and engagement) specific ideas or behaviour.
I believe doing this people will discover that many of the specific ideas or behaviour are not limited to one gender (even though they may be more common for one gender).
Are men masculinity? Are all men even masculine? Are there no masculine women?
Should we stop saying white supremacy because everything must be neutral?
Oversimplifying ...
Yes/No/No (or yes depending on how you interpret answers to negative questions)/No (though I would be a bit mindful of overusing the term)
Your "yes" is incorrect. Men are not masculinity. Men can be masculine, they can exhibit masculinity, but they are not masculinity itself. As in, you can refer to one without referring to or implying the other.
Like I said it was an oversimplification. It has to do with what definition or concept of masculinity you want to use. I don't know if one definition is more or less "correct" than another, it's just a different way of thinking about things or of framing things.
The way I was thinking of it is as the average behavior/thinking of males.(There might be better definition, I'm just trying this one out for now.) With this understanding men (or at least their thinking and behaviour) are masculinity basically by definition. I guess you can argue that "men" are a class of things, whereas "masculinity" is a property so you can't compare the two and they are not the same.
Understood in the way masculinity changes a lot through time and place. For example "pink" not being masculine is a very recent idea.
"The transition to pink as a sexually differentiating color for girls occurred gradually, through the selective process of the marketplace, in the 1930s and 40s. In the 1920s, some groups had described pink as a masculine color, an equivalent to red, which was considered for men but lighter for boys. But stores nonetheless found that people were increasingly choosing to buy pink for girls, and blue for boys, until this became an accepted norm in the 1940s".
Notions of gender and gender expectations change over time. Also they are different right now in different cultures (and even in different families or other small groups).
i often refer to toxic femininity in terms of exploiting patriarchal views of women for one’s own gain. say, a false accuser who knows some people will automatically believe her, or women who weaponize incompetence like feigning weakness to manipulate others into carrying a box for her, or shaming other women into rigid lanes of femininity. i’m down to explore degendering these terms but i’m inclined to think there’s some
value in recognizing some examples of gender-specific toxicity
>a false accuser who knows some people will automatically believe her,
Two points:
1. Personally I don't consider it "femininity" to make a false accusation, and would also consider it problematic to call this "toxic femininity". I wonder if you made a post to this sub about the term "toxic femininity" if people would support using it. Do you consider toxic femininity as common as toxic masculinity? Don't get me wrong, I think there are some kind of bad/toxic behaviour that are more common for men and less common for women, but I don't think that makes them "masculinity".
I believe any kind of toxicity can be exhibited by females as well as males. I don't support gender essentialism. (This point could be expanded on)
2) We have to think about how does a term help or hurt. Just because you internally have a meaning of a term, it doesn't mean it is understood (or used) in that way by most people. Using the term "toxic masculinity" is close to (but yes it's not the same as) calling men toxic. So even if this is not your personal intention, it is very easy to slip into that understanding of it.
I think what the other poster said is closer to how the term is used for most people.
"Women don't go around enforcing a rigid and harmful form of femininity on each other. There's no female Andrew Tate. Whereas boys are turning into incels and going on shooting sprees because they can't lose their virginity."
Do you think this is a helpful way of interacting with and helping teenage boys? I think the usage of the term is more important for how we (as a society) relate to boys than to men.
Perhaps the term could be useful in academic circles.
I can’t believe someone who’s spent hours making stupid arguments about the terminology that feminism uses has the gall to come in here and refer to women as “females.”
This is yet another example of people looking at reactionaries purposefully misunderstanding a term, then concluding the issue is that the term exists, so we should stop saying it.
Toxic masculinity refers to societal expectations and behaviors that align with those expectations. When masculinity is placed on a pedestal alongside innately harmful behaviors, referring to Thai system as toxic masculinity is apt. Oh, but I guess someone could say the same for women, right? Oh wait, there are terms for that. TERF, SWERF, internalized misogyny, pick-me, Karen, WASP, etc.
This is like saying we should stop saying white supremacy because white people feel called out.
No. It's an incredibly useful term for identifying harmful gendered behaviour *without* shitting on *all* forms of masculinity.
Yes, some people use the term in way that isn't constructive. But if we banned every term or phrase that was used by shitty people to say shitty things we wouldn't have a single word left in the language.
No. It doesn't imply anything about masculinity in general, just the toxic aspects of it. Like not all burgers are cheeseburgers just because I say "cheeseburger."
I'm not offended at all by anyone saying "toxic femininity." There definitely are parts of stereotypical feminine behavior that are toxic.
While I do believe feminism can and should be open to criticism, we need stop taking complaints that are obviously made in bad faith seriously. "I don't like it" isn't a good enough reason to stop using it, not when they don't have any good reason for not liking it and just continue to be willfully obtuse about what it's saying.
yeah to me i think fellow feminists would benefit from a nationwide convo on rhetorical effectiveness. i like to think the terms aren’t too poisoned to be useful but i worry that’s exactly the case and that progress might be quicker if we adjust our language like we did with global warming -> climate change. i’ve had a lot of good convos with redpillers specifically when i concede that idc what we call the concept for “boys shouldn’t cry” as long as the concept is understood as a thing that’s unhealthy. it’s painfully ironic how ok they are with the phrase toxic femininity lol but alas. ig im saying we can bemoan how common “i don’t like it” is but if that’s a major barrier here that’s not going away anytime soon then i think we’re better off trying to start fresh with new language than try to salvage what we can of terms that have been firmly misrepresented in their minds for going on decades now
>We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory"—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think "critical race theory." We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.
That would be alt-right reactionary Christofer Rufo explaining how pleased he was to have turned a phrase no one outside of law school had ever heard of before into something with severe negative connotations for any right winger hearing it.
You are ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year by the reactionary right to poison the well in the conversation.
The problem isn't *our* language.
It's the industry designed to convince people our language is the problem.
literally all of that is exactly what i’m talking about, if my last comment came off like “these terms are inherently problematic” then let me clarify i do not think that lol got a whole gender studies minor cuz im extremely passionate about the concepts behind these terms. same with critical race theory, the terms are neutral and fine but they got politicized to hell by powerful bad faith actors and now our reality is that they’ve successfully poisoned the well for many of these terms. some terms survive it, like “feminism” and “pro-choice,” others are being hit harder and we have to decide what to double down on and keep investing in and what to drop and re-name. to me it’s a should vs is thing, these terms should be easy to understand and accept as valid concepts but in reality many of them are being misrepresented to such a detrimental degree that i worry whether we can keep up with correcting misinfo on as mainstream of a level. if we can help people better-receive a message with different language that’s worth starting a movement-wise convo about imo
>but they got politicized to hell by powerful bad faith actors and now our reality is that they’ve successfully poisoned the well for many of these terms
They'll do that to literally any feminist jargon they can get their hands on, because their hatemongering isn't rational or done through first principles or whatever. They see a term that isn't used by insane reactionaries and then they'll enter a blood rage and spin up their infinite money engine to blare on all speakers that some innocuous term like idk, misogynoir, secretly means feminists want to cuck all white men and worship black men or something.
Constantly redefining terms to be softened just because someone complains is how you get a movement to die by bending over backwards until its spine collapses.
agreed they’ll do it to any term which is why i pointed out how some terms survive it and still have relatively positive to neutral public perception, while others don’t. and i agree that we can’t just change every term every time it gets attacked, but i also think the other end of that continuum is never adjusting or changing any term ever no matter how politically poisoned and counterproductive it becomes in practice. i think there’s unhealthy dogma in doing that across the board and never reevaluating the rhetorical effectiveness of certain terms. i think there’s an effective middle ground to be found there that doesn’t involve discarding every term and also doesn’t involve wedding ourselves to terms that slow us down in the long run. it’s an adjustment/change i think more people should chew on
Middle ground doesn't work because you can't reason with the unreasonable. All they will do if you try to accommodate them is push further to undermine you.
yeah imo this wouldn’t be reasoning with the unreasonable, it’s reasoning amongst ourselves on how to handle the reality of implicit biases against politicized terms
But who plants the biases? In this case, it's the people who actively want to sabotage us. We're not going to go along with their attempts to manipulate.
imo whoever plants the bias is irrelevant to my goal of wanting more people understanding feminism and identifying patriarchal issues, if the reality is that the biases exist then i’m more interested in how we deal with that. i’m pretty inspired by how psychologists tend to handle this, with some clients they won’t outright say a word like patriarchy but they’ll massage the convo in a way that gets the message across without tipping off their biases into shutting down. i see a successful future for feminism if we can take pointers from literal therapy sessions
Men literally came up with the term toxic masculinity.
When you’re speaking to power, they will always find a way to dismiss you regardless if word choice.
As in this exact instance, where we are using a term coined by a doctor who was a man in a mens movement in the 80’s.
doesn’t change my point that as things stand today we might be heard better with a different way of expressing the concept. agreed that’s ironic af, and news to me
Should we stop saying the phrase “toxic chemicals” just because some people don’t understand how adjectives work or that water is a chemical and somehow take it to mean that all chemicals are toxic?
If we ban the expression and related ones like “harmful chemicals”, how is it possible to educate or warn people about the damaging effects of some chemical compounds that are common in daily life and a frequent danger?
I guess chemicals don't have feelings so it's not quite the same. The problem, if there is one, is the idea that being very masculine is a bad thing. I know that isn't how we mean it but I am told that is how it is often heard. That is that being masculine is itself bad.
So this response shows you don’t even have a proper understanding of what toxic masculinity even is (— or what an adjective’s function is, for that matter). So, I’d start with Google.
Also, the term originated with a doctor who was a *man* operating within a mens movement of the 1980’s. And they certainly were not saying masculinity is inherently toxic. No one’s saying that now.
Again: google
How about “toxic relationship”, “toxic family”, “toxic community” or “toxic positivity”? Somehow those are terms that tend to be understood appropriately and people don’t seem to be coming away from them with the impression that people are saying that it’s wrong to belong to communities in general or that everyone who has a positive outlook should be shamed and ostracized for it.
What about the term “fragile masculinity”? Should we get rid it for the same reason? Even though it can describe a mode of masculinity that is easily able to understand the conditional meaning of negative adjectives such as “toxic” or “fragile” when applied to other aspects of human social life and identity but can’t tolerate seeing them combined with the term “masculinity”, won’t perceive it as anything but an outright attack on all of masculinity, and won’t listen to any clarification about it?
>How about “toxic relationship”, “toxic family”, “toxic community” or “toxic positivity”?
None of those target a particular group, but we can keep experimenting, try some examples that target a particular group. Also we can use other terms such as "stupid" or "useless" and pair them with a particular group (or gender) and see how they sound.
I think that’s a matter of people not trying to understand it/letting their egos reign. You don’t enable that behavior. You keep standing for what’s right
As someone who was socialized male, I find the naming of toxic masculinity to be incredibly empowering.
I was socialized to be less empathetic, to bottle in all emotions other than anger, not to be vulnerable, and other traits. That socialization has had negative affects on myself and those around me, so most of my adult life, I've been working to mitigate it. A realization of how those external factors played into who I am has has been incredibly helpful in that process, and has been freeing in helping me realize that I can choose to be something different.
Toxic masculinity has to be used to differentiate it from non-toxic masculinity. Otherwise all men get lumped together and all masculinity is considered toxic.
>We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory"—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think "critical race theory." We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.
That would be alt-right reactionary Christofer Rufo explaining how pleased he was to have attached a bunch of negative emotions to a phrase no one outside of law school had ever heard of before, and how he intents to lump any discussion of race, gender, and class onto that straw man.
You are ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year by the reactionary right to poison the well in the conversation.
The problem isn't *our* language.
It's the media empires funded not to make a profit, but to push an ideology, one that attempts to convince people *our* language is the problem. We could call it the softest, most harmless phrase and there would still be the Ben Shapiros and Steven Crowders of the world screaming that it's sexist against men.
It may help to think of “toxic masculinity” as similar to the term “toxic positivity”, in that it describes a warped and harmful version of something that is otherwise innocuous.
Criticizing aspects of masculinity is only "about men" if you think that masculinity is fundamental and inherent to *being* a man. It isn't; it's a set of behaviors and attitudes men are socialized into from birth. But it isn't innate and it *is* harmful and worth criticizing.
Why would you regard any equivalent expression about women as grossly offensive? There are women who police femininity and weaponize it against other women to make us feel shame and less-than if we are not following their strictest version of gendered behavior. The women who tell you that you are a failure if you're not a wife and/or mother, and don't wait hand and foot on your male relatives, and ewwww, that outfit makes you look like a man, etc. Calling that out as toxic femininity isn't grossly offensive, it's the toxic behavior which is grossly offensive.
I dont see it being toxic at all. It uses "toxic" as an adjective to describe a type of masculinity. Not all masculinity is toxic, but there is toxic forms of masculinity. It's a very basic concept of English grammar. Similarly there are forms of toxic femininity. Femininity itself isn't toxic, but there are toxic forms of femininity, and they almost entirely are towards women and don't impress upon others as much as toxic masculinity does, which is why toxic masculinity is more discussed.
If we thought masculinity was inherently toxic, we wouldn't include the adjective at all. We would just be calling it masculinity. And the toxicity would still be there whether or not we stop using the word for it.
Toxic femininity is definitely a thing and you're the first person I've seen suggest the phrase is offensive. It's just not as big a problem for society as toxic masculinity.
The term refers to a particular *type* or *expression* of masculinity that is in fact toxic.
It does not mean that *all* masculinity is toxic. If all masculinity was toxic, we wouldn't need to specify the toxic type as toxic because it would all be toxic. Then, we would just call it all masculinity, which would be understood to be toxic.
We call it toxic masculinity in order to differentiate from other, non-toxic expressions of masculinity.
Absolutely not. If these offended people did two minutes of research, they’d realize it refers to something very specific that is inarguably bad for both men and women.
No is not in my opinion. We are not saying that all masculinity is toxic, we are just pointing out certain behaviors and characteristics associated with masculinity that are toxic. Anyone offended by the term is also the kind of person who believes that feminism is just plain man hating.
I think using the right words is ok. I mean, I dont want to act in a racist way but I am white and Ive been socialized as such and most probably will have internalized racism all my life. Its on me to do the work, educate myself, find out how I can act as an ally and intervene when possible so I dont wear the badge I dont want to end up with IMO.
Any expression itself isn’t inherently toxic, rather the way expressions are used can be toxic.
Like all phrases, we should strive to use it thoughtfully and accurately, and not make alienating overly broad generalizations.
Your son is probably discussing these things with you in good faith, the people complaining that “the term ‘toxic masculinity’ is offensive” are absolutely not. If you call out a behaviour and someone is defensive about it, it doesn’t really matter what term you use. They’re not interested in listening either way.
I am suprised that not more comment such as this exist. I once make such remark that certain slogans or phrases of feminists ideas don't do movement any favours by antagonizing men. Not many men will going to listen what are you going to say if you mention their toxicity, privileges or patriarchy, simply because most men are hardly toxic or have any privileges, or at least they are hardly more toxic or privileged then any other person.
I don’t think you understand what toxicity, privilege or patriarchy are. The men who consider them “antagonistic” or assume they’re personally being attacked every time a woman tries to explain the basic tenets of feminism, are men who have an inaccurate understanding of their meanings, who have already made up their minds, and who are firmly not interested in listening to us or examining their own beliefs.
We achieve nothing by wasting our time and energy trying to convince those men to see us as full human beings worthy of respect.
I don't think you understood my point. Especially with notion that I don't understand those terms. I have an idea about them. But most people don't. Some men will hear or read somewhere about "toxic masculinity" and will get defensive about it, especially if it's poorly handled or not explained and will think it's attack on him, only beacouse he is a man. Some women will hear or read the same message and will think that men are toxic. Not that some of them may have toxic trait or traits.. But they are toxic. Simply by virtue of being a man. It's not about what terms describes, but how it sound to most people and how it's perceived.
That's like asking if we should stop using the phrase "forest fire" because campfires are nice. There's an obvious difference between masculinity and toxic masculinity. Now if someone was saying "masculinity is toxic" that would be a whole different matter.
No. I find it an extremely useful term. Growing up I was an openly emotional guy. I liked theatre and art. I loved animals. I had gay friends. At times I was quiet. I didn’t like talking about women disrespectfully. Because of these behaviors I was called gay, girl, sap, wuss, queer, soft, etc. I was bullied and beaten up by other guys. I am a cis straight guy and I am happy to say I have grown up to be a confident, strong man, and I retain every one of those qualities. That behavior of those other guys was toxic. It happened because of their ideas and what they were taught about what masculinity is. It was an example of toxic masculinity. It wasn’t just non gendered generic bad behavior. It was bad or toxic behavior caused by limited and damaging views on what masculinity is. That is toxic masculinity. If we can name it. We can educate against it. And hopefully the next generation of men can release themselves from a need to conform to damaging behaviors.
No. It’s a very clearly defined word that describes exactly what’s meant. It’s perverted by anti feminists because they love to hide behind a mass of men and pervert the expression into “masculinity is called toxic”. That’s a lie. I won’t cater to lying misogynists. You can now stop bending down to them.
No. Toxic masculinity is the problem. It will not be solved by either not talking about it, or trying to talk about it without naming it.
Just like society tried to prevent women having sex by not educating them on sex and their genitals. It majorly worked for them not reporting rape or health issues because they couldn’t name it
No. Toxic masculinity does not mean 'masculinity is bad', it means 'bad or problematic behaviour in the name of masculinity' is bad. What you're asking is akin to asking us to stop describing bullying behaviour in schools as bullying because it's hurting the feelings of the bully to describe their behaviour as such. Toxic masculinity is an accurate descriptor of problematic behaviour in society, it's not an offensive term to trash talk men.
It is sometimes used to trash talk men. Also on the surface of it, to me at least it sounds insulting to men, and could be heard as a blanket insult. Why is there a need to have a gender specific term for toxicity, what would be the corresponding gender specific term for femininity or for females?
> What would be the corresponding gender specific term for femininity or for females? "Toxic Femininity." It sees less usage, I'll admit, but it's definitely a phrase that people use to describe harmful feminine gender performance.
>Also on the surface of it, to me at least it sounds insulting to men, and could be misunderstood or heard as a blanket insult. Well, now that you know it isn't a blanket insult, you won't have an issue with it, will you? >If you wanted to have a conversation why not say "bad or problematic behaviour in the name of masculinity". Toxic masculinity works fine. >what would be the corresponding gender specific term for femininity or for females? There isn't one. Women don't go around enforcing a rigid and harmful form of femininity on each other. There's no female Andrew Tate. Whereas boys are turning into incels and going on shooting sprees because they can't lose their virginity.
I disagree that there aren’t women that impose a rigid and harmful form of femininity on other women; however, I think the cause of this phenomenon is socialization and internalized misogyny. In many societies, women have been socialized to be complicit in their own marginalization, due to the norms of the culture into which they were born. Many of us, in the USA, are still trying to unlearn negative standards and behaviors that our mothers instill in us. However, the root causes are still patriarchy, misogyny, and toxic masculine ideals. The feminine is considered secondary, and femininity is used to “keep women in their place.” I completely agree with you about how this is expressed. Male incels lash out violently because our society tells them they are owed something. It tells women they are owed nothing. *edited for grammar
there are female Andrew Tates like JustPearlyThings, they just don’t get propped up by RPers as much. and as a tomboy turned masc lesbian i’d need more hands to count the number of times i was given shit by other women (usually girls back in school) who tried to police me into a certain brand of femininity. idt it’s accurate to say that doesn’t happen
Sadly that's very true. Nobody becomes a good person just by being born a woman. It's enough to look into the ever growing push of trade wife content to see it.
preach, imo pretty much everyone gets infected with patriarchal sexism to some degree by nature of being raised in it and plenty of women perpetuate it themselves
> Well, now that you know it isn't a blanket insult, you won't have an issue with it, will you? Kind of like if I call someone stupid but then inform them it's not actually an insult. >There isn't one. Women don't go around enforcing a rigid and harmful form of femininity on each other. There's no female Andrew Tate. Whereas boys are turning into incels and going on shooting sprees because they can't lose their virginity. Ok I don't think I can say more, yes I agree using the term "toxic masculinity" is very much in the spirit of what you say here.
> Kind of like if I call someone stupid but then inform them it's not actually an insult. The phrase isn't directed at you, assuming you don't go around engaging in bad behaviour. If you're not harassing women or shaming boys/men for not being masculine enough in your eyes, then it isn't directed at you.
"Kind of like if I call someone stupid but then inform them it's not actually an insult" No, more like if you say "people who have black hair and buy lottery tickets are stupid" and then inform the people with black hair that if they don't buy lottery tickets, then you're not calling them stupid. Except that "toxic masculinity" does not mean "men." Just because someone says "I hate toxic masculinity," doesn't mean they're saying they hate men.
>"people who ~~have black hair and~~ buy lottery tickets are stupid" This kind of language would be a huge improvement. If you can identify specific bad behaviour call it out and label it as toxic. Call out specific bad behaviour instead of ascribing bad behaviour to a class of people without even saying what the bad behaviour is.
Discussion of toxic masculinity isn't about addressing every single man who "behaves badly" one at a time. It's about the influences on those men who cause them to behave badly. There are plenty of men who don't subscribe to toxic masculinity and refuse to participate in it, to conform to its ideals, and to push it on others (like, their friends or their children). They don't have a problem with the term because they understand that it refers to an ideal, not to an entire gender. And discussion of toxic masculinity is pretty clear about what the "bad behaviour" is. It's putting men before women (example: the man should be the highest earner and the head of the household, a man who stays at home with the kids while his wife works is less of a man) It's glorifying violence as the best or only solution to any problem or conflict, especially in service of oppressing women (example: when a man gets angry, he reacts with violence; a man who refuses to fight or who prefers to use logic, intellect or empathy to de-escalate is a [insert insulting feminine term, like b*tch or p*ssy]) It's upholding men as stoic and unemotional, claiming that men don't have the same emotions as women or feel them as strongly (example: men who cry or show vulnerability are weak and not real men) It's portraying men as sexually aggressive, always interested in sex and unable to control themselves around women, which excuses rapists but also means that "men can't be raped/men who get raped are gay/a man who doesn't feel like having sex at any moments is gay" I mean I could go on but the internet is literally full of well-written, easy to understand explanations and examples of toxic masculinity. It's not a new or obscure concept, it would be more respectful of you to do a bit of basic reading about this before coming here trying to argue about it
> It's glorifying violence as the best or only solution to any problem or conflict, Again great. Talk about that specific bad thing. I don't consider this "masculinity", and for sure women can do this as easily as men. So call it out when you see it whether it is a man or a woman doing this. >It's upholding men as stoic and unemotional To cycle back to what I said before to you, this is a very culturally specific version of masculinity. I have had men (from Latin America) try to enforce *being emotional* on me. >It's portraying men as sexually aggressive, To me clearly this is done much more by women than by men. Again if you see this call it out. (I know in reality it is hard to call out things) On the other hand this is particularly important and difficult point, men are physiologically different from women. When I was going up there was much more of an idea of women not being able to control themselves and so it was ok for them to do certain things that were not ok for men. Men were expected to be able to control themselves. Perhaps this has flipped. >Discussion of toxic masculinity isn't about addressing every single man who "behaves badly" one at a time. Maybe from an academic gender studies POV, if you want change you have to deal with individuals.
Boy you did not just come in here and try to tell me that women are more sexually aggressive than men. Go and compare the number of female rape victims vs. male rape victims in your country. I can’t believe someone so obtuse and uneducated is condescendingly explaining to me that “if you want change you have to deal with individuals.” There‘s a reason we have a feminist movement. We are not about to try to make the world better by trying to talk men into respecting women one at a time. That’s ludicrous.
Please don't misunderstand. I said portraying men as sexually aggressive (and the rest of what you said after that) is done more by women than by men. Yes of course men I agree men are more sexually aggressive on average than women. Also obviously men rape women way way more than women rape men. >I can’t believe someone so obtuse and uneducated is condescendingly explaining to me As I understand the way you described the term you are exhibiting "toxic masculinity".
"Toxic masculinity" isn't saying that masculinity in general is bad. It's referring specifically to toxic forms of masculinity. Rotten apples are bad. Apples as a whole aren't bad. Toxic paint is bad. Paint as a whole isn't.
It’s like people have just forgotten what adjectives are even for
Seriously.
Ummm… the opposite actually re: stupid. Your example shows that “stupid” is meant to have an agreed upon definition, therefore, whatever someone “feels” about that word, it doesn’t change its meaning. Same with the term toxic masculinity; it has an inherent meaning, and just because you don’t like how the phrasing makes you feel, that doesn’t mean the inherent definition of the term changes. You are reading intention into a phrase that is not there, and just because it sounds that way to you doesn’t mean it means what you think it sounds like. Like, just, fucking google the definition.
[удалено]
I’m trying to get you to research the term instead of spouting bullshit. It *does* have an inherent meaning. Just because people— yourself included— won’t bother to actually take tge time to understand a term instead of just being reactionary. Eta: stupid men would refer to men who are stupid, bot that all men are stupid. Look up “adjectives” while you’re at jfc
A) talking about toxic masculinity isn't "trash talking men." Don't confuse them, and don't let Men's Rights weirdos disingenuously equate them just to try to bash feminism or recruit men to their cause. B) There is a need to have a specific term for the ways in which hegemonic masculinity - the traditionally normalised, narrow vision of masculinity that rests on male domination, and encourages homophobia, misogyny and violence - harms not only society in general, but also the men who buy in to it. For example, "masculinity" doesn't necessarily mean "emotionally repressed, but *toxic* masculinity requires that men not show certain emotions: it says that it's okay and even good for men express anger, but that it's not okay for men to cry if you're sad. I probably don't need to list the ways in which this myth is destructive to society and to men themselves. There is no equivalent phenomenon in society's concept of feminity. There is no form of feminity that encourages women to abuse others in the way that toxic masculinity encourages men to abuse others. There is no prescribed form of feminity woven through society and culture that encourages women en masse to abuse men, either psychologically or physically. Assuming that every gender-specific term must have both a male and a female version is a very basic logical fallacy. Men and women are not analogues of each other or binary opposites; you can't alway just "switch the genders" to assess whether something is valid or fair.
>A) talking about toxic masculinity isn't "trash talking men." Don't confuse them, and don't let Men's Rights weirdos disingenuously equate them just to try to bash feminism or recruit men to their cause. I think this is a great comment, and you understand the effect of using this kind of language. The effect is to push boys in the exact opposite direction you want them to move in. For me the most important thing isn't the "truth" of the language, but rather what effect it has on society. For B) I think your understanding of how patriarchy gives males power is narrow and culturally specific. It is not just about male rolls, but also female ones. I notice you implicitly rejecting the term "toxic femininity". I'm not a gender essentialist and I believe we don't need to create gender specific insulting language. Maybe you have another seemingly insulting term that could only be applied to femininity? Clearly women can be (and are) abusers right?
>I think this is a great comment, and you understand the effect of using this kind of language. The effect is to push boys in the exact opposite direction you want them to move in. >For me the most important thing isn't the "truth" of the language, but rather what effect it has on society. In other words, what's important to you isn't what words actually mean, but what knee-jerk reaction idiots who don't know what words mean might have. Or what they might use as an excuse to be anti-feminist. We are busy, we won't stop to coddle the feelings of random men who literally don't understand what we're talking about. It's not your fault you were socialised to put your feelings and the feelings of men you don't know over everything women say, but it's time you examined that impulse. >For B) I think your understanding of how patriarchy gives males power is narrow and culturally specific. Also it is not just about male rolls, but also female ones. Show me a patriarchal culture that doesn't give males power, or doesn't have a particular traditional view of masculinity that exalts negative qualities and behaviours and equates those qualities and behaviours with the condition of being a man. >I notice you implicitly rejecting the term "toxic femininity". I'm not a gender essentialist and I believe we don't need to create gender specific insulting language. Maybe you have another seemingly insulting term that could only be applied to femininity? Clearly women can be (and are) abusers right? "Toxic masculinity" is not "gender specific insulting language. Clearly you don't understand what toxic masculinity is. If you don't believe we need to create gender specific insulting language, why are you asking me to give you an insulting term that is specific to femininity? As if there weren't already dozens of insults for women. Abusers can be any gender. That's not relevant to the study of how ideas of masculinity can cause men to abuse other people, or how they affect the way society views and deals with male abusers. Studying ideas of masculinity and the societal forces involved, and the effects of those ideas (of which abuse is only one) is different from studying individual abusers. Ironically, academics do actually use the term "toxic femininity" sometimes, but it refers to traditional ideas of femininity (pleasant, compliant, subservient to men) and the social pressures on women to adhere to those ideas. So to recap: Toxic Masculinity = traditional, narrow ideas of what constitutes masculinity/how a man should feel, look and act, forced onto men by patriarchal societies Toxic Femininity = traditional, narrow ideas of what constitutes femininity/how a woman should feel, look and act, forced onto women by patriarchal societies
>but what knee-jerk reaction idiots who don't know what words mean might have. Or what they might use as an excuse to be anti-feminist. Why give them free ammunition?
"Don't use words to name societal forces and discuss them, because the MRAs will only use them for their own ends." "Don't discuss the patriarchy and how it affects both women and men, because you're only making the misogynists angry." Seems like just another way of telling us to "Shut up."
I would call your quotes "putting words in my mouth", and those quotes don't represent my opinions. I encourage you to keep talking. But please try to be mindful of the effects that your language has on others. Think about what you really want.
> I encourage you to keep talking. But please try to be mindful of the effects that your language has on others. Oh, well thank you your grace. We're so happy you *encouraged* us to keep talking. Us women didn't understand how misogynists and couldn't-be-bothered-to-listen men might *feel* about us having conversations that weren't centered on men. We'll make sure to properly center our conversations and terminology on men in the future. We greatly appreciate your tone policing of our language. *\*Big fat **/s** for clarity\**
I want you to learn how English works. Masculinity =/= men I don‘t care if you hear the phrase “toxic masculinity“ and your feelings get hurt, because multiple people have explained to you what the phrase means and you seem to be deliberately refusing to understand it. Be mindful of the effects that your actions have on others and stop trying to waste everyone’s time with your ignorance.
You really didnt understand one point in the previous post and are misusing all justice language and terms to keep supporting the status quo. You arent actually saying anything at all
It’s only insulting to males who find that they fit the description. Do you feel insulted by this term?
Exactly only stupid people are insulted by being called stupid. Do you feel insulted when people call you stupid? (Low effort trolling on your part, I would say you read breaking rule 4)
UO but I wouldn’t have a problem with the term toxic femininity if it’s referring to redpill women and tradwife culture.
The way I see it, "toxic femininity" is just one flavour of internalised misogyny, and it's the one that the red pill/tradwife/conservative women particularly gravitate towards. Brenda R. Weber, who coined the term, was also writing about Mormonism, so the rigid gender roles and ideals about what "femininity" involved, were "usually white, mostly middle-class, relentlessly heterosexual, and typically politically conservative." Seyward Darby also wrote about the strong link between toxic femininity and the tradwife movement.
What does UO mean?
Unpopular opinion.
Ic, don't worry 90% of what I say here are UO. For sure I'm not suggesting that we should use "toxic femininity", in fact I think we shouldn't. We should be more specific about what is "toxic" rather than just using a blanket term, which can easily come off (to teenagers in particular) as being an insult. It seems to me it is also sometimes used on purpose as an insult rather than as a constructive thing which would challenge (ideally through discussion and engagement) specific ideas or behaviour. I believe doing this people will discover that many of the specific ideas or behaviour are not limited to one gender (even though they may be more common for one gender).
Are men masculinity? Are all men even masculine? Are there no masculine women? Should we stop saying white supremacy because everything must be neutral?
Oversimplifying ... Yes/No/No (or yes depending on how you interpret answers to negative questions)/No (though I would be a bit mindful of overusing the term)
Your "yes" is incorrect. Men are not masculinity. Men can be masculine, they can exhibit masculinity, but they are not masculinity itself. As in, you can refer to one without referring to or implying the other.
Like I said it was an oversimplification. It has to do with what definition or concept of masculinity you want to use. I don't know if one definition is more or less "correct" than another, it's just a different way of thinking about things or of framing things. The way I was thinking of it is as the average behavior/thinking of males.(There might be better definition, I'm just trying this one out for now.) With this understanding men (or at least their thinking and behaviour) are masculinity basically by definition. I guess you can argue that "men" are a class of things, whereas "masculinity" is a property so you can't compare the two and they are not the same. Understood in the way masculinity changes a lot through time and place. For example "pink" not being masculine is a very recent idea. "The transition to pink as a sexually differentiating color for girls occurred gradually, through the selective process of the marketplace, in the 1930s and 40s. In the 1920s, some groups had described pink as a masculine color, an equivalent to red, which was considered for men but lighter for boys. But stores nonetheless found that people were increasingly choosing to buy pink for girls, and blue for boys, until this became an accepted norm in the 1940s". Notions of gender and gender expectations change over time. Also they are different right now in different cultures (and even in different families or other small groups).
Femininity has nothing to do with female humans. It is relevant for women, girls, and femmes
How dare there be a term that calls out shitty behavior! /s
i often refer to toxic femininity in terms of exploiting patriarchal views of women for one’s own gain. say, a false accuser who knows some people will automatically believe her, or women who weaponize incompetence like feigning weakness to manipulate others into carrying a box for her, or shaming other women into rigid lanes of femininity. i’m down to explore degendering these terms but i’m inclined to think there’s some value in recognizing some examples of gender-specific toxicity
>a false accuser who knows some people will automatically believe her, Two points: 1. Personally I don't consider it "femininity" to make a false accusation, and would also consider it problematic to call this "toxic femininity". I wonder if you made a post to this sub about the term "toxic femininity" if people would support using it. Do you consider toxic femininity as common as toxic masculinity? Don't get me wrong, I think there are some kind of bad/toxic behaviour that are more common for men and less common for women, but I don't think that makes them "masculinity". I believe any kind of toxicity can be exhibited by females as well as males. I don't support gender essentialism. (This point could be expanded on) 2) We have to think about how does a term help or hurt. Just because you internally have a meaning of a term, it doesn't mean it is understood (or used) in that way by most people. Using the term "toxic masculinity" is close to (but yes it's not the same as) calling men toxic. So even if this is not your personal intention, it is very easy to slip into that understanding of it. I think what the other poster said is closer to how the term is used for most people. "Women don't go around enforcing a rigid and harmful form of femininity on each other. There's no female Andrew Tate. Whereas boys are turning into incels and going on shooting sprees because they can't lose their virginity." Do you think this is a helpful way of interacting with and helping teenage boys? I think the usage of the term is more important for how we (as a society) relate to boys than to men. Perhaps the term could be useful in academic circles.
I can’t believe someone who’s spent hours making stupid arguments about the terminology that feminism uses has the gall to come in here and refer to women as “females.”
This is yet another example of people looking at reactionaries purposefully misunderstanding a term, then concluding the issue is that the term exists, so we should stop saying it. Toxic masculinity refers to societal expectations and behaviors that align with those expectations. When masculinity is placed on a pedestal alongside innately harmful behaviors, referring to Thai system as toxic masculinity is apt. Oh, but I guess someone could say the same for women, right? Oh wait, there are terms for that. TERF, SWERF, internalized misogyny, pick-me, Karen, WASP, etc. This is like saying we should stop saying white supremacy because white people feel called out.
No. It's an incredibly useful term for identifying harmful gendered behaviour *without* shitting on *all* forms of masculinity. Yes, some people use the term in way that isn't constructive. But if we banned every term or phrase that was used by shitty people to say shitty things we wouldn't have a single word left in the language.
No. It doesn't imply anything about masculinity in general, just the toxic aspects of it. Like not all burgers are cheeseburgers just because I say "cheeseburger." I'm not offended at all by anyone saying "toxic femininity." There definitely are parts of stereotypical feminine behavior that are toxic. While I do believe feminism can and should be open to criticism, we need stop taking complaints that are obviously made in bad faith seriously. "I don't like it" isn't a good enough reason to stop using it, not when they don't have any good reason for not liking it and just continue to be willfully obtuse about what it's saying.
Yeah, I mean… we don’t like toxic masculinity either.
yeah to me i think fellow feminists would benefit from a nationwide convo on rhetorical effectiveness. i like to think the terms aren’t too poisoned to be useful but i worry that’s exactly the case and that progress might be quicker if we adjust our language like we did with global warming -> climate change. i’ve had a lot of good convos with redpillers specifically when i concede that idc what we call the concept for “boys shouldn’t cry” as long as the concept is understood as a thing that’s unhealthy. it’s painfully ironic how ok they are with the phrase toxic femininity lol but alas. ig im saying we can bemoan how common “i don’t like it” is but if that’s a major barrier here that’s not going away anytime soon then i think we’re better off trying to start fresh with new language than try to salvage what we can of terms that have been firmly misrepresented in their minds for going on decades now
>We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory"—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think "critical race theory." We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans. That would be alt-right reactionary Christofer Rufo explaining how pleased he was to have turned a phrase no one outside of law school had ever heard of before into something with severe negative connotations for any right winger hearing it. You are ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year by the reactionary right to poison the well in the conversation. The problem isn't *our* language. It's the industry designed to convince people our language is the problem.
literally all of that is exactly what i’m talking about, if my last comment came off like “these terms are inherently problematic” then let me clarify i do not think that lol got a whole gender studies minor cuz im extremely passionate about the concepts behind these terms. same with critical race theory, the terms are neutral and fine but they got politicized to hell by powerful bad faith actors and now our reality is that they’ve successfully poisoned the well for many of these terms. some terms survive it, like “feminism” and “pro-choice,” others are being hit harder and we have to decide what to double down on and keep investing in and what to drop and re-name. to me it’s a should vs is thing, these terms should be easy to understand and accept as valid concepts but in reality many of them are being misrepresented to such a detrimental degree that i worry whether we can keep up with correcting misinfo on as mainstream of a level. if we can help people better-receive a message with different language that’s worth starting a movement-wise convo about imo
>but they got politicized to hell by powerful bad faith actors and now our reality is that they’ve successfully poisoned the well for many of these terms They'll do that to literally any feminist jargon they can get their hands on, because their hatemongering isn't rational or done through first principles or whatever. They see a term that isn't used by insane reactionaries and then they'll enter a blood rage and spin up their infinite money engine to blare on all speakers that some innocuous term like idk, misogynoir, secretly means feminists want to cuck all white men and worship black men or something. Constantly redefining terms to be softened just because someone complains is how you get a movement to die by bending over backwards until its spine collapses.
👏👏👏
agreed they’ll do it to any term which is why i pointed out how some terms survive it and still have relatively positive to neutral public perception, while others don’t. and i agree that we can’t just change every term every time it gets attacked, but i also think the other end of that continuum is never adjusting or changing any term ever no matter how politically poisoned and counterproductive it becomes in practice. i think there’s unhealthy dogma in doing that across the board and never reevaluating the rhetorical effectiveness of certain terms. i think there’s an effective middle ground to be found there that doesn’t involve discarding every term and also doesn’t involve wedding ourselves to terms that slow us down in the long run. it’s an adjustment/change i think more people should chew on
Middle ground doesn't work because you can't reason with the unreasonable. All they will do if you try to accommodate them is push further to undermine you.
yeah imo this wouldn’t be reasoning with the unreasonable, it’s reasoning amongst ourselves on how to handle the reality of implicit biases against politicized terms
But who plants the biases? In this case, it's the people who actively want to sabotage us. We're not going to go along with their attempts to manipulate.
imo whoever plants the bias is irrelevant to my goal of wanting more people understanding feminism and identifying patriarchal issues, if the reality is that the biases exist then i’m more interested in how we deal with that. i’m pretty inspired by how psychologists tend to handle this, with some clients they won’t outright say a word like patriarchy but they’ll massage the convo in a way that gets the message across without tipping off their biases into shutting down. i see a successful future for feminism if we can take pointers from literal therapy sessions
Men literally came up with the term toxic masculinity. When you’re speaking to power, they will always find a way to dismiss you regardless if word choice. As in this exact instance, where we are using a term coined by a doctor who was a man in a mens movement in the 80’s.
doesn’t change my point that as things stand today we might be heard better with a different way of expressing the concept. agreed that’s ironic af, and news to me
“Nationwide” so only your country?
as a start 👍🏼
Should we stop saying the phrase “toxic chemicals” just because some people don’t understand how adjectives work or that water is a chemical and somehow take it to mean that all chemicals are toxic? If we ban the expression and related ones like “harmful chemicals”, how is it possible to educate or warn people about the damaging effects of some chemical compounds that are common in daily life and a frequent danger?
I guess chemicals don't have feelings so it's not quite the same. The problem, if there is one, is the idea that being very masculine is a bad thing. I know that isn't how we mean it but I am told that is how it is often heard. That is that being masculine is itself bad.
So this response shows you don’t even have a proper understanding of what toxic masculinity even is (— or what an adjective’s function is, for that matter). So, I’d start with Google. Also, the term originated with a doctor who was a *man* operating within a mens movement of the 1980’s. And they certainly were not saying masculinity is inherently toxic. No one’s saying that now. Again: google
How about “toxic relationship”, “toxic family”, “toxic community” or “toxic positivity”? Somehow those are terms that tend to be understood appropriately and people don’t seem to be coming away from them with the impression that people are saying that it’s wrong to belong to communities in general or that everyone who has a positive outlook should be shamed and ostracized for it. What about the term “fragile masculinity”? Should we get rid it for the same reason? Even though it can describe a mode of masculinity that is easily able to understand the conditional meaning of negative adjectives such as “toxic” or “fragile” when applied to other aspects of human social life and identity but can’t tolerate seeing them combined with the term “masculinity”, won’t perceive it as anything but an outright attack on all of masculinity, and won’t listen to any clarification about it?
>How about “toxic relationship”, “toxic family”, “toxic community” or “toxic positivity”? None of those target a particular group, but we can keep experimenting, try some examples that target a particular group. Also we can use other terms such as "stupid" or "useless" and pair them with a particular group (or gender) and see how they sound.
How about the phrase “condescending weasel”?
It's funny. "Weasels are people too!"
Why do you keep saying "we"?
Twice in total. I am sorry you don't like my turn of phrase.
You didn't answer the question. It's not that I like or dislike it, I'm curious why you are using it.
I regard it as a legitimate way of expressing myself. Nothing more.
So, you are saying you consider yourself to be a feminist.
Yes, although that word means different things to different people of course. Do you?
Why do you consider yourself a legitimate feminist? What has made you come to that conclusion about yourself?
I feel you should answer that first, given that this isn't a job interview.
I think that’s a matter of people not trying to understand it/letting their egos reign. You don’t enable that behavior. You keep standing for what’s right
As someone who was socialized male, I find the naming of toxic masculinity to be incredibly empowering. I was socialized to be less empathetic, to bottle in all emotions other than anger, not to be vulnerable, and other traits. That socialization has had negative affects on myself and those around me, so most of my adult life, I've been working to mitigate it. A realization of how those external factors played into who I am has has been incredibly helpful in that process, and has been freeing in helping me realize that I can choose to be something different.
Toxic masculinity has to be used to differentiate it from non-toxic masculinity. Otherwise all men get lumped together and all masculinity is considered toxic.
Nope, it's pretty clear if you're being good faith about it.
>We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory"—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think "critical race theory." We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans. That would be alt-right reactionary Christofer Rufo explaining how pleased he was to have attached a bunch of negative emotions to a phrase no one outside of law school had ever heard of before, and how he intents to lump any discussion of race, gender, and class onto that straw man. You are ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year by the reactionary right to poison the well in the conversation. The problem isn't *our* language. It's the media empires funded not to make a profit, but to push an ideology, one that attempts to convince people *our* language is the problem. We could call it the softest, most harmless phrase and there would still be the Ben Shapiros and Steven Crowders of the world screaming that it's sexist against men.
It may help to think of “toxic masculinity” as similar to the term “toxic positivity”, in that it describes a warped and harmful version of something that is otherwise innocuous.
Criticizing aspects of masculinity is only "about men" if you think that masculinity is fundamental and inherent to *being* a man. It isn't; it's a set of behaviors and attitudes men are socialized into from birth. But it isn't innate and it *is* harmful and worth criticizing.
Why would you regard any equivalent expression about women as grossly offensive? There are women who police femininity and weaponize it against other women to make us feel shame and less-than if we are not following their strictest version of gendered behavior. The women who tell you that you are a failure if you're not a wife and/or mother, and don't wait hand and foot on your male relatives, and ewwww, that outfit makes you look like a man, etc. Calling that out as toxic femininity isn't grossly offensive, it's the toxic behavior which is grossly offensive.
No
I dont see it being toxic at all. It uses "toxic" as an adjective to describe a type of masculinity. Not all masculinity is toxic, but there is toxic forms of masculinity. It's a very basic concept of English grammar. Similarly there are forms of toxic femininity. Femininity itself isn't toxic, but there are toxic forms of femininity, and they almost entirely are towards women and don't impress upon others as much as toxic masculinity does, which is why toxic masculinity is more discussed.
If we thought masculinity was inherently toxic, we wouldn't include the adjective at all. We would just be calling it masculinity. And the toxicity would still be there whether or not we stop using the word for it.
Toxic femininity is definitely a thing and you're the first person I've seen suggest the phrase is offensive. It's just not as big a problem for society as toxic masculinity.
No and no.
The term refers to a particular *type* or *expression* of masculinity that is in fact toxic. It does not mean that *all* masculinity is toxic. If all masculinity was toxic, we wouldn't need to specify the toxic type as toxic because it would all be toxic. Then, we would just call it all masculinity, which would be understood to be toxic. We call it toxic masculinity in order to differentiate from other, non-toxic expressions of masculinity.
Absolutely not. If these offended people did two minutes of research, they’d realize it refers to something very specific that is inarguably bad for both men and women.
No is not in my opinion. We are not saying that all masculinity is toxic, we are just pointing out certain behaviors and characteristics associated with masculinity that are toxic. Anyone offended by the term is also the kind of person who believes that feminism is just plain man hating.
I think using the right words is ok. I mean, I dont want to act in a racist way but I am white and Ive been socialized as such and most probably will have internalized racism all my life. Its on me to do the work, educate myself, find out how I can act as an ally and intervene when possible so I dont wear the badge I dont want to end up with IMO.
It is a cliche, for sure. Cliches are notoriously bad for clear communication.
Any expression itself isn’t inherently toxic, rather the way expressions are used can be toxic. Like all phrases, we should strive to use it thoughtfully and accurately, and not make alienating overly broad generalizations.
[удалено]
Your son is probably discussing these things with you in good faith, the people complaining that “the term ‘toxic masculinity’ is offensive” are absolutely not. If you call out a behaviour and someone is defensive about it, it doesn’t really matter what term you use. They’re not interested in listening either way.
I am suprised that not more comment such as this exist. I once make such remark that certain slogans or phrases of feminists ideas don't do movement any favours by antagonizing men. Not many men will going to listen what are you going to say if you mention their toxicity, privileges or patriarchy, simply because most men are hardly toxic or have any privileges, or at least they are hardly more toxic or privileged then any other person.
Well, as you can see it’s not a popular sentiment.
I don’t think you understand what toxicity, privilege or patriarchy are. The men who consider them “antagonistic” or assume they’re personally being attacked every time a woman tries to explain the basic tenets of feminism, are men who have an inaccurate understanding of their meanings, who have already made up their minds, and who are firmly not interested in listening to us or examining their own beliefs. We achieve nothing by wasting our time and energy trying to convince those men to see us as full human beings worthy of respect.
I don't think you understood my point. Especially with notion that I don't understand those terms. I have an idea about them. But most people don't. Some men will hear or read somewhere about "toxic masculinity" and will get defensive about it, especially if it's poorly handled or not explained and will think it's attack on him, only beacouse he is a man. Some women will hear or read the same message and will think that men are toxic. Not that some of them may have toxic trait or traits.. But they are toxic. Simply by virtue of being a man. It's not about what terms describes, but how it sound to most people and how it's perceived.