Blame her
What’s this now?
What the hell is “toxic femininity”? Is that like “black racism” or “homophobic same-sex attraction”?
Let me guess – it’s what Karens have, right?
Tip Jar
What’s this now?
What the hell is “toxic femininity”? Is that like “black racism” or “homophobic same-sex attraction”?
Let me guess – it’s what Karens have, right?
If you asked me to propose a definition of “toxic femininity,” I would probably say something like “the notion that women must be so demure and deferential and accommodating and tolerant that they end up quietly enduring harassment, abuse, and general anti-social behavior (mostly from men).” I think that describes some thing that is (1) a real phenomenon; (2) linked to ideas of what is feminine; and (3) toxic (yes, toxic to the victims themselves rather than exclusively others, but that’s true of many aspects of toxic masculinity also).
But somehow (I’ve used up my free New Yorker articles for the month) I suspect that’s not the definition being used here.
I haven’t seen “A Teacher,” so I suppose it’s possible that it’s a really thoughtful exploration of the topic, and I know from news stories over the years that women teachers who seduce underage boys are not necessarily “unattractive women who can’t get a man their own age,” but given that the ads I’ve seen for it just show Kate Mara looking sexy, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that there’s a lot of “hot for teacher” titillation involved.
I thought it meant “conventionally feminine things that are toxic because they hurt you” like wearing high heels. Could be wrong.
I was able to read the article. The show is about a woman who is a new English teacher at a high school, the social and internal pressures she feels to perform and dress a certain way, and her developing a relationship with a male student at the high school. The show was created by Hannah Fidell, and is based on an indie film (of the same name) by her; the film ends when the relationship is exposed, but the show continues on long past that. A couple of excerpts:
Here’s the full paragraph from the review (which is mixed but leaning negative):
I take “toxic femininity” to refer to how women are often portrayed in this kind of production (think “Fatal Attraction”).
Ninjaed by Sackbut.
A Sackbut Ninja is a coy ploy;
Floy doy, floy doy, floy doy.
That’s weird. Maybe it’s just shorthand for “the kind of evil predatory woman that misogynist screenwriters love to portray”…
Huh, it’s by someone named Doreen St. Félix, whom I haven’t heard of before. Emily Nussbaum is their regular tv critic, and she’s good at it.
I largely agree with Screechy Monkey on this one. As second wave feminism analyzes masculine and feminine, the genders comprise prescribed and proscribed behaviors and traits. Toxic masculinity refers to those prescribed behaviors and traits of masculinity (and, more broadly, those that result from attempts to inculcate prescribed masculinity) that are unhealthy for the boy/man himself or others. That there are such behaviors and traits is patently obvious.
It is also obvious that there are aspects of prescribed femininity that are unhealthy for girls/women. This alone gives us a meaningful extension for toxic femininity. However, it is also not a stretch to consider that some prescribed behaviors or traits are harmful to others’ wellbeing. A promising example would be feminine self-denial and prioritization of others, for we see the ill effects of that behavior in the way so many women cave to and echo the demand to prioritize the desires of men who call themselves women. That I would certainly deem a toxic manifestation of femininity.
Hm. I guess I’m not all that familiar with either phrase. I had thought, to the extent that I’d thought about it at all, that toxic masculinity meant more or less machismo, and that the toxicity was toxic to…people in general, I guess, but especially to women. I read it as “taking dominance to extremes.”
Inappropriate display/exercise of dominance is certainly a component of toxic masculinity. There’s just more to it than that. There was a video with Jane Clare Jones I watched a while back where she talked about toxic gendered traits. I’ll see if I can find it. She did a fairly good job of explication, despite being a much better writer than speaker.
Yes, I Googled and learned more, which I posted about.
I’ve seen the series, and the 2013 film. The film portrays a self-sabotaging young woman driven by an obsession for a rather snarky 18 year old. The series pads out the story to include the beginning of the relationship and an after view from ten years later.
The series is set up as a sermon against ‘grooming,’ but fails to really demonstrate it. The relationship is seen through rose-tinted glasses in order to set up a speech by the ‘victim’ in which his teacher is painted as a predator in a way that isn’t really sustained. Essentially ANY expression of desire, or sexual autonomy, by ANY woman, must be cast as pathology/transgression.
It’s still directed and written well enough to trigger the hell out of me. I was involved in a similar situation at 18, and the result wasn’t happy for me.
“Toxic Femininity” might also refer to/include the idea that women need to jostle among themselves for status within patriarchal structures, to the point of harming all women. (FREX: The notion that I’ve heard expressed that women managers need to be tougher on their female subordinates than their male ones, just to appear ‘balanced’. See also any teen movie showing ‘mean girl’ stereotypes as if that was how adolescent girls are supposed to act with each other.)