Toxic how?
What is this “toxic masculinity”? Summoning Google to assist I get:
Toxic masculinity involves cultural pressures for men to behave in a certain way. And it’s likely this affects all boys and men in some fashion.
Toxic masculinity refers to the notion that some people’s idea of “manliness” perpetuates domination, homophobia, and aggression.
Domination of what, though? Primarily women, surely. Men jostle for domination among themselves, but domination of women is deeply ingrained. It’s odd to mention homophobia but not sexism.
This idea that men need to act tough and avoid showing all emotions can be harmful to their mental health and can have serious consequences for society, which is how it became known as “toxic masculinity.”
“Their mental health; consequences for society” – still this strange avoidance of mentioning women. What’s the opposite of masculinity? Femininity. What would toxic masculinity be likely to teach men? To hate femininity, and the people who are stuck with it.
There are many definitions of “toxic masculinity” that appear in research as well as pop culture. Some researchers have come to agree that toxic masculinity has three core components:
Toughness: This is the notion that men should be physically strong, emotionally callous, and behaviorally aggressive.
Antifeminity: This involves the idea that men should reject anything that is considered to be feminine, such as showing emotion or accepting help.
Finally we get the word! But we still don’t get the people, only the adjective. The idea that men should reject anything that is considered to be feminine is naturally going to lead men to think women are rejection-worthy.
I know there’s the idea that men taught to fear and despise all things female can think they’re fine for female people, and just despise them when attributed to male people, and violently reject them when attributed to themselves. I know that’s one view of the matter, but I don’t believe it. I don’t think it works that way. One reason I don’t is decades of living in a world full of misogyny and generalized contempt for female people.
A study in the Journal of School of Psychology uses the following definition to explain toxic masculinity: “the constellation of socially regressive [masculine] traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence.”
There we go. Thank you. It’s weird to avoid it when surely it’s a major part of what makes the toxicity.
One of my male colleagues (and a good friend) suggested to me a while ago that he didn’t understand why women got so upset at catcalling, because after all he understood that men did it to impress their friends and show dominance over their male tribe members (we’re biologists and both have a sarcastic streak, so yeah we actually talk like that amongst ourselves), and that it wasn’t about the women at all so why wouldn’t the women just ignore it? I swear I saw a lightbulb turn on when I told him that WAS the problem: that the men catcalling women weren’t thinking about the women as people at all. It’s very disturbing to realize that other people think of you as a “thing” without your own mind, emotions, thoughts…
All of which is to say: the final definition is indeed the best one of the lot.
No hint that men are encouraged/required to behave in ‘certain ways’ by religious or ‘cultural’ norms that cannot be mentioned for fear of intersectionality-deficiency.
In the introduction to Stiffed Susan Faludi talks about masculine and feminine traits/behaviours as complementary ways to protect and nurture children, and suggests that in that way these traits/behaviours are adaptive (though perhaps not necessarily inherently assigned to one sex or the other). So these might be a good way to define ‘non-toxic’ masculinity and femininity.