# "Toxic masculinity" and "toxic femininity." Real things or sexist mumbo-jumbo. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2019, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866 "2019-05-12T20:19:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2019, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866/181 "2019-05-27T14:53:24Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > … My guess is that this was their way of signaling their “maleness”. As in “I don’t have a girlfriend and I’m not married, but I’m still a MAN, as evidenced by how much I talk about sex and girls!” The one married guy in the lab would chime in sometimes, but his contributions weren’t nearly as graphic. Because he didn’t have anything to prove. > … There was an interesting “Hidden Brain” episode, [“Playing the Gender Card”](https://www.npr.org/2019/01/17/684515742/playing-the-gender-card-overlooking-and-overthrowing-sexist-stereotypes), which discussed, among other things, how men who performed less “manly” tasks, who felt their meeting the caricature threatened, were more likely to behave in comport with the stereotype in other ways. One study they discussed was having men doing the same tying task once in a context in which it was able to thought of as a man’s job related and another in which it was presented as braiding hair. They were then given choices of recreational behaviors to do, either solving puzzles or punching a bag. The men who had been randomized into hair braiding more commonly chose the punching a bag and tended to punch it hard. Here’s [about the study itself](http://news.usf.edu/article/templates/?a=3445)but the whole ep is relevant to this discussion. > [@](#): > > Modern men – from the Jersey Shore tan-gym-laundry guys to the post-modernist male feminist – defend against threats to their traditional notions of manhood with aggression. And as it turns out, it doesn’t take much to rattle their sense of studliness – something as benign as asking men to braid hair will do it. > > The researchers found that situational and cultural factors that remind men of the precariousness of manhood also increase the likelihood of male aggression. > > Parts of their studies have involved an experiment in which men were asked to braid hair while a control group braided rope. After the task, the two groups were offered a choice of punching a bag or solving a puzzle. The men who braided hair were more likely to want to punch a bag and they punched harder than the rope braiders. > > The scientists’ conclusion: Men who felt their masculinity was threatened by partaking in a traditionally feminine activity sought to reestablish their masculinity with aggression. Anyone who has ever seen a guy pick a bar fight can see the logic. > > “We’ve gotten a lot of comments from men who say, ‘I’m not that way; I’m not that Neanderthal,’” Bosson said. > > “The most liberal, non-homophobic men in our studies were just as uncomfortable braiding hair as those who hold very traditional beliefs about gender roles. Men’s anxiety about violating the male gender role is almost like a classically conditioned response. People have no control over it.” It fits with your observation that the single men behaved in that way to “prove” (to others and themselves) something that the married man had no need to signify. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866/182 "2019-05-27T16:30:57Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > our closest relative species like the chimpanzee, which includes male dominance, with males being much more physically aggressive, more likely to range more broadly and hunt, and with females more likely to spend more time gathering and nurturing with less physical conflict. We’re _equally as close_ to bonobos as we are to chimpanzees, and they’re \*nothing \*like that. Biological determinism is easy when you cherry-pick your examples. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866/183 "2019-05-27T17:00:53Z")
Bonobos most certainly have strong differences in behaviors, traits, and roles played within the group by gender. They are _different differences_ than with chimpanzees (for example bonobos have female dominance with female aggressiveness towards males), but they are clearly mostly innate and consistent, not primarily a result of culture imposing the roles upon them. This is not to claim that such innate biological determinism is absolute within non-human primates, I doubt it is, but differences between the genders within the groups, in roles and behaviors, is not primarily a result of their cultures. Again, we humans are, relative to the bonobo and the chimp, _remarkable and exceptional_ in our ability to have less rigidity in our gender roles and expectations and to have _culture_, a potentially more fluid and adaptable entity, be the more prime determinant of them than any biological determinism. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866/184 "2019-05-27T18:29:43Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > we humans are, relative to the bonobo and the chimp, _remarkable and exceptional_ in our ability to have less rigidity in our gender roles and expectations and to have _culture_, a potentially more fluid and adaptable entity, be the more prime determinant of them than any biological determinism. That’s nice and all. but my point stands - you \*chose \*to emphasize the chimp, not the bonobo, in your little biological determinism fable. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866/185 "2019-05-27T19:16:08Z")
Indeed when closest non-human primate is the prompt I think chimp. The point in contention was a claim that it makes no sense that such big differences in the roles of men and women in societies can be anything other than the result of culture. Across species with sexual dimorphism, including those with cultures and our nearest relatives, the chimps and the bonobos, traits and roles are not mostly culturally determined but based on small biological differences. Including the bonobo makes the point more. The small biological differences between the bonobo and the chimp leads to very different gender roles. Not cultural factors. Again it is more the remarkable and surprising thing that so much of it is cultural for us humans. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866/186 "2019-05-27T20:41:40Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Indeed when closest non-human primate is the prompt I think chimp. And my point is there’s no scientific reason to think chimp and not bonobo. > [@](#): > > The small biological differences between the bonobo and the chimp leads to very different gender roles. Not cultural factors. I don’t think we’re actually in a position to say there isn’t a cultural component to the chimp-bonobo behavioural differences. There is a biological component, that’s not in question. But there’s also clear environmental differences, and cultural differences can’t be that easily dismissed. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2019, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866/187 "2019-05-27T21:12:29Z")
Related to what **MrDibble** just posted: [Emergence of a peaceful culture in wild baboons](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387823/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toxic-masculinity-and-toxic-femininity-real-things-or-sexist-mumbo-jumbo/833866.md?page=9)