"Toxic masculinity" and "toxic femininity." Real things or sexist mumbo-jumbo.

Great Debates
141

I’m not so sure that the discourse is not dominated by “liberal gals” and guys who hope to be considered “woke.”

But no question that there will be some who will be unreceptive to these concepts no matter how they are presented, likely a big overlap with people who are unreceptive to the concepts of institutional and implicit racism no matter how they are presented. And some who will be receptive no matter how poorly a concept is popularized.

Most importantly, would some hypothetical perfect other term do more to help some significant additional number be open to consideration of the concepts? My WAG is that most people are somewhere between those two groups and that some significant number would be more open to thinking about the concept in that case. Just like I think that there are some who would be less likely to understand implicit and institutional racism if we referred to the issues as “toxic whiteness” than the terms we do use.

142

I think it speaks to some fairly old concepts of the man as “warrior” or “explorer” or “athlete” with the woman as a “manipulator” and “schemer”.

143

Neither [bVelocity** nor msmith537 are particularly known for acting “woke”, but they are engaging the subject receptively.

You are probably not going to see that clearly when you start out biased, though. Everyone you disagree with is going to look female and progressive if you’re in the habit of dismissing females and progressives.

By now, after people have explained what we’re talking about, I think you understand you the TM concept does actually not affirm stereotypes; it points out how expectations about what it means to be masculine damages men. Calling it “toxic stereotypes” doesn’t capture the how gender expectations impact men and women differently.

So what would be a better term than TM?

144

Not a word of this is anywhere close to true, and anybody who reads Quillette knows that perfectly well. Quillette is a politically non-partisan source that prints some authors from the left, some from the right, and some non-partisan. It publishes articles on many topics ranging from science to politics in the USA and other countries to book and art reviews. I read the blog of Jerry Coyne, a very liberal biology professor from the University of Chicago, and he approvingly links to Quillette articles quite often; in fact, an article written by him is on the front page of Quillette right now, as are a personal narrative about leaving Mormonism and many other articles which easily refute your claim that it’s a right-wing source.

As for your claim that Quillette is associated with or similar to the KKK or Nazis, normally someone who makes such a claim would be expected to provide evidence. Needless to say, you can’t do so. No member of the KKK, any Nazi group, or any other racist group has ever written a word for Quillette, nor has any white supremacist material ever been published there.

145

…not “right-wing.” “Alt-right.” Its a pretty fucking big distinction: and one that your citation does nothing to refute.

146

I don’t know if these terms have any vital function. I do think it is easy for them to be misused even before getting into the human tendency of expanding definitions. Toxic masculinity and toxic femininity are fairly incoherent to me, as traits among genders are in flux often overlapping, and if I knew of a situation that happened with a blindfold that obscured knowing the genders of the parties involved, I’m not sure I’d ever feel comfortable applying such a label.

If the labels are looked at strictly through a lens of socialization, that is more clear. One of the pitfalls within that I see is assuming socialization is the cause of something. If I’m a young man in a society that tends to promote a toxic behavior among males and I engage in that behavior, that doesn’t automatically mean the nurture influence took. My problem could be primarily genetic. I think we should be cautious of words stifling other lines of inquiry that could be educational. When a man goes on a shooting spree, often we can look at factors going on in his life and make a possible case his thoughts were marinading in toxic masculinity. This can be reduced to evil which can then make probing other factors seem like ways to excuse evil.

Having said that, if I am less picky and guarded about language for a moment, I would say instances of toxic masculinity directly causing external ripples do appear to be more ubiquitous and easy to spot, so I understand why it is discussed more. I would think discussion of internalized self-sabotage due to expectations merits a balanced consideration between genders; I don’t easily draw connections why these toxic masculinity and femininity terms are also lumped in with this.

147

I think this is a true. The whole concept sounds like “liberal hogwash” to the conservative ear because their minds have already been poisoned against feminism and feminist theory.

But if someone like Jordan Peterson–someone with conservative bonafides-- preached against “toxic masculinity” and framed it in the context of being a better father, brother, citizen, or Christian, there’s no doubt in my mind that the denialists here would be more accepting of it.

Because there is nothing controversial about, “Look, brothers. Stoicism is wonderful, but it’s also wonderful to admit you need help. We guys often think have to take on all the problems of the world with a stone face. But that’s so not healthy. It’s not healthy for us or the people who love us. It’s toxic.”

Someone needs to start preaching this. The skyrocketing suicide rate among middle-age white guys indicates that someone needs to start doing something differently. Denial certainly isn’t helping anyone.

Maybe it’s not even necessary to say “toxic masculinity” to call out problematic behaviors. But I really do think this is a case of a term being OK for some people to use (conservative men) and not OK for others to use (liberal women). In other words, it’s not the message that’s problematic. It’s the perceived messenger.

148

I have heard all about how much better I would feel after crying. Repeatedly, in fact over the decades. I never felt better after crying. Perhaps I do it wrong.

Girls changed a bit over the decades, though. They are more likely to ask about the absence of kisses now, rather than just walk away. That helped a whole lot more than the crying.

Tris

Into each life a bit of rain must fall. So, learn to dance in the rain.

149

It may be more difficult to the media to see them for the same reason that fish are the last to realize the existence of water: When you’re so used to an axiom or perspective that it’s part of your worldview, you may ascribe to the entire world what is in fact a smudge on your lens. People who have male toxic personalities tend to seek money, fame and power, like the kind you would find in business, especially showbusiness. Or US politics which has a nasty blend of money, fame and power that’s lesser than the sum of its parts.

To have an idea of the kind of impact gender socialization can have, look at how black men are differently affected than black women by racism. Black men are far more likely to engage in self/other-destructive behavior than black women. Not because they’re black but because they suffer from being in a stressing racist environment combined with many of them having been raised in a honor culture that feeds toxic masculinity.

When you combine a stressor like racism, economic anxiety or some other hardship with toxic masculinity, you can end up with some very nasty results, probably because it gets some men to see a hostile world (which may indeed contain major elements which are unfairly hostile) to which they may respond as if there were a war between them and the whole world.

150

According to the Wikipedia article that you just linked to, the alt-right “is a loosely connected far-right,[1] white nationalist movement”. Since Quillette publishes many leftist writers and is neither far right and has never published anything with even a partial white nationalist viewpoint, so Quillette is obviously not part of the alt-right. Quillette even publishes an interview with a Democratic candidate and defends Democratic Party stances. Does that make the Democratic Party an alt-right, white nationalist organization?

151

100% agreement.

Men often don’t have the tools in their kits to expose themselves as having problems or the friendships of the sort that can be of protective support. No doubt in my mind that some of that is the internalized image of a man not showing things that may seem emotionally weak. And in today’s world a more frequent sense of failure at living up to some bogus standards of both success and of manhood.

152

…I’m not expecting to convince the person who labeled a document from the APA as “propaganda” that Quillette is a hot-bed of alt-right activity. My post was to correct the record, and to let everyone else in this thread know about Quillette’s obvious editorial bias.

Its no surprise that Andrew Yang, who courted 4chan and the meme culture, who got positive press from the Daily Stormer and Richard Spencer tweeted favorably about, got interviewed by an alt-right propaganda outlet. It would have been surprising if they didn’t interview him. You can be a member of the Democratic Party and hold alt-right views. You can fight passionately for “ethics in games journalism” and hold alt-right views. In order to understand what the alt-right is you need to take a much deeper dive than the opening sentence of a comprehensively cited Wikipedia article.

I’ve already linked to the rational-wiki page that makes the case for Quillette’s alt-right status. All you’ve demonstrated is that you don’t know what “alt-right” means. I actually don’t blame you for this to be honest. Gaslighting is an intentional alt-right strategy: and they are really good at it.

153

I thought I’d chime in here as one of the “silent majority.” Not a majority for this message board, but certainly a majority in the real world that don’t really care about “toxic masculinity” and similar issues.

It’s not just conservatives - I’m very left-leaning, and view threads about masculinity and/or gender issues on this board with a healthy dose of roll-eyes and a wanking gesture.

This is because all these threads are, are big “woke” circle jerks that never even attempt to convince the other side. Most of the arguments are circular or facile or appeals to very weak authorities (like in this thread, with people up in arms about how can you even have an opinion here unless you’ve delved into feminist studies literature and accept whatever those “authorities” say).

Yeah, violence is bad from men. It’s bad from women too. Yeah, people should be able to use whatever bathrooms they want. Going on for pages about it amongst yourselves isn’t helping, and you’re manifestly failing to convince the “non-woke,” which at last count are at least 50% of the country, and probably quite a bit higher than that.

I read some of these threads because there’s kernels of truth here and there, but almost never see an argument or meeting of minds that convinces somebody from the (huge) other side. And I think that’s because frankly, most of the arguments ARE hogwash to those who aren’t already on your side, or at the minimum are very weakly convincing, and you spend most of the time patting each other on the backs about how woke you are, or complaining about how the few people chiming in saying they don’t see it are obvious troglodytes instead of refining those arguments or finding new ways to try to create that meeting of minds.

Hell, you folk haven’t even convince ME that “toxic masculinity” is something I should worry about or do anything about, and I’m on your side for 98% of political issues.

154

Would you mind clarifying where the argument for the concept as defined in this thread (not the phrase or how the phrase is often understood) loses you?

Do you accept that there are traits and behaviors traditionally thought of as being more masculine (generally associated with being tough, in control, and in America at least, with independence), and conversely, ones more associated with femininity (generally more willing to be vulnerable, more willing to ask for help, more nurturing, and more socially interconnected)?

Do you accept that most of us judge each other and ourselves to some degree by how we meet those images and treat each other to some degree with those expectations in mind?

How about that living up to those expected roles and imposing those expectations upon others can be harmful? Is that where it loses you?

monstro’s last example for that is a very powerful one: men under stress who have not developed the emotional vocabulary to articulate it, who have not developed the social systems they’d feel comfortable being very vulnerable within, and whose mindset is that asking for help is not something a man should do, who are killing themselves in a world in which help is available to anyone who can ask for it. The issue is not *just *exaggerated bro-dom. Do you recognize that as something that matters for you to worry about for those who you may care about?

There is also the reluctance of men to seek jobs in areas that are thought of as woman’s jobs, even though there are good jobs there: nursing, teaching, so on. And of course the converse, the challenges many women face entering jobs that are stereotyped as men’s work, even though some of them would be great at it.

These are issues that impact how we get the most out of our society overall by getting the best people where they can contribute the most whoever they are, as well as an issue of justice for the individuals. As someone who cares about the country and about the values of this country, is that something you should want to do something about? Or at least to support having things done about?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

155

Can you shed some more light your doubts? Is it that you don’t think men are facing certain problems disproportionately to women? Or do you acknowledge they have problems, but you don’t think the way they are socialized has anything to do with it?

Alcohol abuse. [URL=“https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/substance-use-in-women-men”]Other substance abuse. Suicide. Failure to use mental health services, even when needed. All of these are problems that are killing men at an alarming rate. On top of that have men gravitating towards radicalized hate groups.

What do you think is driving all of this bad stuff?

I think what is frustrating to me is that it is daggone obvious that we have a real problem on our hand; the stats show men are clearly suffering. At least those who discuss TM are talking about these problems rather than ignoring them. Like, why in the hell is alcoholism so common in men? Perhaps it has something to do with the messages we send boys. Okay, let’s look at those:

“Real men can hold their liquor. It’s cool to drink everyone under the table.”
“Real men are entitled to drink as much as they want; moderating their drinking is what girls do”.
“Real men can’t have fun unless they are drinking and acting wild.”
“Real men are able to drink and drive without caring about consequences, because real men can break the rules.”

You have a frat boy culture that is celebrated in this country, that promotes all of the above as ideals. But we’re supposed to think this TM culture has nothing to do with the public health trends we see? Really?

I just don’t get what there is to be unconvinced about, dude.

156

The conflation of “frat boy culture” (inclusive of identifying that as “this TM culture”) as the identifier of these issues is simplistic to the point of seriously misrepresenting the breadth of how these issues play out.

“Frat boy culture” is a small splinter of the issue and the problems occur as well among many who would explicitly reject any frat boy identification.

157

I agree completely, but I do think frats and similar organizations are absolute incubators for this sort of thing: right about the time people grow up a little and hopefully start to get a little more sensible about things, they age out. What you get is a group that is perpetually in that horrid phase between too old to restrict but not old enough to have the brain development needed for good judgment. There’s a reason military forces have recruited from this age group for time immemorial even though men hit their physical peak closer to their mid-20s; 18-22 is a volatile and dangerous age, where people are very suggestible to ideas like identity threat but also confident and capable enough to do carry some really dumb shit to incredible extremes.

In groups where the membership is perpetually 18-22 and there isn’t a moderating influence or perspective, the worst aspects of TM are reinforced in a really horrific feedback cycle. So you get “eat the head of this live hamster to show you are a man” or “chug a handle of vodka” or “ignore your fears and worries about the guy who chugged a handle of vodka and is now turning purple and shaking on the couch”.

Closed groups made up largely of men 18-22–frats, prisons, military, esp enlisted and infantry–this is where TM breeds. It also perpetuates itself in self-selected groups with the same struture–sub-cultures made up primarily of guys in that age range. Guys age out, they often get a new perspective, the “grow out of it”, but those ideas still linger.

158

The way we socialize men contributes to their unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Frat boy culture is a manifestation of a larger pattern of the male socialization that I’m talking about. I’m not attributing alcoholism to just frat boys, come on. It is ridiculous (and exasperating) to see inferences like this.

159

I think it’s rare, on any subject, even on places like Straight Dope, to have someone admit to having changed their minds on an overall subject (as opposed to a detail of fact) in the middle of a message board thread.

I don’t think this means that people never change their minds. I think it means that the changing of minds tends to be a gradual process; and that when it does happen it often doesn’t result in public admissions of having been wrong, let alone to hunting up old threads or bringing up old conversations in order to do so in all the venues that helped to cause that gradual change. Once in a while you do see/hear people say ‘Yes I used to think x, but I decided I was wrong about that’ but very often the people themselves have no one specific discussion, no ‘click’ moment, which they think caused the change; it was a gradual accumulation of information over time.

I also suspect that people who realize they don’t have their minds made up are far less likely to post in threads such as these; but may nevertheless still be reading them.

160

Maybe those are “where TM breeds” but then “TM” is a very narrow concept, not one that is as broad and pervasive as the concept described in the op, and is one that very few men and women will see as something that they are part of or even that impacts them.

OTOH, I as a man, one who would reject with a laugh a self-descriptor of “toxic masculinity” (wimpy nerdy me?) and reject any identification with “frat boy culture”, and who sees neither in most of the men I know, can acknowledge that stereotyped ideals and expectations, and gender-related learned behavior patterns, exist in myself, in those around me of both genders (and even in those who are fluid), and in the systems that I am part of. I can be open to discussion that even though my personal experience of those traits and learned patterns has served me well (valuing “grit and determination” is what I credit for my part of whatever successes I have had … the rest being luck, inclusive of having benefited from being born male into a white middle class family in a good school system with parents who pushed education and intellectual accomplishments and enabled it) they can also be harmful, and that they are commonly encouraged differently in boys and girls with different impacts. Were between me and my sisters for that matter.

The number of men and women who will be open to self-reflection and and some awareness of potential harms by labelling it as a thing they reject out of hand as applying to them is not surprisingly a fairly small number.