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

Great Debates
161

[QUOTE=you with the face]

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?
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It’s not that I don’t think there are problems which disproportionately affect men vs women (and vice versa), it’s that:

  1. I don’t think these are big enough problems in terms of negative impacts to our population compared to “real” problems like having no health care, spending trillions on pointless wars, money absolutely controlling politics at every level nationally, increasing wealth disparities, and many more. Where are the population-level statistics showing this is a real and growing problem compared to the things we KNOW are problems?

and

  1. This type of problem is inherently nebulous and largely individually defined. I mean, if you asked me to define how the Straight Dope defined toxic masculinity based on this thread’s content, I’d say something so generic and nebulous as to be meaningless. Something like “behaviors or traits generally associated with being masculine that have been taken too far and are now maladaptive.”

This means there are no concrete actions I, an individual, can do to try to make the problem better, aside from “don’t be an asshole” and “don’t raise your kids to be assholes.” Which is good advice, don’t get me wrong, but 99% of people already think they AREN’T assholes despite all evidence to the contrary, and that advice isn’t going to change anything for the better either way.

Worse, this type of problem is rigorously and noisily policed for “right-think” and even card-carrying communists can get jumped on by others on the left for not adhering fanatically enough to the party line on these issues.

[QUOTE=you with the face]

Alcohol abuse. 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?

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Honestly? Being men. Not “toxic masculinity,” just being male, which is reliably associated with higher risk-taking and higher rates of substance abuse, higher rates of suicide, and other things.

I’m glad that we’re here on this topic, because it speaks to my first objection (is this even a problem), but you’re really just taking a bunch of bad stuff associated with being male (you left out higher rates of violence, incidentally), and saying “it’s because of toxic masculinity” with no proof or evidence.

Is it? I’d be willing to bet that if you plotted a time-wise trend, the incidence of most of these things have gone down over time. So did toxic masculinity peak in the 1700’s, and has been steadily decreasing since then? If it’s steadily decreasing, why are we worried?

How can you ascribe these things to toxic masculinity when men have had higher rates of violence, substance abuse, and suicide for as long as we can look back, in pretty much every society we’ve looked at? I think it’s more likely that biological differences are more explanatory for these things than some nebulous and toxic cultural “masculinity” being transmitted by all cultures in all the times we’ve examined.

Sure, I accept all those things - it loses me at:

  1. Is this actually a problem negatively affecting large swathes of the population in a significant and measurable way?

and

  1. Is this a problem that I, an individual, can take concrete actions and advice to ameliorate that isn’t just “don’t be an asshole?”

I’m not convinced on either one. I mean, I’m not even convinced it’s cultural rather than biological. And yes, culture can be deployed to restrain the worst of our biological urges (and this is likely driving the decrease over time in all these things I posit), but then the argument is “we need to get better about transmitting cultural values that can repress these biological urges that are stronger in men,” and we’re back to nebulous, individually-defined fluff with no concrete actions. Better how? What do you want ME to do?

162

Isn’t it fairly undisputed that the presence of testosterone causes increased aggression?

163

Compared to things like climate change, literally nothing even registers. Ted Bundy doesn’t register, that doesn’t mean you want him running around. “Toxic Masculinity” is implicated in things like the opioid epidemic, male suicide rates, and the like.

Acting like this isn’t a problem when I cited no less than three peer reviewed papers and an official position statement from the APA just strains credibility. Past a certain point, the problem is your unwillingness to engage with the material.

164

So your issue is that it is hard to measure and hard for a single individual to make too much of a difference?

Would you possibly support programming in Middle School to High School populations that somehow worked to destigmatize mental health service seeking among males and helped to develop young men with better toolboxes to discuss feeling states? I’m not sure how practical or effective such would be, but even considering such things could not happen until and unless the public broadly recognized that disconnected young men are bad for society and of adverse outcomes risks. A study could be done in a community with such a trial program done and another with some control boy’s activity and follow those individuals over years with objective measure of depression (there are many such validated scales) and for rates of help seeking as reasonable proxies.

Again, broad public recognition of the possibility that such would be useful would have to precede such being done.

Just brainstorming here. But better brains than mine could come up with other better ideas if a problem is recognized as one worth addressing.

165

That kind of annoying SJW is indeed annoying and is mainly just that, annoying.

There’s definitely a biological aspect to it. Even if all babies were raised gender neutral, you’d likely have more men in prison for violence than women and the more violent, the more it would skew male.

I would analogize it to muscle mass. The average man doesn’t have a lot more muscle than the average woman. But his musculature can usually be developed to a much greater degree than a woman’s. To what level it’s developed is cultural. To a large extent, that greater ability to develop muscles is a good thing. But when you see people endanger their health with steroids, overtrain because of body dysmorphia or get into fights to feel strong, that’s toxic.

Can’t speak for others but if you want to stay out of it and hold to just not being an asshole, I suppose that would likely be enough, especially if you’re the type of person who is already concerned with doing the right thing. It can be useful to keep in mind that anyone can pick up maladaptive coping mechanisms but it’s not an Inquisition or self-flagellation. Toxic masculinity might mildly apply to many men but the bulk of its effects likely come from a small number of highly dysfunctional men.

As you’ve noticed, it is nebulous and that may be because we’re starting to figure out the edges and content of that concept. Think about how shaky conceptual and definitional frames must have been when people started talking about racism, sexism, child abuse or sexual assault (we’ve still not collectively ironed out that one). It’s going to take some time for humans to come to grasp with that concept and understand it and in the meantime, it’s going to be confusing which does comport risks of overextension.

Did racism and sexism peak in the 1960s? If it had been decreasing compared to the past, why were people worried? Did child abuse peak at the same time people started talking about it more openly? Did sexual assault and harassment peak just before Me Too?

People thought they were isolated and powerless in front a social phenomenon much bigger than themselves or they hadn’t abstracted some of their experiences enough to see a common thread that ran thru them. Now more people are starting to see that it might be turned back so they see a point in participating.

If you want a simple, straightforward illustration of both why it’s a problem and a very concrete example of it, look at Donald Trump. People like him are beyond saving but there may be plenty of boys and young men who might want to be like him and can benefit from realizing that that way of living has the poisonous allure of Tony Montana

That kind of annoying SJW is indeed annoying but is mainly just that, annoying.

There’s definitely a biological aspect to it. Even if all babies were raised gender neutral, you’d likely have more men in prison for violence than women and the more violent, the more it would skew male.

I would analogize it to muscle mass. The average man doesn’t have a lot more muscle than the average woman. But his musculature can usually be developed to a much greater degree than a woman’s. To what level it’s developed is cultural. To a large extent, that greater ability to develop muscles is a good thing. But when you see people endanger their health with steroids, overtrain because of body dysmorphia or get into fights to feel strong, that’s toxic.

Can’t speak for others but if you want to stay out of it and hold to just not being an asshole, I suppose that would likely be enough, especially if you’re the type of person who is already concerned with doing the right thing. It can be useful to keep in mind that anyone can pick up maladaptive coping mechanisms but it’s not an Inquisition or self-flagellation. Toxic masculinity might mildly apply to many men but the bulk of its effects likely come from a small number of highly dysfunctional men.

As you’ve noticed, it is nebulous and that may be because we’re starting to figure out the edges and content of that concept. Think about how shaky conceptual and definitional frames must have been when people started talking about racism, sexism, child abuse or sexual assault (we’ve still not collectively ironed out that one). It’s going to take some time for humans to come to grasp with that concept and understand it and in the meantime, it’s going to be confusing which does comport risks of overextension.

Did racism and sexism peak in the 1960s? If it had been decreasing compared to the past, why were people worried? Did child abuse peak at the same time people started talking about it more openly? Did sexual assault and harassment peak just before Me Too?

People thought they were isolated and powerless in front a social phenomenon much bigger than themselves. Now more people are starting to see that it might be turned back so they see a point in participating.

If you want a simple, straightforward illustration of both why it’s a problem and a very concrete example of it, look at Donald Trump. People like him are beyond saving but there may be plenty of boys and young men who might want to be like him and can benefit from realizing that that way of living has the poisonous allure of Tony Montana’s story.

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Sorry about that, the quote thing doubled up and the more I try to fix it, the worse it gets.

167

I’m just going to respond to this because I couldn’t disagree more with this one sentence.

There is nothing inherently masculine about substance abuse and suicide. You shrugging these problems off as “men being men” is problematic because it suggests no matter what the stats say, you are going to conclude it’s because of innate nature. No questions asked about social pressures and the environment. No attempt to probe whether risk taking and violence might actually be promoted in men because of macho cultural influences. Because to you it’s all about just being male.

And you’re not doing the same thing, just in another way? Where’s the evidence that “just being male” is behind the male suicide epidemic?

You know, 200 years ago, it was conventional wisdom that women were too fragile to do anything except stay at home and take care of kids. It was commonly believed that women befuddled with complex problem solving (like math) was “just being female”. Fainting at the first sign of danger, vanity to the point of disability (like foot binding), and inability to physically exert themselves without taking ill for days afterward were other pathologies associated with “just being female”.

Well, we now know the truth was that these afflictions largely arose from a culture that rewarded women who conformed to certain gender expectations and stigmatized those that didn’t. Women who were smart, decisive, and strong were punished in both subtle and unsubtle ways. If you weren’t likened to a man outright, maybe you were treated to fear-mongering about how no man wants to marry a woman who is smarter than him. Maybe not universally was this the case, but commonly enough to have a real impact on behavior.

But times have changed. The stereotype of the fainting and child-like waif that typified the feminine persona in the 1700s has been replaced by a much less helpless and weak one. Women can be emotionally, mentally, and physically strong and not have their gender card revoked.

If we could change how women expressed their gender identities by raising awareness of sexism and continuously challenging stereotypes that reinforce the “fainting and child-like waif” model of femininity, why should we treat men as if they, and only they, are immutable creatures driven purely by biology?

I don’t think male substance abuse and suicide are decreasing, and neither is mass violence perpetrated by men. Do you have stats to support your opinion?

A start would be to begin questioning the whole “just being male” thing. If more people did that, perhaps we’d be capable of countering the social pressures that have been doing men a disservice for a long time.

168

I don’t think behaviors that are toxic today were necessarily toxic in the yesteryear.

For instance, today the modern workplace is very collaborative and team-oriented. Getting along with everyone and being able to simulate a “people person” are essential skills. There are still quite a few niches for the lone rugged individualist, but if you can’t socialize well enough to build a solid professional network, you’re going to have a rough time in this economy.

Of course, both women and men can be lone rugged individualists who struggle with socializing and “making friends” in the workplace. But men are much more likely to have this problem. I don’t think all of this can be attributed to social programming, but I think social expectations can be unhelpful in addressing this problem. Like, take my brother. I love him, but he can be a rude and surly mofo sometimes. If I acted like he does around my mother, she’d yell at me for acting so “ugly”. But my brother can say any ole thing and she’ll just roll her eyes. It’s been like this since we were kids. I gotta wonder how many of the guys getting written up for harassment in the workplace have mothers like mine. Back in the “Mad Men” days of the 1950s and 60s, these guys’ behavior wouldn’t have been so toxic, in that they wouldn’t have faced negative consequences. They might have even been advantageous.

Another thing that’s changing in society is the decrease in the number of well-paying “macho” jobs. If your father and grandfather and all your uncles worked in these kind of jobs, you just may associate these kind of jobs with what “real men” do. So if you can’t find those kind of jobs, you might feel like you’d rather do low-paying jobs that are still “manly” rather than take a good-paying job that’s"girly", like nursing or teaching. Genderizing occupations like this wasn’t so self-defeating “back in the day”. But it is today since good-paying jobs are so limited.

Finally, gender roles are changing in romantic relationships. The modern woman expects an equal partner–someone who is willing and eager to put in just as much as work as she does for home and family. So the guy who has absorbed the message that running a vacuum isn’t “manly” or that diapering the baby “is the woman’s job” is at risk of losing his relationship. The guy who thinks that talking about emotions isn’t what “real men” do is at risk of losing his relationship. A hundred years ago, women had super low expectations for their male partners since women were constrained in their choices (be an unfulfilled but well-fed housewife or be an impoverished spinster). So a guy who thinks domesticity is “for girls” wouldn’t have had a toxic mindset back then. That really isn’t true today.

In summary, what constitutes “toxic” is context-specific. I actually think toxic masculinity is such a hot topic nowadays because we’re just now becoming aware of how traditional masculinity is at odds with modern society. Brains and emotional intelligence are outcompeting brawn for jobs. The modern woman isn’t willing to put up with the kind of bullshit her mother and grandmother put up when it comes to mate selection. The modern workplace is not conducive for the uncouth male. So I don’t think you can say that things were more toxic in the past than they are now. At least toxic in terms of self-harm.

169

So the alt-right is a collection of right-wing, white nationalist movements that supports a left-wing, Democratic, person of color running for President. That makes perfect sense.

By which I mean to say that it’s utterly insane nonsense.

170

FWIW a small fact check: completed suicide rates are not cross culturally reliably higher in males.

171

…you are absolutely correct. The Alt-right don’t make any sense.

9/11 Truthers are utterly insane nonsense. Birtherism is utterly insane nonsense. The “grassy knoll” conspiracy theory is utterly insane nonsense. Pizzagate is utterly insane nonsense. Goobergate was utterly insane nonsense. Comicsgate is utterly insane nonsense. The Alt-right is utterly insane nonsense. Of course it doesn’t make any fucking sense. I think you are starting to get it now.

172

It makes no sense to assume that the small biological differences in men and women would produce large outcomes like a systematic oppression of women and a culture where men must be the strongest and compete with one another.

You can simply look at the evidence to see that masculine culture and feminine culture are different, and that it is directly the culture that leads to sexism. Why would men think women are inferior if not for the culture of having to try and be superior? Why would innate biological differences make men think women are inferior?

Any argument that something major is due to innate physical characteristics just doesn’t make any sense. We can trace our cultures back to those differences, but still the cultures are clearly what predominates everything.

Finally, there’s just the obviousness of how removing the toxic masculinity fixes problem. Men don’t feel the need to beat up each other. They don’t feel the need to show themselves to be superior to women. They don’t hold in their emotions and wind up with more psychological illness. They just act in a more rational manner, not feeling the need to “win” but being more interested in the truth.

It’s just undeniable that the men who try to give up following toxic masculine ideals turn out to be better. While the guys who hold onto them aren’t. Even if you did somehow blame it on physiology, there are men out there fighting that physiology and they are better. The idea works.

I’ve never met someone who is actually a good person, actually helping the world, who embraces toxic masculinity. The concept just describes things that we all know are wrong, and thus disadvantageous to our prosperity as a species. That’s what “wrong” means.

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In what way, pray tell?

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I have met plenty of good guys who embrace elements of toxic masculinity. Just thinking you have to be to be strong all the time is toxic. So is being a workaholic because you think it’s the “man’s” job to be the breadwinner and only a “weak” man would allow his wife to carry him.

Plenty of good guys have copped to feeling like a “loser” because they are virgins. If this isn’t the manifestation of toxic masculinity, I don’t know what is.

I think labeling toxic masculinity as something only “bad” people embrace is a very unhelpful way at looking at this. All of us have potentially toxic beliefs that we’ve absorbed from our social envirfonment. To whit, a woman who thinks she’s unlovable unless she’s beautiful has embraced a toxic belief, but that doesn’t mean she’s a toxic person. She may pass that belief onto her daughters as easily as she passes the belief that women are just as smart and capable as men. Making this a “good people” versus “bad people” thing is turning a complex problem into a damn cartoon. It’s no different than defining “racism” as something only the KKK espouses, when all of us are vulnerable to harboring racist beliefs and prejudice.

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A manifestation of toxic sexual paradigms which affect members of both sexes equally. Being a 40yo virgin is supposed to be a failure, nay, to make you a failure whether you’re male or female. Heck, the way teen magazines and romances put it, if you’re an 18yo virgin you’re not gonna get laid in ever and your whole life is doomed to worthlessness. It doesn’t matter if you happen to be asexual and to discover cures for twelve different types of cancers, vaccines for three others: you’re a loser.

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I don’t think it affects members of both sexes equally, though I agree it affects members of both sexes.

When I was 18, I wasn’t aware that my virginal status made me a “loser”. Being a girl, no one had put it into my head that I was supposed to have had sexual conquests at that age. No one had told me that getting some dick at that age would make me into a “woman”. Indeed, I was taught that “real ladies” don’t talk about getting some dick, because that’s what “nasty” girls do.
I didn’t start getting the business from “concerned” people until I hit my 30s. But even then, these concerned people didn’t make any mention of me “fulfilling my womanhood”. It was about being “normal” and “healthy”. I did indeed feel “loserish”, but I think it’s inevitable to feel some kind of way when you’re in a society that values relationships, sex, marriage, and babies as much as ours does.

I doubt guys have the same experience, though. The average 30-year-old virginal guy has spent the past 12-15 years being bombarded with the message that he’s a loser if he isn’t screwing…or at least doesn’t have a girl he can parade around to perpetrate like he’s screwing. And it’s not presented to him that he’s a “loser in a general sense” if he’s not getting any. No, he’s told that his sexuality and maleness are one in the same, so he’s not a real man if he isn’t having sex. To be a virgin guy is to be a “broken” guy. In contrast, before a certain age, being a virginal woman is actually seen as a good thing. You might be weird, but at least you’re innocent and “pure”–like a “real lady” is supposed to be. Even in these modern times these attitudes are still held and expressed.

To me, to say virgin-shaming is experienced equally by men and women is like saying that the “living with parents well into adulthood” stigma is experienced equally by men and women. And that too would be incorrect. A woman who lives with her parents may not be the most desirable romantic partner, but the “loser” label is less likely to be attached to her. It is much more likely that she will be assumed to be the caretaker of her parents rather than the other way around. At the very least, no one will assume that all she does is play video games in the basement all day while shouting at her mom to bring her tendies. Guys do have to deal with this stigma, though. Guys being provided for = loser. Girls being provided for = more information is needed to judge the situation.

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^I don’t believe the virgin stigma applies to both genders equally. A virgin woman can tell the world that she’s just waiting for the right guy and that will be treated as plausible. She can spin her lack of experience as a virtue arising from selectiveness and self-respect. A virgin man can’t do this half as easily.

178

Years back I read a very funny bit that gave a translation guide for reading papers. Basic idea was a list of phrases that should be read replacing them with “I have no support of …” :slight_smile:

Pretty much all sexually dimorphic species have significant difference in the roles filled by the different genders. This includes species with culture and 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.

Human hunter-gatherer societies are thought by some to have had a more level playing field in group decision making and shared power than our nearest non-human primate relatives, with some hypothesizing that it allowed for some advantages to the groups that had less inequality, but agriculture’s onset flipped that dynamic: the innate differences between human genders drove the development of increased sexual inequalities and the nature of cultural male/female expectations within the context of that development. Cultures did not just get dropped down from above; they emerged as a consequence, and across the world as agriculture displaced hunter-gathering, similar (not exactly the same mind you) stereotyped expectations of male and female behaviors and roles became the norms.

I doubt there is much to support a statement that males who completely reject the male stereotypes are more successful or “better” other than by defining “better” as not having internalized the stereotype. Many of the traits connected to the stereotype are those associated with success and leadership. Of course “toxic” anything is by definition when the dose of it is harmful, so that becomes a bit tautological and only can be meaningful when asking what is the “toxic dose” of internalization of the caricature.

It is actually quite remarkable and unexpected from a cross-species analysis that humans have the capacity to not have our genders define our roles and behaviors within our group behaviors. But while agricultural societies led to the innate physical and behavioral difference having huge impacts on cultural expectations and stereotypes, we are now in a very different time with our modern information-driven world being an environment that favors traits differently. One does better gathering the exact right bits of information than hunting to kill the big fact. In an information-driven world one who can manage the social groups is more valuable than one who dominates them with force.

We are fairly special and remarkable (although I doubt unique) as a species on this planet to have the ability to change our cultures as our cultures change our world and to flatten the differences in gender-related expectations and judgements (by selves and others). We can recognize that certain caricatures of gender-related roles and behaviors handicap our society from achieving more and harm various individual members of it of both genders.

179

Reflecting on the three years I spent in a very “macho” workplace…

A lot of my coworkers were single. However, just about every conversation they had was about “banging some chick”. And when they weren’t talking about that, they were talking about the “hot chick” they just saw out in the hallway or the “monster” they just saw in the cafeteria.

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.

Not all single guys act this way, but I’m not thinking this was an isolated thing I witnessed. I can easily see how a virginal guy would be pressured to participate in that conversation just to “prove” his membership to the club, and then go home feeling like a big fake-ass loser.

180

DSeid’s post made me do a little googling.

The successful manager and psychological androgyny: a conceptual and empirical investigation of hotel executives

This research relates to the point I made upthread. What we think of “toxic masculinity” really hasn’t always been “toxic”. In fact, it may have been advantageous back in the day. But what worked back then doesn’t necessarily work now. As more and more jobs become “service-oriented” (like hotel management), it won’t be the “man’s man” who automatically rises to the top. It will be the person–male or female–who has a balance of feminine and masculine traits. The guy who is tightly married to a traditional masculine self-concept will have a hard time competing in a society where everyone–male or female–is expected to buck gender roles and expectations.