Toxic Masculinity

Are you familiar with the concept?

Before you call it a feminist construct, please realize this term was first observed by men and the term itself was coined by a man.


Here's a TED talk on the topic:

View: https://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue


Someone noticed that violent crimes against women were more likely to be caused by men who were steeped in a culture that was rife with emotional abuse and glorification of violence

Here is a really thorough description, there is no way I could say it better...

What We Mean When We Say, “Toxic Masculinity”


Share examples, from your life or elsewhere.
This account really stuck for me:
‘The way our culture treats boys sickens me. A young boy got his blood drawn today. He was crying. His guardian kept telling him to ‘man up.”

 

Snippets from a piece from Slate:

While bent over locking up my bike in Chicago a few years ago, I heard the all-too-familiar sound of a wolf whistle. I turned around to get a look at the jerks accosting some woman on the street, only to realize I was the one who was being cat called. A man passing by from behind had seen my long curly hair and tight jeans and mistaken me for a woman. When I turned around to face him, he was shocked and started apologizing profusely. In so many words, he was saying: ”This is an unacceptable way to behave toward a man.” And we both knew, if I were a woman, there would be no apology.
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Men are taught to regularly say and do things to women that they would never say or do to other men, that they would never want men to say or do to them.
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The rules governing masculinity require men to be stoic, to repress virtually all of their emotions (except anger). This leads many men to severely underdevelop their own ability to analyze and communicate about their own feelings.
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Full article here:
Good News, Fellow Men! Our Terrible Behavior Isn’t Biological.

 

@PonyPotato , Nick Offerman wasn't lying. I've met many of his siblings, cousins, his parents, etc., as well as him. His sister could probably beat him up, and I have a feeling she'd fight dirty enough that he might not even see it coming.


Toxic masculinity is definitely pervasive. Anyone who says otherwise is ill-informed, fooling themselves, or part of the problem. Likely all three. I'd argue that some of the extreme reactions to it are also very toxic and make matters worse rather than better.

The older I get the more I respect men who balance having strong personalities, being capable of doing old-school 'manly' things, and other traditional roles while still being kind to those who don't have the advantages they do, are capable of showing their emotions, and are capable of being empathetic. It's okay (in my mind) to be the guy who people see walking down the street and think "I wouldn't mess with him", the guy who drinks bourbon, the guy who likes motorcycles and sports and guns, and also be the guy who a little kid wants to build LEGO creations with, treats women with respect as equals, and who is sensitive enough to talk about anything with. I'm sure it's not coming across in exactly the way I intend, but I think there is room for traditional gender roles (for those who are happy with that) without including the negative or toxic sides that some seem to always associate with those roles.

 

I'd like to introduce you to The Good Men Project. https://goodmenproject.com/

Here's a great piece that they published entitled "Damned if We Do, Damned if We Don't"
Damned If We Do, Damned if We Don't - The Good Men Project
Some snippets:
When men deviate from these expected norms and do openly show emotion we call that “breaking down,” as if something in them was broken. It’s not really the expression of emotion we object to, but the vulnerability we see in men when they are emotional. The only emotion we’re OK within men is anger because men can be angry without making themselves vulnerable, so men feeling angry still seem masculine to us.
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Research suggests that young boys as early as four months old are socialized by their parents and other to not feel, which means that many men never get much of a chance to learn about themselves as emotional people.
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While their male peers and perhaps their fathers reassure them by being either covertly or explicitly derisive of these women’s emotional lives, it does little to extinguish the internal concerns of young men that there may be something fundamentally wrong with them, something important lacking...

 

This implies that it's a-ok to think the things that these people call out, it's just not appropriate to express it.

I would much rather know that a man thinks of me as an object, rather than assuming that they see me as an equal until they let their guard down.