As I psychologist, I’m concerned about mental health, especially the mental health of men and boys because it’s been overlooked for so long. Because there was so little interest in how much the negative discourse around masculinity impacts boys, my colleagues and I ran a survey. We found that around 85% of respondents thought the term ‘toxic masculinity’ is insulting, and probably harmful to boys.
My latest research has just been published. It assessed the views of over 4000 men in the UK and Germany, and found that thinking masculinity is bad for your behaviour is linked to having worse mental wellbeing. [… And] positive views of masculinity are linked to better mental wellbeing.
This is why we oppose the usage of the term toxic masculinity and any negative generalizations of men as a gender.
The change in terminology is telling
For women, we didn’t use “toxic femininity”, we used “sexist gender expectations and roles”
Why the sudden need to change, as soon as men are the subject?
I don’t think someone needs to be particularly antifeminist to see that mainstream discussion of gender has tended to “other” men, placing men and boys in an oppressor category, ignoring how the discussion might affect them, or genuinely blind to that reality.
While it’s true that the term was coined during men’s movements of the 80s/90s, it had a different contextual meaning then: more like a counterfeit male code to be contrasted with the idea of a true “deep” masculinity. Apart from that difference, the reality is that most men and boys are not part of a today’s “conversation” about masculinity, but instead feel like it is being imposed on them.
Because it is.
The “be a man” sexist narratives all have one thing in common: they treat masculinity as prescriptive, not descriptive
“This is the way a man should behave” instead of “this is how we observe men behave”
It’s about control. People are very sexistly invested in what men are “allowed” to be
And notice it’s not what the man wants to do, he wants to sit on the couch and play video games, putting in only enough effort needed to do that.
That doesn’t jive with other people, tho, they want that man to be financially productive so they can profit off of him. The prescriptions have nothing to do with what is good for that man, and therefore nothing to do with what it is to be a man.
All forms are simply different variations of “here’s the way to act that is best for me (not you, the man being talked to or about)”
This is true, but also I think these guys really hated the Arnold Schwarzenegger types. Even if they had a healthier idea of masculinity that they wanted to promote. It’s possible that the term itself was born out of hatred.
Generally, if someone’s telling me that something is “toxic”, I just assume that they’re trying to sell me something that I really shouldn’t buy unless I have some serious proof to the contrary.
Yeah, that’s why I only bring up toxic masculinity in a group of other men where I can explain what I’m talking about. The general perception is it’s just something to blame men for.
I suggest you use the terminology “harmful gender expectations” it’s a bit more of a mouthful and it’s less catchy. But then again the reason “toxic masculinity” is catchy is because it creates a strong negative emotional reaction in a discussion that should be intellectual or empathetic.
You can suggest whatever you like, feminists will continue to use “toxic masculinity” because feminists like that it’s a misandrist slur with a definition that can’t be pinned down. They are hypersensitive to word choice and continue to use this because it a cheap and easy way to disparage men in general and excuse >any< behavior of women.
I’ve actually never seen feminists use "sexist gender expectations and roles” but maybe I don’t frequent them enough. The term I’ve more commonly seen is “internalized misogyny”. Because why waste an opportunity to imply that men are the cause of all the problems?