Stop Lying About Our Sons
medium.com
medium.com
I think catharsis is important for men in particular, and idleness is particularly destructive for men. If there aren't engaging activities available for men, they will make something up to stay busy, often in destructive patterns.
I have also spent 6 years in the Navy (on submarines in an all male environment) before I transitioned.
Toxic masculinity is a real thing, the amount of men don't cry, men don't show emotion, and the large amount of "locker room" talk involving treating women as sex objects was incredibility high.
I've been in these male spaces, not saying anything, but watching and I can truly tell you, it's completely disgusting.
In the end, I'm actually sad that most men don't feel like they can talk about their vulnerabilities and emotions. It's a hard world to live in like that.
>I'm actually sad that most men don't feel like they can talk about their vulnerabilities and emotions.
Do they not talk about it, or have they not talked about it _to you_?
I used to believe the narrative that men don't talk about emotional issues, assuming my lifetime of experiences talking to other men about our perspectives, fears, limitations and feelings was some sort of aberration. It finally fell apart when I made some friends in the trades. If _they_ didn't even follow the mold, and were willing to confide in me whenever something was on their mind, then why is this assumed to be a widely-pervasive male trait?
As far as I can tell, men are more than willing to talk about personal topics they keep guarded. It just has to be with someone that they care to have a real conversation with.
Things we consider "toxic masculinity" are (for example)
* Sexism and misogyny - that is women are less than or inferior to men, and should be focused on serving them.
* Violence is a reasonable response to being upset
* Men who aren't sufficiently "masculine" (often defined in terms of the above), are also lesser
* Women who aren't sufficiently "feminine" need to be put in their place (understand who's in charge, and who they should serve)
Are there a few idiots who go beyond that? yes. Just like there are idiots who go bizarrely far on any other topic.
But attacking toxic masculinity is not attacking masculinity. It's not attacking men and boys.
If you feel attacks on toxic masculinity are attacks on you fathers/husbands/sons maybe there should be some thought about what about their behavior overlaps the above, and whether you think that's ok?
My own problem with GP is that they claim "attacking toxic masculinity is not attacking masculinity", but I don't think the people using this term would defend similar language if the genders were reversed. If we called stereotypically bad feminine traits "toxic femininity" it would be called out as sexist. Indeed, it is[0]. I can't imagine most racial descriptors would fair much better. "The limits of my language are the limits of my world," and we shouldn't be surprised when attaching a descriptor of a subset of humanity to a negative term sparks backlash. It seems like we face this general problem where it's shitty to use group descriptors for negative behavior, but sometimes groups of people are disproportionately responsible for some subset of negative behavior, and we've traditionally been more willing to attach negative terminology to oppressed groups, but now some of us are simultaneously realising that was a shitty practice and deciding to attach negative descriptors to the oppressive groups instead... which is kind of understandable, since those groups have been oppressive, but we're still dealing in broad group identities that encompass some individuals who have behaved less oppressively than other individuals who fall into less oppressive group identities, and using group identities as a linguistic weapon in this way is sort of obviously going to engender mistrust and negative reactions. So, maybe it would be more helpful for the dialogue if we found linguistic constructs that didn't pair "man-" or "male-" with some harmful follow-up. If we find ourselves in a situation where it is useful to discuss the intersection of group identity and negative behavior, it might be nice to slow down and say exactly what we mean rather than calling it "toxic masculinity" and then being surprised when this is taken as an attack on men.
That said, I do agree that GP's subpoints are actual issues which we should address. I just have serious reservations about this language.
* Sexism, or the notion that gender has roles. In many cultures there are the idea that each gender has a set of roles and domains with is exclusively theirs. Typically those align with concept from reproduction, such as women role are to give birth and nurture children while mens role are to support the nurture of children through food and protection. Social status under those rules results in men being valued based on their wealth and ability to protect children, while womens social status gets defined by signals of high fertility. Individuals of both genders that transgress gender roles tend to be punished socially, both directly in the form of violence and indirectly by low social status and social isolation. Violence directed at non-comformative gender behavior is usually committed by those within the same gender, ie women are more likely to punish other women who aren't sufficiently "feminine" and men are more likely to punish other men who aren't sufficiently "masculine".
* Displace violence, a typical behavior found in most animals. It is estimated as making up the majority of all form of violence. It is associated with stress management and in humans causes dopamine releases when applied. It can be observed at all ages and cultures. It does not make it acceptable, but it should give insight to why it happen and how to reduce it.
Yes it is. It's an inappropriate and offensive term to use. The lady who wrote the article is correct to be upset about it on her son's behalf.
Precision has value. If you're upset about violence, complain about violence. If you're upset about someone praising physical strength or other classical aspects of manhood, respond to that specific argument. Don't use sweeping, general terms phrased in deliberately ambiguous ways that collect anything "masculine" under one roof.
The simplest way to see you're wrong is to ask yourself how you'd feel if it suddenly became common to write op-eds in major media outlets on the topic of "bitchy women" and how "bitchy women" are a widespread problem that all women need to step up and fix. I think you'd find it troubling.
My favorite part of social commentary these days is how it's layered in "I'm not poorly conveying a point, you're hearing me wrong and/or you're the problem."
A litmus test I often use in politics is to switch the target demographic of a negative stereotype with one of the opposite side of the political spectrum. It usually show if a phrase, term or statement is acceptable or an -ism. In the case of feminism, switching the target demographic of "men" with "immigrants" and "women" with "natively born" works pretty well. Someone talking about "toxic immigrants", listing points of negative stereotypes of immigrants, and it would enlist feelings of racism. One can have a level discussion about crime, theft, murder or rape, but if it get associate directly to a discussion about toxic immigrants then what people see is racism. People can write "It's not all immigrants!" as much as they want and it won't change a thing. People will see it as an attack and rush to defend themselves.
The only thing talking about "toxic masculinity" results in is harm, as has been demonstrated every single time it get discussed here on HN.