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Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

The version of masculinity portrayed by early James Bond, slapping women at random, nothing wrong with that? The version used to convince hundreds of thousands of German men to give up their lives uselessly in WWI in some kind of manly imperialist crusade, nothing wrong with that?

As a man I completely reject these forms of masculinity. There are plenty of positive aspects of traditional western male culture we can trim out from the fat of historical toxic masculinity. We don't need to keep the terrible parts. They hurt us almost as much as they hurt others.

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I see toxic masculinity as societal expectations/pressure.

Not anything any man whatsoever does in response to them or does in general. (A very problematic remaking of an idea.)

Good or bad.

It's always fascinating you don't see anything about toxic femininity from the people who push the idea of toxic masculinity being things that men do. They tell you it's internalized misogyny (is toxic masculinity internalized misandry? Some will say misandry doesn't exist). It's like the more modern idea that it's men, not patriarchy that oppresses. And that men aren't supposed to have any benefits regardless of evidence they are disadvantaged.

That's how you get “It’s not for further advantaging men. It’s really quite bizarre.” where men are a minority.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/08/sydne...

The idea that since men are privileged elsewhere or historically, supporting men today who aren't in any way is "quite bizarre".

Language in its plain form shapes us. That's why I won't take any slander of men or masculinity as ideas while there's cultural bars to doing that to others.

Masculinity is fine.

Antisocial behavior and the ideas that lead to it can be treated without using language that diminishes ones sex/gender or its expression.

This is why I always laugh at talk of representation. The foundational ideas are toxic.

Well at the very least you're thinking about it, that's refreshing.

Toxic masculinity isn't a word meant to diminish the very idea of masculinity, it's meant to describe the forms of it that hurt other people and men. E.g. "tough love" parenting hurts the son and robs the father in the future of a healthy and loving relationship with their son.

Toxic feminity is a concept but you correctly pointed out that it's tied to patriarchal ideology, it basically is a form of feminity that tries to validate patriarchy. The reason it isn't focused on misandry the way toxic masculinity is focused on misogyny, is because in western society, men and the culture of men had the vast majority of power. It's kinda similar to how one can certainly be prejudiced against white people in the west, but you'd have a hard time arguing for the existence of racism against white people in the west, since that word more describes prejudice with the weight of systems behind it. Thus the "n word" is "the n word" while saying "cracker" is generally fine or at least not nearly as socially unacceptable. Does that frustrate you as well? If so, it could be a good starting point for you to learn why your idea that we shouldn't be allowed to criticize "one side but not the other" is a bit wrong headed.

Anyway, so too does toxic masculinity and patriarchy describe something much larger than one man or one family.

If we hesitate to use these words because we're afraid of not being "both sides" enough or "fair," we're robbing ourselves of the opportunity to treat the root cause of, as you say, some antisocial behaviors. E.g. the incel movement is male-driven, the incels who got radicalized and driven to violence were all men, and incel culture latches on to the most toxic aspects of western male culture and uses it as their core ideology. If we want to analyze and perhaps "do something" about the incel movement, we have to be honest with ourselves about it and the history that led to it.

There is no feminine equivalent of this. There's incels that are women, but there's no massive internet movement that touches all aspects of culture and sometimes leads to school shootings. It's an issue of toxic masculinity, among other things, and feminine culture simply doesn't come into the picture. Shall we not talk about it until some more women have done school shootings for misandrist reasons?

That isn't inherently misandrist. You can talk about this without lumping all men into it, the same you can talk about the grave American crime of chattel slavery whole also including the abolitionists who sometimes put their lives on the line to resist it.

My browser has crashed twice. Maybe it's telling me not to respond but ultimately why would I hold my tongue when I'm free and don't agree? Everything is subject to criticism. Including the ideas of systemic anything and things were engineered not to say.

Unfortunately I have to cut my reply significantly. I addressed every issue before I lost but can't again

The idea both the current ideas and the word on its face itself aren't misandrist begger belief especially with the frequent rejection of gendered descriptions even when other genders are a stark minority. I ultimately reject ideas similar to or lead to "positive masculinity" because it's "progressive" traditional masculinity that only saddles men with gender roles.

That's extremely annoying when browser issues cause a message to get deleted. I'm so scarred from the same thing happening to me that I type my replies in an emacs scratch buffer and paste them into HN now. I'm interested in this conversation so I'm grateful you took the time to reply anyway. If you're very annoyed about the web ui, my email is in my bio.

It sounds like your critique is one opposed to the gender binary, because you aren't interested in saddling men with gender roles? That's very interesting if so, usually people interested in challenging the gender binary do so in part because of the toxicity around traditional gender roles.

Anyway, I don't think modern critique of toxic masculinity requires "saddling men" with anything that women aren't "saddled with" - simply a challenge to people, regardless of gender, to resist toxic gender roles. The talk around toxic masculinity is simply a reflection of the fact that in the West, men historically have had far more power, and our society still retains the leftover aspects of male culture from that, as well as of course the occasional case of modern misogyny.

I really feel like the thing you're concerned about is not happening, I'm wondering if perhaps your understanding of modern gender critique is a bit of a twitter caricature? Toxic masculinity isn't a misandrist term because not all men participate in toxic masculinity (that's the point...), it's just an accurate term to describe a male-sourced, male-centric culture.

How would you describe the fact that, in 1963, James Bond slaps a woman on screen, and is viewed as the "good guy?" That scene made it out of the writing room, in front of the director, into the hands of the actor, and then through editing and test screenings. To you, what does that say about society at the time, and how would you describe a culture that glorifies male violence against women?

Edit: thinking more on it I guess I'm confused about whether you're grocking that the existence of toxic masculinity implies also the existence of positive forms of masculinity: man as nurturer and protector, for example, or stoicism, dependability, and responsibility. Women can be that way too of course but I specifically mean the masculine portrayal of these traits in popular culture. How else do we describe the difference between the things we want to keep in our culture and the things we want to grow away from?

My critique starts from the labels themselves. The labels force a colocation in the minds of people about the people it's used to describe in a gender asymmetrical way.

Your description/definition doesn't match mine and I've given the reason above. and men indeed

I've also mentioned that men don't live in the history you keep bringing up.

I'm also not the sort to say and men like you did. Men as an afterthought. Never independently thought about but always in relation to some other entity. I always consider it a yellow flag unless the audience is politicians or "not men".

Men as men are whole without roles.

>man as nurturer and protector, for example, or stoicism, dependability, and responsibility

I'm supporting men regardless of the presence of these especially because others are supported without regard for virtue.

You warned earlier about things people can't say. I'm here saying them. (I believe PG has an essay)

In a world where someone in power can say this

“My snarky reaction always to that is: I never heard anyone talking about the desperate need for gender balance when women were so underrepresented,” Bigham said. “Really, it’s just when boys seem to be falling behind and suddenly it’s a thing. This whole argument that we need gender balance – there’s really very little to back it up.” without censure;

I feel compelled to speak out.

Below is stuff I'm repeating to answer your edit

"Antisocial behavior and the ideas that lead to it can be treated without using language that diminishes ones sex/gender or its expression." - me

"Language in its plain form shapes us. That's why I won't take any slander of men or masculinity as ideas while there's cultural bars to doing that to others."- me

> "Language in its plain form shapes us. That's why I won't take any slander of men or masculinity as ideas while there's cultural bars to doing that to others."- me

What I don't understand is what I perceive to be an unwillingness on your part to separate the toxic from the masculinity, toxic being an adjective describing the noun masculinity, so therefore, one form of masculinity.

Is this all just because you perceive this to be unfair for some reason? Are you a redpiller or men's right activist type? Do you believe it's unfair that white people can't say the n-word and black people can?

I love men and consider them whole regardless of their colour or societal standing. In the manner several other groups are loved. Not with gendered exceptions.

I'm black but don't use the N word. Or any other racial insult/epithet.

Go call other people's existence or yours toxic and stop pretending you don't know about word association and how that can cause prejudice.

These men are bad, they are assholes but people's actions aren't toxic masculinity. Men aren't to be referred to as "and"; by-products and afterthoughts. While other groups exist as wholes and are wholesome.

Toxic masculinity is 100% societal pressure on men to act in certain ways (you've seen an example from someone else in this thread[you]) and people who push claims that it's men's actions or response are the sort of people who write this:

Or nod to it like lizards in full acceptance.

Real men indeed.

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