Masculine Toxicity

Manly, masculine, sexist, dominating, chauvinist, misogynist....toxic?
Since the rise of the Alt Right and our grabby pussing President a new term, Toxic Masculinity, has entered our pretty little heads.  Is it real?   Do I have it?   Is it catching?
Yes, yes and yes.
In a host of recent articles writers and thinkers have been trying to explain what's going on.   How, in a world supposedly becoming more liberal towards issues around sexuality or race and ethnicity could gender become such a battlefield?
And what exactly is the toxic form of masculinity?   Is it all masculinity?  Is it a modern form?  Or some sort of return to a former time before those dastardly liberals got their paws on gender?
Yes, yes, and yes again to the latter three.
I've read a fair few pieces on man poison and often there's a conflation of many ideas.   Yet at the same time, paradoxically, they are all part of the same issue.   So when articles cite James Bond as quintessential toxic masculinity...

 it's both true and false at the same time.   Connery's Bond is classic bygone era lurid flannel romper suit sexism.   And historically this meant pussy grabbing and butt patting were normalized behaviours.

Most might argue that Bond is not toxic, he doesn't hate women, he loves women...for one scene of every movie, at least...and he merely fits a model of romance fiction tropes, he has morals, of sorts, whilst being hyper-masculine.  He's what every man wants to be and every woman, to be with, or something.

Which is both a very unhealthy statement about gender and a long way from the kind of hatred experienced by so many women on social media, or often, on our streets.

I was about to say that Bond reflects an unhealthy version of masculinity but that's falling into the very paradoxical trap of gender relations.   Masculinity isn't 'real'.   It's a socialized gender norm.   I'm male but other than a relatively small amount of biological differences there's very little to differentiate me from my female partner.   Most of what defines my masculinity then is simply cultural indoctrination.   Both on my part and on the part of everyone else.    Gender is ideological.  It's invisible at the point of enculturation, and mostly seen as natural by most of us.   There's a form of, what sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu called "circular causality" in the way we look at gender, at representation, at history.    The moment we begin to talk of a toxic masculinity we are setting ourselves up to define a healthy masculinity.   A healthy masculinity then is defined as a norm.   Yet masculinity is not a norm, there's no evidence that traits that define masculinity are biological.   

If we agree that masculinity isn't biological then who defines what masculinity is let alone what "good" masculinity is?

The cliched traits of masculinity, competitiveness, aggression, being assertive, unemotional, etc. all tend to sound very bad to this masculine hunk of manhood blog writer.   

So it's not surprising I suppose that if we're confused about what gender is and how it functions that, then, definitions of Toxic Masculinity vary and are often absurd.

Take for instance, Nikki Gemmell in The Australian: Why toxic masculinity is on the rise.

Gemmell writes about her personal encounters with this pernicious form of masculinity.

"Walking along the pavement of a busy shopping centre, holding my six-year-old’s hand. An imperious bell behind us. We jump, turn. It takes a second or two to clock that the persistent jangling is directed at us, demanding we get out of the way. A man riding a bicycle on the busy footpath is most displeased; he’s deemed we’re walking too slowly for his liking. I break the grip on my son’s hand to allow the cyclist through, commenting to my boy that I didn’t think cyclists were meant to ride along footpaths in shopping areas like this.

He heard. What followed was a vile volley of shouting and swearing directed at me and my child amid all the shoppers. The man was so… clenched. Raw, skinned, vulnerable. A fine and illuminating example of toxic masculinity for a young boy to note. So this is what some boys can turn out to be. Why?"

Obviously, what Gemmell is describing here is a form of sociopathy.   And it falls into the trap of the most basic faulty reasoning.   The sociopath was a man thus his sociopathy was down to his gender.   As an example of toxic masculinity it leaves a lot to be desired.   How does that fit into the wider trope of sexual violence and harassment and misogyny that is the usual description of this toxic masculine?   Well, it doesn't.   And what if you simply threw back a similar sociopathic example...

TV presenter Jeremy Vine was confronted by a driver because he was cycling (too slow) in London, she used abusive language and threatened to knock him out and made a gun gesture.   

Sociopathy crosses gender boundaries, any pedestrian facing the human machine that is a mother with a pram knows how sociopathic mothers are.   Let me through, I have the future of the human race in my buggy, make way.   this might just be my own bugbear.

Gemmell then extrapolates the incident to a wider cause and effect: "This charming little episode felt like an encapsulation of many aspects of toxic male rage. The sense of entitlement, that the footpath was his and his alone. The volcanic rage. The bullish desire to vanquish. The belief that he can do he wants, when he wants, and not follow the rules like the rest of us; we were in his way and needed to be bullied and abused out of it.

Where does this deeply unhappy perversion of noble masculinity come from? From a sense of entitlement, perhaps, brewed by those around the precious boy-child from infancy onward; they are the hallowed king of the world and all will bow before them and so they grow up expecting others to acknowledge and respect this golden rule. They’re the star, and when there’s pushback there’s an explosion of indignation."

Wow.   No idea where Gemmell lives but I don't advise her to take a trip to Greater Manchester where this behaviour is an everyday occurrence for us pedestrian people.   She's sort of right but uses a really bad example to get to her point.   She confuses biology (male) with gender (masculinity), a very common fault in all of us.   Is she suggesting that there is a biological toxic rage in males?   Who knows?   Her experience is indicative of a meeting with a sociopath, not indicative of masculinity.   Or is it? Again,what is this masculinity?   For Gemmell there's obviously a sick masculinity and a healthy one.   

Underlying this is an assumption that there is some sort of innate masculine in every male.   In fact this view is now quite pervasive.   Pop in "innate sex differences" in Google and you can find myriad studies suggesting that those who believe that gender is socially created are at best only partially right ,but mostly wrong.    Of course, all the studies are faulty because they assume that gender is not socialized.   Thus you can have a piece in live science that states: "a prevalent understanding, particularly in the 1980s, was that boys and girls are born cognitively the same" is completely wrong.   "Females tend to have more verbal fluency and greater memory for objects — that is, "they are better at remembering where things are...In school, girls tend to do better in all subjects, albeit by only about a quarter grade on a four-point scale... Boys, on the other hand, tend to excel at tests that focus on areas outside their school's curriculum."

That's pretty typical gender/sex confusion again.   Female is biology, girl is gender.

It confusingly continues: "In more gender-equal societies, the male advantage in math virtually disappears...When given more equal encouragement and access to education, on average, girls become even better at reading than boys and boys further outstrip girls in visual-spatial tasks."

This is pretty typical of the arguments.  How exactly would a researcher strip any study of gender socialization?   How would you ignore the ways the boys and girls have experienced their parental attention, the home, the school, other social spheres?     From the moment a baby pops out into this chaos their parents, caregivers, peers, and later educators, colleagues, partners colour their every behaviour by an invisible set of gender expectations.   The very fact that environment (gender equal societies) affects behaviours proves that gender is socialized not biological.

What Gemmell, among others, might actually be describing is the result of social norms that can only partly be ascribed to gender.   They're social norms inscribed in a society based around individualism, competition, assertiveness, aggression, that is, our society itself is ordered to fit supposed masculine norms.  When I say "our" I'm talking about, dare I use the N word, western Neo-Liberal democracies.   Perhaps we should be talking of toxic individualism, or just toxic humanity if we're taking the view that general sociopathy is Toxic Masculinity.   

I would say that we have a toxic individualism at the heart of our society, where competition is encouraged between workers for their 'dream job', children to get that 'dream grade' or just everyone to have their 'dream life.'   We dream too much.   Though if Toxic Masculinity is real.   Is it a new thing?   What is it?   Why is it?   

Some men hate women.   All men have this potential.   New vehicles in modern life have given men the mediums to give our hatred of women an outlet.   Just as the insular boxed in world of the car allows drivers to act out sociopathic and often psychopathic tendencies, social media and the internet in general has given men a similar virtually anonymous resource from which to vent hatred of women.  Coupled with this is the huge advances in gender rights over the previous five decades.   Or rather, perhaps this hatred is a result of this emancipation.

One can, at least in the UK, pinpoint the exact year where life was radically altered for the genders.

1967.

The Velvet Underground released their debut LP in that year.   It has nothing to do with the argument but it's the most important album ever made so there.

On the 28th June 1967 the NHS Family Planning Act came into effect, allowing women reproductive rights via the freely available contraceptive pill.   Four months later the Abortion Act was passed effectively legalizing abortions.  Both had huge ramifications for women's rights. 

Across the pond "1967 featured both the introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment into the Senate and groundbreaking pickets at the New York Times opposing sex-segregated job ads."  In Chicago a "free school" course on women was offered at the University of Chicago.   Among the attendees was Jo Freeman and Shulamith Firestone, who in the same year set up the Chicago Women's Liberation Union.   Women's Lib groups sprang up everywhere (in the west).   By the early 70s there were numerous seminal Feminist texts and Feminist magazines.   

At the Women's Strike for Equality, August 26, 1970 dissentmagazine

As a side note, it's hard to credit it now but in 1979 women marched in Tehran, Iran to protest against the new Hijab Law being enforced by the ultra right wing Khomeini government.

If anyone needed a lesson in how patriarchy can enforce gender norms overnight the 1979 Iranian Revolution is a key marker.   

From 1967 to now gender divides have been systematically challenged, subverted, destroyed.   But somewhere in there things have gone badly wrong.  While in theory women and men are equal, in reality women still face discrimination in the workplace, media, home, family and society at large but something else has shifted.   "Street harassment, sexual harassment...and body-shaming.  The massive growth of the beauty industry, and "pornification" – the infiltration of pornographic imagery into the mainstream via Playboy-branded pencil cases, for instance...lads' mags, Page 3, rape pages on Facebook, cosmetic surgery advertising, the stream of online misogyny  harassment or assault on public transport..." The Guardian

The internet is a wonderful thing.   It's also a kind of shadow world or, a mirror (see I did bring it around to The Velvet Underground) on the 'real' world.   It both reflects back our selves and our attitudes and allows us a Hyde-like alter ego alternative persona, often anynomous.   I can openly insult people I don't know on a platform (that admittedly no one is reading), a platform that simply wasn't present before the internet.   Sure, I could have written obsessive personally derogatory letters to celebrities in the past but what's the point if, say, only Hilary Clinton gets to read it.   I can go on Twitter and literally three or more people might read me attacking Hilary Clinton for having...I dunno...Uh breasts or something.  The internet is, for many of us, more real than reality, young people allegedly spent 27 hours a week on average on the net back in 2014 and that was before the ubiquity of smartphones.   It's 'natural' that that hyper-real world should seep into the 'real' world and become blurred.   Coupled with that is the troubling content of ubiquitous social media.   It's easy to sound moral-panicy though.   And is it that the internet has created so called Toxic Masculinity or is it simply an outlet for misogynism?   Or is there more of a symbiotic relationship?   

In my own humble experience it's hard to disentangle the idea that patriarchy was so embedded in 1967 that what was deemed normal then would now be considered Toxic Masculinity or whether something has fundamentally shifted, perhaps primarily, because feminism has broken down so many patriarchal barriers.   It feels (deeply unscientifically) that it's the latter.   Chauvinism, sexism was endemic in our culture in the 1960s through the 1980s and perhaps began to change with shifts in media and cultural portrayals of women.   It's shocking from the perspective of now watching 1970s TV and film that casually references rape for comedic effect.   Comedians, for a time, for shock effect, in the early 2010s resurrected the 'rape joke.'   But instinctively that feels a long way from the hatred one can read online on social media or revenge and humiliation porn and the extreme ends of the men's movements.   

Over at Salon magazine Kali Holloway in Toxic masculinity is killing men: The roots of male trauma

offers some dubious research that raises interesting questions about gender in general:

"Both mothers and fathers imagine inherent sex-related differences between baby girls and boys. Even when researchers controlled for babies’ “weight, length, alertness, and strength,” parents overwhelmingly reported that baby girls were more delicate and “softer” than baby boys; they imagined baby boys to be bigger and generally “stronger.” When a group of 204 adults was shown video of the same baby crying and given differing information about the baby’s sex, they judged the “female” baby to be scared, while the “male” baby was described as “angry.”"

Intuitively this sounds plausible.   

"That theory is bolstered by other studies...which consistently find that “from the moment of birth, boys are spoken to less than girls, comforted less, nurtured less.” 

...It’s a pattern that continues throughout childhood and into adolescence. A study...found both mothers and fathers emphasized “achievement and competition in their sons,” and taught them to “control their emotions”"

Again, this seems intuitively plausible.

"....Parents gave positive reinforcement to all children when they exhibited “same-sex preferred” behaviors (as opposed to “cross-sex preferred”). Parents who said they “accepted sex equity” nonetheless offered more positive responses to little boys when they played with blocks, and offered negative feedback to girls when they engaged in sporty behavior. And while independent play—away from parents—and “independent accomplishments” were encouraged in boys, girls received more positive feedback when they asked for help. As a rule, these parents were unaware of the active role they played in socializing their children in accordance with gender norms. Fagot notes that all stated they treated sons and daughters the same, without regard to sex, a claim sharply contradicted by study findings."

Hands up anyone who hasn't experienced this from caregivers, educators, or, in fact, everyone around you, including, of course, the ubiquitous media.

How could one unravel the behaviours and norms towards us of everyone we've ever interacted with from our biological sex?   What, in fact, makes me a man beyond my male chromosomes?   Can I be sure that anything in my mind is biological, other than the actual brain matter itself?

So, like Gemmell above, when we do discuss masculinity we tend to discuss it in terms of good and bad, as if there is some solid basis to ground this on rather than a set of behaviours that the majority of people think are 'good masculinity,' remembering that they themselves have been grounded in what that good masculinity entails.   

I like Halloway's thinking when she argues that:

"The emotionally damaging “masculinization” of boys starts even before boyhood, in infancy....Numerous studies find that parents often unconsciously begin projecting a kind of innate “manliness”—and thus, a diminished need for comfort, protection and affection—onto baby boys as young as newborns. This, despite the fact that gendered behaviors are absent in babies; male infants actually behave in ways our society defines as “feminine.” “Little boys and little girls start off... equally emotional, expressive, and dependent, equally desirous of physical affection. At the youngest ages, both boys and girls are more like a stereotypical girl. If any differences exist, little boys are, in fact, slightly more sensitive and expressive than little girls. They cry more easily, seem more easily frustrated, appear more upset when a caregiver leaves the room.”"

Again, it seems fairly intuitive to believe that babies, apart from biological sex, are fundamentally the same, a default, like all babies are atheists, and, one could argue that the natural default for babies is vegan too, if you fancied going down those roads.   If we accept that a loving environment, wealth, health and education create intelligent stable healthy wealthy individuals why not accept that treating two babies of different sex in an hermetic environment would lead to two adults indistinguishable other than biological sex?    

Obviously hermetic environments don't exist outside of Michael Jackson's (ever) creepy oxygen bed and utopias such as Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time or radical feminist imaginings of a future in Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex.   

Jackson hermetically sealed.   Who took photos of Jackson asleep?  Weird.

Firestone suggested:

"“Unless revolution uproots the basic social organization, the biological family—the vinculum through which the psychology of power can always be smuggled—the tapeworm of exploitation will never be annihilated. Pregnancy is barbaric, childbirth is “like shitting a pumpkin”; and childhood is “a supervised nightmare.” She understood that such statements were unlikely to be welcomed—especially, perhaps, by other women. “This is painful,” she warned on the book’s first page, because “no matter how many levels of consciousness one reaches, the problem always goes deeper.” She went on:

Feminists have to question, not just all of Western culture, but the organization of culture itself, and further, even the very organization of nature. Many women give up in despair: if that’s how deep it goes they don’t want to know.

She envisioned a world in which women might be liberated by artificial reproduction outside the womb; in which collectives took the place of families; and in which children were granted “the right of immediate transfer” from abusive adults. Predictably, the proposal stimulated more outrage than fresh thought, though many of Firestone’s ideas—children’s rights, an end to “male” work and traditional marriage, and social relations altered through a “cybernetic” computer revolution—have proved prescient." Susan Faludi

Woman on the Edge of Time is a fictional story of an Hispanic cleaner who is incarcerated in a mental hospital.   She has visions of a utopia, a kind of anarchist collective where all the troubles of our age (it was written in 1976) have been, effectively, controlled, war, the environment, gender division, class division, etc.   Per is used as a personal pronoun (short for person) instead of he, she, etc.   Connie, our heroine, is led through her (perhaps) visions by androgynous Luciente.   The novel is fundamentally about free will and, obviously, the ways in which we are subjected by class, gender, race, etc.

I wrote my graduate dissertation on that book.   

For my first year at university I studied "Women's Studies."   A course based on gender history and feminist theory.   But, thinking of  Bourdieu's theory of Masculine Domination, this course merely reinforced gender divisions and reasserted a form of feminine discourse.   That is, it was a course aimed at women, about women, which primarily focused on female oppression throughout history and culture and was thus defining itself in opposition to masculinity, and tucked away neatly in the humanities department, not in the hard sciences.   It didn't strike me then, but now, it seems the course was merely reinforcing gender expectations by itself focusing on gender, as if all the women on the course (not me, I'm a rugged Bond-ian man) somehow held something together beyond their biological sex.   At the same time, I found myself at loggerheads with the other women on the course because I was pretty hardcore Second Wave Feminist whereas most of the women were what we might term third or fourth wave feminists, more intent on things like wage equality (obviously a good thing), 'consciousness raising,' and often veering towards "Girly Feminism," that feminism about being "strong, independent, smart, goal-oriented woman, who is responsible for her own choices" with a "strength in my femininity." Juliet Asante: What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Girly’ Feminist?   If not that then they were predominantly Mumsnet Feminists.   You know "I think #Mumsnet is key to understanding feminism. Feminism hardly comes into play until you have kids. Then you get it."  Yeah, until you have kids you just don't understand anything.   

Third and Fourth wave feminism are pretty postmodern, fractured, taking in numerous ideas, particularly around other 'disciplines' like race or disability.   I dissent because I find issues like Muslim Women wearing headscarves or Transgender women having the same rights as females problematic.  I also don't think celebrating femininity is healthy.   If one accepts that femininity is a construct that is dialectically opposed to masculinity then it's of course problematic.   If we accept femininity as good then we are perhaps prone to accept that masculinity can be good too.   For many second wavists both are problematic because it's gender itself that is the problem.   And to then try to deconstruct or fight gendered discourse by using gendered discourse is prone to failure.   In simple terms, if we accept the concept of Toxic Masculinity does it have its flipside in Toxic Femininity, hyper-passive Barbie dolling?    For second wave feminism the core ideal was to do away with all gendered discourse. 

Audre Lorde, "a Black lesbian feminist" recognized how problematic a gendered discourse was and how difficult it is to break down in her famous piece The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House:

"As women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference -- those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older -- know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.

Poor women and women of Color know there is a difference between the daily manifestations of marital slavery and prostitution because it is our daughters who line 42nd Street. If white American feminist theory need not deal with the differences between us, and the resulting difference in our oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of Color? What is the theory behind racist feminism?"

Bourdieu echoes this by arguing that "the division of the sexes" is not only present in "the objectified state--in things (in the house, for example, every part of which is 'sexed')" but also "in the embodied state--in the habitus of the agents, functioning as systems of schemes of perception, thought and action. The embedding of social structures in bodies" 

It seems like I'm getting a long way away from Toxic Masculinity but my overlong point is that masculinity itself is toxic.   Femininity is problematic in the sense of how we think of femininity in modern media forms.   But often, as argued above, femininity traits are merely default non-gendered traits healthy individuals tend to admire; empathy, sensitivity, nurture, gentleness.  

Because these supposed feminine traits are actually default human(ist) traits masculinity has to continually assert itself, because it is both not natural and not our default.  To thrive, masculinity must be assertive and by being assertive masculinity must control these feminine traits.   If supposed feminine traits are default there is no essential reason to assert them, no power struggle, the power struggle only begins when masculinity is asserted, or its polar opposite, pink hyper-femininity (which is merely an assertion of masculinity by women).   

Thus Bourdieu recognizes that "male privilege is also a trap, and it has its negative side in the permanent tension and contention, sometimes verging on the absurd, imposed on every man by the duty to assert his manliness in all circumstances," noting that "what is called 'courage' is thus often rooted in a kind of cowardice" since it springs "from the fear of losing the respect or admiration of the group, of 'losing face' in front of one's 'mates' and being relegated to the typically female category of 'wimps', 'girlies', 'fairies' etc.". "Manliness," Bourdieu points out, "is an eminently relational notion, constructed in front of and for other men and against femininity, in a kind of fear of the female, firstly in oneself." Bourdieu Masculine dominance

James Gilligan, former director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School, echoes this idea in the piece in Kali Holloway piece for Salon:
"[He] has written numerous books on the subject of male violence and its source. In a 2013 interview with MenAlive, a men’s health blog, Gilligan spoke of his study findings, stating, “I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo that ‘loss of face’—no matter how severe the punishment, even if it includes death.”

This is again echoed in the Gemmell piece:  "Michael Kimmel is a US sociology professor and author of Angry White Men. He believes the “real man” trope leaves many of its acolytes frustrated and angry when their unrealistic expectations of power and dominance aren’t met. Because they need compliance; they’ve always had it."

But then falls into that gendered trap by continuing:  "Kimmel wants a shift in focus from the old-fashioned notion of the “real man” to the kinder, gentler model of the “good man”. "

What does that mean?   Good man?   A paradox?   Certainly abstruse.   Can one define this kind of masculinity as good and this one bad? 

Gemmell, fortunately clears up what a good man is:

"My sons are fortunate. They have four examples of secure, empathetic, even-keeled men around them in their father, grandfathers and uncle. They’re setting them up for the new world ahead of us all; teaching my boys by example what it is to be a good man. Unafraid of women, not wanting to reduce or control them, and devoid of explosive anger at perceived slights – as demonstrated by my cyclist with his verbal violence.

Instances of toxic masculinity will only increase as the world order in terms of gender domination fractures; as increasingly the “good man” trope is rewarded over the “real man” one. The world is waking up to the small, insecure man needing to vanquish at all costs. And so he roars and rages. Punches in windscreens, snatches car keys, bullies and abuses. Pity, actually, is what’s left."

A good man is the kind that I hang out with.   Ah yes, the old...

good man trope.

The difficulty is that every time we talk about what causes Toxic Masculinity we reinforce notions of a correct masculinity rather than questioning masculinity itself.

So Holloway rightly cites the way we gender boys and enforce that gender causes Toxic Masculinity:

"The result of all this—the early denial of boy’s feelings, and our collective insistence that they follow suit—is that boys are effectively cut off from their feelings and emotions, their deepest and most vulnerable selves. Historian Stephanie Coontz has labeled this effect the “masculine mystique.” It leaves little boys, and later, men, emotionally disembodied, afraid to show weakness and often unable to fully access, recognize or cope with their feelings.

In his book, Why Men Can’t Feel, Marvin Allen states, “[T]hese messages encourage boys to be competitive, focus on external success, rely on their intellect, withstand physical pain, and repress their vulnerable emotions. When boys violate the code, it is not uncommon for them to be teased, shamed, or ridiculed.” The cliche about men not being in touch with their emotions says nothing about inherent markers of maleness. It instead identifies behavioral outcomes that have been rigorously taught, often by well-meaning parents and society at large. As Terry Real said when I spoke to him, this process of disconnecting boys from their “feminine” —or more accurately, “human”—emotional selves is deeply harmful. “Every step...is injurious,” says Real. “It's traumatic. It's traumatic to be forced to abdicate half of your own humanity.”"

But then Holloway naturally then veers towards the Men's Movement's dictates:

"When masculinity is defined by absence, when it sits, as it does, on the absurd and fallacious idea that the only way to be a man is to not acknowledge a key part of yourself, the consequences are both vicious and soul crushing. The resulting displacement and dissociation leaves men yet more vulnerable, susceptible, and in need of crutches to help allay the pain created by our demands of manliness.

We have to move far beyond our outdated ideas of masculinity, and get past our very ideas about what being a man is. We have to start seeing men as innately so, with no need to prove who they are, to themselves or anyone else."

Darn, you almost had it then you blew it in the last paragraph.   

This perplexing blind is repeated in article after article.   More Men Should Learn The Difference Between Masculinity and Toxic Masculinity says Ryan Douglas at the Huffing Post.

"Google “toxic masculinity” and you’re likely to stumble across Ben Shapiro’s National Review article The ‘Toxic Masculinity’ Smear, where he discusses the Left’s war on masculinity and manhood. 

The main flaw in Shapiro’s argument is his failure to separate masculinity from “toxic masculinity”—two concepts that have little to do with one another."

Right.   So what is the difference?

"Masculinity is real, natural, and biological. Toxic masculinity is a performance invented to reinforce it."

No it's not.   There's nothing natural about me being more competitive or agressive than my female partner.   There's nothing biological about the difference between my partner and myself other than the biology bits, chromosome things.   The rest is sociology.

That's it as far as the difference goes according to Douglas.   The rest of the article is about how men should be less masculine and you know, then, they'll be, like...less toxic....or something.   You know, strength is a virtue...not like 

 strength but like...

gay fairy ponce crying strength.   

And Douglas really nails down the whole nature/nurture thing and how men can still be masculine whilst being gay fairy poncy:

"What any gender conversation comes down to is which qualities come of biology and which are socially constructed. It would be disingenuous to deny men have stronger sexual impulses, but smiling, being kind, showing interest in fashion, the arts, your own appearance or the color pink strips no man of his ability to have sex, nor his ability to start a family, protect them or fight where fighting is necessary. Wearing pants rather than a skirt changes nothing about the impulses a man is born with."

Yep real men talk fashion and pink.   You see, I'm a real man.   I show an interest in pink things and fashion with my girlfriend.   Yet she continues to hate fashion and pink things.   She's so masculine.

Douglas just steals feminine traits and re-imagines them as masculine whilst all the time telling us these traits are biological...huh?  "Empathy—a most traditionally “feminine” quality as society would tell it—is not weakness. It’s a tool for progress and it is a virtue. "

In fact, Douglas says we should do away with these traits that define the genders:   "The only thing that’s stripping men of their manhood is the notion that one set of stereotypical behaviors is allowed to define it."

This is classic you're gonna get obese having your cake and eating writing.   Masculinity is biological but hey you don't have to follow those uh...social rules that define masculinity.   You can be cuddly and talk about fashion.   You can deny your biology.

It is, of course, nonsense.   Cuddly masculinity makes no sense.
Like the famous Athena 1980s poster...

It's just a Mills and Boon romance trope (and yes, I did a module on Romance Fiction at University) of the hunky brooding silent hunk who underneath is an ickle kitten.   See 50 Shades of Grey as a classic example of the dominating I want to stick plugs in your butt but hey underneath this hot...hot...sexy exterior I'm just a fragile emotional boy needing the love of a good woman who is happy for me to put various objects inside her body.

In fact, the only piece I came across in my extensive research on this subject (ha) which made any sense at all was by Helen Razer at Crikey Razer: ‘toxic masculinity’ debate is self-defeating and toxic itself.

"There are, of course, many feminists who use the term. They use it passionately, publicly and, presumably, with sincere hope that their diagnosis will rid the world of delimiting gender norms. Now, being a fairly blokey woman, I’m all for an end to such rot. But, I fail to see how one unties the straitjacket of gender by sewing a new one.

Now, leave aside your views about the naturalness of gender here, and just try to help the rest of the class share its frustration. You may continue to believe that ladies are predisposed to the soft touch of velour, that men are inclined to drive trucks by evolution, etc, and still see “toxic masculinity” as hostile to the aims of a feminism that seeks freedom from the gender that is imposed by the social.

The thing is, you either want socially constructed categories of masculinity and femininity, or you don’t. If you go about defining one of these categories as “toxic”, you necessarily define its benign opposite. The hope for a non-toxic masculinity is entirely dependent on a belief in a masculinity that will always exist outside the social realm."

And so say all of us.

"Is this “toxic masculinity” a system that is socially imposed, or is it a thing that individual bad dudes catch?" asks Razer. 
Well, it's both in this cake and eat it argument.   Toxic masculinity is terrible and I'm a man but hey, I'm one of the good guys, they argue, or if they're a woman, my husband and son are the good guys. 
It isn't gendered socialized roles that are bad per se, it's just these bad ones, that I mysteriously did not catch.

My favourite articles are both cited by Razer (in unflattering terms).
There's Gad Saad over at Psychology Today Is Toxic Masculinity a Valid Concept? On the dangers of pathologizing manhood?
Saad goes down the Jordan Peterson route of trying to root masculinity in biology by likening humans to other species...

"Female fiddler crabs and hens prefer males with extravagantly large claws and tails respectively. Ewes (female rams) will mate with the ram that wins the brutal intrasexual head-butting contest. They reward targeted aggression by granting sexual access. Needless to say, there are innumerable other examples of sexual selection that I might describe, but I suspect that you get the general gist. Are rams exhibiting toxic masculinity? Are female fiddler crabs succumbing to antiquated notions of masculinity as promulgated by the crab patriarchy?"

Damn straight they are.   Have you read some of the stuff rams write on InstaRam (the sheep, goat and other arable farm animal friendly social media site)?   Crab patriarchy is the worstriachy. 

That's the highpoint of Saad's argument.   Suggesting toxic masculinity is just feminists getting uppity about mating instincts or something.   Peterson uses a similar argument about lobsters having social hierarchies and we're a bit like lobsters (the whole being alive, having eyes, do lobsters have eyes? thing) so it's absolute scientific fact that humans are genetically designed to have hierarchies...like crabs and paedophiles...

"Of course this does not imply that women are not attracted to intelligent, sensitive, kind, warm, and compassionate men. The ideal man is rugged and sensitive; masculine and caring; aggressive in some pursuits and gentle in others," says sensitive yet rugged Gad Saad.

Masculine but caring Gad

The ideal man?   Saad has no understanding of how sociology works (whatever happened to sociology?):

"Think of the male archetype in romance novels, which is a literary form almost exclusively read by women. He is a tall prince and a neurosurgeon. He is a risk-taker who wrestles alligators and subdues them on his six-pack abs, and yet is sensitive enough to be tamed by the love of a good woman. This archetype is universally found in romance novels read by women in Egypt, Japan, and Bolivia, precisely because it caters to women’s universal evolved sexual fantasies."

Yep, that's a socialized fantasy trope.  Well done.   That merely proves the point that masculinity is a social construct.   Look women fantasize about the impossible.

"When engaging in sexual role-playing in the bedroom, few women ask that their male partners wear their Google C++ programmer uniform."

Have you tried getting hold of a Google C++ programmer uniform in the sexual role play in the bedroom fantasy outfitters store?   It's practically impossible.  I'm pretty certain if they were more ubiquitous in those stores women would be desperate for some serious coding action.

"They ask for the fireman suit to make its presence."

Now why do you think that is Gad?   Do you think women are genetically programmed to fantasize about firemen?

You don't think this might be a tinsy winsy bit socialized?

I bet a lot of women are disappointed on that fateful day when they have to call 999 or 911 or whatever...You're nothing like I fantasized about...Here put on this Google C++ programmer outfit and see if that'll work.

"James Bond, the epitome of “toxic masculinity,” does not cry at Taylor Swift concerts. His archetype is desired by women and envied by men."

Oh christ, Saad stole from my post.   We can't be sure that Bond doesn't cry at Taylor Swift concerts (are they particularly tear inducing?) as he never seems to get time off from spy things and shagging.   I'm sure if he had a night off and went to see TS he'd be blubbering like a sensitive yet hunky fireman.

"There has been a relentless ideological attack on masculinity, stemming from radical feminism, the most recent example of which is the bogus term “toxic masculinity.” It literally seeks to pathologize masculinity in ways that are profoundly harmful to the existential sense of self of young men. If a man witnesses a woman being attacked on the street, should he intervene? Well, according to the bogus feminist notion of benevolent sexism, it might be best to look away. Male saviors are likely oozing toxic masculinity! I should add that male criminals are not exhibiting “toxic masculinity” any more than female adulterers are exhibiting “diabolical femininity.”

Huh?   This makes no sense whatsoever.   Woman attacked by what on the street?   A rampaging bear or something?   I presume he means attacked by a man.   Which is thus your toxic masculinity in a nutshell.   

I have no idea what "bogus feminist notion of benevolent sexism" even means but if Saad used a bit of logic he'd realize that if we assume all masculinity is toxic then the attack on the woman would not happen if masculinity did not exist.   All men would be like James Bond at a Taylor Swift concert.  Just constantly in tears.   

So the saviour is an example of upright healthy masculinity but Saad then adds that an attacker would not be an example of toxic masculinity just a cad and a bounder, I'm guessing.   

Whatever, his whole hypothetical would be redundant in a hypothetical genderless world.

"The great majority of men are attracted to feminine women who do not possess the body type of Michael Phelps. Beyoncé is desired not because of her “diabolical femininity,” but simply because of her femininity. Similarly, most of the traits and behaviors that are likely found under the rubric of “toxic masculinity” are precisely those that most women find attractive in an ideal mate!"

Stop dribbling, female readers.

I had to google Michael Phelps.   He's an aquatic sporting man 

I can't see why women would be attracted to Phelps''s body type...I don't want to sound conceited but I'm hotter and I know to take the coin's foil off first to get to the chocolate 

"This is not a manifestation of “antiquated stereotypes.” It is a reality that is as trivially obvious as the existence of gravity, and no amount of campus brainwashing will ever alter these facts. Let us stop pathologizing masculinity. Instead, let us appreciate the endless ways by which men and women are similar to one another, as well as the important ways in which the two sexes differ."

I know it's horribly pejorative of me but Saad is a fucking idiot.

Almost as bad is Jaclyn Friedman Building better men: how we can begin to redefine masculinity.   In which Friedman tells us education and uh education can make men better...uh men. 

Now her article discusses rape so here's a TRIGGER WARNING...or if you're Jordan Peterson, here's a left wing feminist conspiracy warning...

Friedman uses the example of her friend, Dave.

"I have a friend – let’s call him Dave, though that’s not his name."
I bet he gets pissed off about that.   How many times do I have to tell you Jaclyn, my name is Jeff, why must you always insist in everyone calling me Dave?  Ahhhh....

"...who is active in his church, a loving and supportive husband, and a hilarious dinner companion. He’s also a former rapist."

A former rapist?  I bet he is a great dinner companion.

"So what do you do, Dave?"

"I'm a loving supportive Christian."

"Right, yeah, but what did you do before you turned to religion as a moral crutch to alleviate your guilt?"

"Oh, well, I used to be a rapist."

"Right, right.  That must of been interesting.   No stop, don't fucking tell me about it you fucking shit."

Anyway.   Yes, he's a former rapist.   And, I guess that makes the person he raped, like a kind of formerly raped person, I suppose.

"He confessed this to me in fits and starts, over dinners and phone calls and late-night drinks, after we’d known each other a couple of years."

How does one confess to rape in fits and starts over two years?   I mean, at what part of the phone calls and dinner chats did the conversation hinge on Oh yes I forcibly had sex with someone against their will.   Is dinner ok tomorrow?

"His story matches much of the research my work relies on, but it still forced me to re-evaluate some of my core assumptions about rapists and about the role of men in ending rape."

Right.   Tell me more.   Because I'm a bit uncomfortable about this and I'm getting bad feelings....

"Dave’s former MO is familiar to anyone who thinks about sexual violence for a living."

Yeah, I remember at school when we had to go to career's advice.   

"No I'm not really interested in shop work, I was wondering if you had anything in the sexual violence line, I've heard there's a good living to be made there."

"He picked victims he knew."

Hold on there. Victims?  Plural?   He's a serial rapist?   I mean, former serial rapist?

"He got them alone, encouraged them to have conversations that made them feel vulnerable, and pressed a lot of alcohol on them. And then, when they were too drunk to consent, he “had sex” with them. (That’s how he thought about it at the time, though today he will tell you straight up it was rape.)"

Well good for him.   I bet all his victims are just pleased he can recognize that he raped them and perhaps made their lives unbearable and all those close to the victims with secondary trauma.   Good for him.

"The research is very clear: most rapists know they don’t have consent, and they rape an average of six times each. Before Dave told me his story, I thought that meant that most rapists were essentially sociopaths. I worried for a long time that Dave, too, must be a sociopath. But I’ve done a lot of thinking and searching on that idea, and I just don’t think he is. I think he’s a guy who grew up with some very toxic ideas about what it means to be a man."

He's a bastard Jaclyn.   

"While Dave’s violence is inexcusable, his story also gives me some hope."

I can't help thinking of Dave's victims here.

"It shows that men can change. Even men who’ve already done terrible things."

Really?   How do you know this Jaclyn?   Don't you think that Dave's friends back in his former rapist days all thought Dave was the life and soul of the dinner party? 

"Better models of masculinity are everywhere, if you know where to look."

Ah yeah, the old if you know where to look like I do thing...

Who be these role models?

"When I polled my friends about where they find examples of the kind of masculinities they want to see more of in the world, the crowdsourced list was dazzling in its diversity and included the musician Frank Ocean (for his “openness and vulnerability around sexuality”); the basketball star Steph Curry  caring for his daughter at post-game press conferences; all of Barack Obama’s interactions with children; queer men of various stripes subverting the very definitions of manhood; and an array of fictional men of film and TV, including Bob from Bob’s Burgers and modern superheroes like the Flash and Midnighter."

Frank Ocean?  No idea.  It seems he's admired because he might be gay.    Steph Curry looked after his kid.   Wow!   And, oh yeah, Barack Obama and children...

The child loving man who authorized ten times more drone strikes than fellow child lover, GW Bush

Some queer men and fictions.   That's the best her chums could come up with?   Really?

"American men may be enjoying more emotional vulnerability in their superhero stories, but they also elected the living embodiment of toxic masculinity as president. Trump has spent his life defining his manliness in opposition to the women he dominates and degrades. He has been accused of sexual assault by over a dozen women, including his first wife, Ivana. The men he’s installed into power share his attitudes."

But hey, he's surely reformed.   Give him his due, there's not been one pussy grabbing story since he became President, can't we consider him a former serial sexual assaulter?   Isn't he Christian too?   I bet he's a great dinner companion. 

Make up your own caption

"And when these men talk about making America great again, one of the things they’re yearning for is the re-establishment of “traditional” gender values in which men are dominant, women are subservient, and anyone who questions whether that’s really the natural order of things is punished.

My friend Dave grew up in a household steeped in those very values. It was only in learning that there are other, better ways to “be a man” that he became the friend I know him as today."

Surely being a man is the reason why Dave did the things he did.   Wouldn't it be better for Dave to learn not to be a man?   You know, invoking Marilyn French, all men are rapists...

"That’s not to say that we should let guys who’ve already offended of the hook in order to tempt them into the light. If you hurt someone, whether or not you mean to, you should face consequences. In fact, consequences can sometimes help facilitate learning."

It sounds like Dave's consequences are that he's going to heaven.   And by the good book as adulterers his victims will go to hell.   Unless they come to Jesus too.

" “I think one of the reasons my behavior went unchecked for so long is that I didn’t suffer any consequences,” recalls Dave. It wasn’t until he lost a friendship he valued that he had to think about his behavior in a new light."

What?   Please tell me this lost valued friendship wasn't one of his victims.   Jesus, he raped his friend as well?   Yeah, great dinner guest. 

"Whatever he knows now, he still hurt those women, and if any of them decided to hold him accountable for that, I’d support them. So would Dave, for that matter."

Hang on, so he would admit in court that he raped them?   Why then aren't you using Dave's real name?   Why would he need anonymity if he's willing to be held to account?

"He has hardly become a full-time feminist crusader, but he does small things that make a big difference. He refuses to laugh at rape jokes or slut-shaming or anything that reduces women to commodities, and he goes out of his way to explain to other men why these things aren’t funny."

Wow, Dave sounds like a great guy.   Refusing to laugh at rape jokes?   What kind of man is he?   Just don't go for a drink with him.   Which is getting close to a rape joke.

"He doesn’t vote for candidates who want to control women’s access to abortion or birth control."
Huzzah!

"He’s raising his daughter to know that her body is her own."

That is one creepy sentence about a former serial rapist of women.

The rest of the article is about educating boys in dang ways.   Whatever that dagnabbit means:

"We have to get a lot more deliberate if we want to transform masculinity into a healthy identity that doesn’t rely on the subjugation of women. It would be a whole lot easier if we started at the beginning, teaching boys that being strong includes being able to embrace their own vulnerable emotions and that girls aren’t teacups or trophies or aliens from Venus but fellow human beings who are pretty dang interesting."

I mean, in theory, I'm, of course, agreeing.   But it's hard to get your head around the idea that males need teaching not to be men whilst being men.

"Maine Boys to Men (MBTM), a program that has long worked with high school boys, is developing a curriculum for middle school boys that teaches them to see and sidestep the rigid gender roles they’re already growing into."

MBTM's website sounds good:

"Boys to Men addresses the development of boys in the context of their relationships, socialization process, and cultural environments. Boys are bombarded by narrow, confusing, and often destructive messages about masculinity beginning at very early ages. We believe it is not the boys, but rather the culture in which they live and grow, that is in need of repair. While holding boys and men to a higher degree of individual accountability, we also put an appropriate level of focus on the environment—families, schools, community organizations, and peer culture—as the key agents of change in the lives of boys."

Yet at the same time, naggingly, it sounds like the kind of stuff spouted by Jordan Peterson acolytes:

"Our experience is that men need the support and challenge of other men to develop their masculine side. The kind of accountability, fierce loving energy that men can give to each other.

Men who disrespect women are weak men who fear them, a sign that the man hasn’t yet done the work to develop his own independence (from mother) and sense of relaxed masculine confidence, so is still stuck in an unhealthy relationship to the feminine – fearful of its power.
There is far too much of this immature masculine in the world – and the answer to this is the need for mature men who have done the work of developing and integration."  Rebel Wisdom website

Jordan Peterson himself addresses this pressing issue of a concerted attack on masculinity by someone or other by telling us that "kids can't really play at school anymore."
Really?   Is this is just in Canada or is there a worldwide sort of ban on play at school?
"Male behaviour is often diagnosed as attention deficit disorder." 
What male behaviour is this then?   Male biological behaviour is pathologized as ADHD?   Hee hee he is nutty isn't he kids?   Though the play button on the video above makes him look a bit like a cute yet angry chicken.
There's "the elimination of competition as a valid form of human interaction."   Yeah, no one like competes any more do they, like you know with our capitalist system supposedly based on corporations competing for your dollar, sports being the biggest grossing media form.   It's just namy pamby co-operation everywhere now.
But why are these crazed feminists (I assume that's who he he's claiming created this conspiracy) out to get wholesome rugged men?
"It's easy to mistake masculine competence for the tyranny that hypothetically drives the patriarchy.  It's part of an ideological world view that sees the entire history of mankind as the oppression of women by men which is a dreadful way of looking at the world.  A very pathological way of looking at the world." A very realistic way of looking at the world.  Women didn't get the vote until 1918 in the UK and US.   So how exactly were women not oppressed under that system?   Peterson is a Christian so I'm guessing he's read his manual which is indeed pathological in its misogyny.
It's funny as the two white upper middle class guys sit and chat about how oppression is a pathological ideological dreadful way of looking at history.
Peterson of course poo poos the whole idea that there is a patriarchy.   I'm not sure exactly how he then explains the sociological conditions in the Middle Eastern Islamic world.   What's that whole woman oppression thing about then?   Biology? 

Peterson goes on to argue that of course men would feel bad if they're made to feel responsible for being men, with "their competitive drives" and if "the heritage to which you belong is an oppressive patriarchy then how are you going to step forward with confidence and shoulder that that that what would you call it that that burden, why would you, why wouldn't you just step aside and retreat, which is exactly what's happening."
Apart from the impossibility of stepping aside and retreating this is all, no it's all that that that uh what would you call it, complete gibberish. 

Tucker Carlson asks Peterson "if you were to suggest one thing a parent could do for these boys what would it be?"
"Encourage them.   Deeply.  To encourage someone is to instil courage in someone.  Support their courage.   And that doesn't mean protect them from what's dangerous it means teach them how to be competent and teach them that they can rely on themselves to prevail even in the darkest of circumstances, teach them that we shall fight them on the beaches..."

Encourage them with what?   Instil courage about what?   Support their courage over what?   What are you talking about Jordan?   Competent with what?   To prevail over what? 
I've used it in a previous post but Jordan Peterson deserves a second go at Jeff on Chatterbox in GTA III because it's a bit uncanny...

I admire your passion Jordan but what the hell are you talking about?
Well he clarifies with a response specific to parents.   Peterson argues that "if you have your children in school and they speak about equity, diversity, inclusivity, white privilege, systemic racism, any of that, you take them out of the class.  They're not being educated they're being indoctrinated."

He's a strange angry man is Peterson.   Logically he's arguing that schools should not teach equity, inclusivity etc.   Isn't that, you know, divisive, segregating, just unpleasant in every way?   What kind of world would that be?   Well, obviously the English public school system.   A terrific way to be.

Healthy masculinity

Peterson like many who propagate these bizarre notions of a left wing feminist conspiracy against men seem to believe feminists see patriarchy as a thing men consciously do together to oppress women in a concerted coordinated way ringing around to each other to meet up and enforce that patriarchy thing on chicks, man, rather than an invisible ideology which one can only begin to glimpse by consciously analyzing one's own part in it.   There's a nice piece by another Jordan, Stephens in this case, "one half of hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks": Toxic masculinity is everywhere. It’s up to us men to fix this.   Jordan Stephens seems lovely.  I saw him on Newsnight and he was wearing flowers in his hair, something I'd like to do but would fear for my life where I live.
In the piece Jordan (Stephens) highlights the fact that he's done things as a man he now feels bad about because only through "confronting our privilege and opening up our emotions will we live a more positive life."   He's basically arguing for consciousness.   If one becomes aware that one is part of patriarchal discourse then one can begin to understand how power works within it and how one can change one's own behaviours and become a better person (this mostly involves denying all the negative stereotypes of masculinity and becoming more emotional, empathic, co-operative, etc.)

For Jordan Peterson we should be celebrating masculinity and its virtues, competition, and the other man things.   Feminists are emasculating men.  Making them feel ashamed and guilty for being such bastards all their lives.   There's nothing toxic about Peterson's masculinity, it's good healthy masculinity.   Angry, competitive, courageous (huh?), independent, competent, blah blah manliness.
There are myriad fansites praising the Peterson way and the less aggressive (toxic?) end, like Rebel Wisdom is all about men getting together and expressing their manliness by " looking at ourselves honestly, speaking the truth and learning how to take responsibility to improve our lives, and the lives of those around us...for men that means both to be able to stand in our relaxed confidence as men, and also to access our emotions and express them cleanly... We are heavily influenced by the thought of the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson...creating the conditions for genuine change and transformation through creating flow states.   Take responsibility for yourself, do the work of transforming your life, look to the great wisdom of the past for inspiration."
Yeah, it's the same new age batshit gobbledygook.
Even army recruitment videos have taken on this idea...

Cry, laugh, belong, shoot people.   Healthy masculinity.

Ultimately something like Rebel Wisdom's purpose is celebrating masculinity, even if that masculinity looks a bit like a group of white middle class professionals group hugging, a kind of all male AA meeting.

Toxic masculinity is a senseless term, masculine toxicity makes more sense as masculine virtues have always, and probably always will, celebrate all the things that cause sociopathic behaviour, war, violence in general.  Celebrating masculinity simply makes no sense.  Just as senseless as celebrating femininity.   If you celebrate femininity by celebrating feminine virtues like empathy or co-operation does that include liking princesses and pink?   If you're celebrating masculinity and defining the masculine your celebrating as healthy you're, by proxy, suggesting there are different masculinities and that simply leads to this very question of whose discourse is the correct discourse.   It's simply better to pursue an ideal of a genderless world where people are just people rather than being defined by sets of characteristics that in turn define them through the ideological discourse of gender socialized in us from the moment we leap from our mummy's tummy sack.   If toxic masculinity is masculinity gone wild then that still implies there's something wrong with masculinity.   Can't we all just agree that men are bastards and the world would be better off without them, a world where males still make up roughly 50% of the population but they're no longer defined by masculinity and no longer the threat to women that masculinity, even that supposed benign masculinity, poses.   Now, men...man up and quit being a man.