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I personally long to be a one-legged, Somalian lesbian.

Life in the Colonies with a penis, blindingly pale skin, an English accent and mostly heteronormative sexual proclivities is just too, too hard.

Every group has their own version of "toxic masculinity" that they need to deal with. I've met my fair share of toxic feminists and toxic ethnic groups. Heck, there are even toxic social clicks.

It is annoying when one group is primarily called out on this issue. I've literally been told that there is nothing I can legitimately complain about as a cis white male.

Toxicity and in general toxic masculinity are very much apart. Being aware of it is the first step.

I used to be very unaware of what toxic masculinity was till someone explained it to me in full.

It is usually elements of a man's behavior that are based on assumption:

"Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly “feminine” traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status as “man” can be taken away."

(https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/what-we-mean-when-we-say-toxic-masculinity)

Some other great points:

"Discussing toxic masculinity is not saying men are bad or evil, and the term is NOT an assertion that men are naturally violent. In fact, this conversation was started by men. (Jackson Katz’s TED Talk on the subject is a useful starting point.) It was also inspired by a feminist movement that had done much to unpack what might be called “toxic femininity” (think eating disorders that seek to control one’s eating and environment). After the good work feminism did to try to find better ways to teach girls about their options, men began to take notice and apply those same gender-construct theories to their own experience. "

Its like sucicide and how men are taught "DO NOT CRY THATS NOT MANLY ENOUGH!"

Is a common sentiment especially for people whom are naturally empathic or more in touch with their emotions. This common behavioral pattern is found all throughout. Its not to say always be crying but more in touch with your emotions and not holding it all in.

The most toxic part of being a man is how we are taught to hold it within and never to express it.

This leads to massive downward spirals of depression and bouts of irrational anger. It is fully healthy to express sadness, anger, but to do so constructively.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Every group has their own version of "toxic masculinity" that they need to deal with. I've met my fair share of toxic feminists and toxic ethnic groups. Heck, there are even toxic social clicks.

It is annoying when one group is primarily called out on this issue. I've literally been told that there is nothing I can legitimately complain about as a cis white male.

Not really. Anyone who tells you that are toxic themselves. Men especially have higher suicide rates, while women generally struggle with body issues and eating disorders... but thats not just unique to women. Helk I struggle with overeating / stress eating and body image issues (family trait). Anyone who tells you don't have problems is full of it.

Now there is a difference between Privilege and Toxic Masculinity people often jumble them into the same sentence. But they are very different. One is experiential the other more behavioral. (but thats for another thread!)

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Personally I think that masculinity is in a sort of crisis, but not in the way portrayed by the media. I think the modern man is forced to suppress a lot of the good masculine qualities he posesses, and as a result, often engages in alternative outputs which propagate the idea of toxicity which is then jumped on by the media.

I believe that masculinity is vitally important for any culture, and to dismiss it as unnecessary is folly.

I think that masculine traits are important, but I think the modern world requires the truly successful to have skills and traits that are both traditionally masculine as well as feminine.

In fact, I think that the people most concerned about the crisis of masculinity see gender roles as mutually exclusive. That to be aggressive means you cannot be nurturing, that to be confident means you cannot be sensitive, and to be self reliant means you cannot be empathetic. In my experience, even a small dose of empathy, sensitivity, and compassion will allow any person to act in a socially acceptable way.

Ardently feminist transwoman here, so my perspective is somewhat different from many:

Masculinity itself is not... toxic. It didn't really work out for me, even in its benign form, but that's a me thing XD

There's masculinity, and then there's toxic masculinity, and then there's necessary warrior masculinity. More on this in a moment, but masculinity is simply the day-to-day enacting of social roles which are coded as male within your given social context.

As feminists, there's been long debates among us as to whether masculinity and femininity are genetically ingrained, neurological, deeply psychologically embedded by adolescence, enacted out of habit, or enforced by hormonal balance, as well as about how much intercultural variation there is between what constitutes gender. The experience of transition generally supports all of these being highly relevant factors, and studying other cultures generally shows that there's enormous variation on what constitutes masculinity and femininity. Okay, back to masculinity.

So you have your regular everyday masculinity, right? And then you have your toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity has to be constructed; there are no inherent behaviors which are by their nature "toxic masculinity" as opposed to regular masculinity. Toxic masculinity is created when certain aspects of masculinity are identified as harmful, either to those who exhibit them or those subjected to them, and is then siloed off as "toxic." Examples of things identified as toxic in our society, at least by feminists, are things like the propensity to treat everything as a zero-sum struggle, or suppressing emotional pain until it transforms into violent aggression directed at the self or others. Parts of regular masculinity on the verge of being siloed off into toxic masculinity include things like men tending to not form the same enduring friendships as women, which is a phenomenon linked to the rise of individualism in western cultures (far less of a problem in India for example), and which is a major contributor to the fact that most people who commit suicide are men (https://healthydebate.ca/2017/08/topic/male-suicide).

There are those who react to the idea of toxic masculinity, and its relationship with more healthy forms of masculinity, by doubling-down on it. Pickup artists, for instance. There are those who seek to improve themselves, examining their actions and seeing how the way they affirm their manhood matches up with helpful and harmful behaviors. And there are those who shrug, and use the separation we feminists have created to dismiss the possibility that they, a "good guy," could ever exhibit toxic behavior, creating an other-category out of "toxic men" while often displaying the same behavior. In that way, the separation can backfire, but overall it's more responsible I think than attacking "masculinity" as a blanket term. The more insecure someone is, generally, the more they exhibit toxic behaviors, since many of those behaviors are misguided attemtps to prove masculinity to oneself by enacting its most vicious, often-formally-forbidden forms of expression.

So what is warrior masculinity? Well, it's a third category which underscores the context-dependent nature of normative evaluations of masculinity (there IS a warrior femininity and a toxic femininity, but that's not the topic of this thread). Aggression, unquestioning obedience to higher-ups, instinctive defense of the unit, insensitivity to the suffering of others: all of these things are very useful in a war. But in the context of family life, civilian life, and even many wars which are not matters of pure annihilation, those behaviors are massively self-destructive. They also often leave people bereft of moral agency: if your guiding principle is loyalty and obedience to the higher-ups, then you cannot really make moral decisions. You have to trust that your commanders aren't evil, and unfortunately the vicious and ruthless tend to rise to the top of most human societies. Does the necessity of some form of warrior masculinity in some circumstances justify inaction over toxic masculinity? No, especially for the parts of it (eg. the lack of enduring close male-male bonds) which are totally unrelated to warrior masculinity. But it does complicate the issue a bit.

Where does 40K fit into this?
Eh, I dunno. I don't like bringing politics into 40k. 40k is easy to distance myself from, politically, because it's so over-the-top and silly. It's very easy to not compulsively evaluate and critique it because... it's 40k. I love this hobby so much because it's one of the few places I can completely shut down my political brain.

I watched a documentary called Tough Guise 2 a few months back. I'd recommend it; it's only a couple hours or so. It, alongside the criticisms I made of it at the time, informed a lot of this post.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Discussing toxic masculinity is not saying men are bad or evil, and the term is NOT an assertion that men are naturally violent.

Perhaps thats what the people who originally coined the term meant it by. However it is too often used to mean just that. Masculine things which are wholesome and good are lumped in as being toxic. Being the Provider, Protector, etc... are viewed as part of Toxic Masculinity so the term should be discarded because its not helpful. Tackle the problems directly. Don't use Masculinity at all to refer to these problems, it subconsciously moves forward the idea that masculinity itself is a bad thing when you use the term "Toxic Masculinity".

Being abusive is not a masculine trait, it is not caused by masculinity, and it has nothing to do with masculinity. Abuse is its own thing and should be tackled directly. It should not be tackled by demonizing other good traits that have incorrectly become associated with it.

If anything, it is a lack of masculinity that is the problem. Boys are growing up without good rolemodels for what it is to be a good man. Instead they only have what society teaches them. The breakdown of the family unit is the main culprit here.

Oh and don't worry about masculinity disappearing. We've been worrying about the death of masculinity at the hands of feminism for well-over a hundred years, and the arguments and timeframes given then are basically the same as the ones given now. masculinity evolves, as it has for thousands of years, but I don't see it disappearing.

Many of the traits of "being a man" are important and healthy, and not negative traits. There is no downside to being (mildly) aggressive, idealizing strength, and staying emotionally stoic. The problem is that when you take those to any sort of extreme to the point that they cause harm to yourself or others.

Currently, I feel "people" (referring to those in the American and Internet cultures, at a minimum) have a major issue with extremes. Just as many qualities of feminism at some values are entirely reasonable and actually fairly healthy, so are many qualities of masculinity. Instead of pointing at any particular thing, any -ism, and screeching in distaste, we should evaluate not just what is good of it, but to what amount those things are good and when they stop becoming so.

Of course, none of that is exciting or novel or galvanizing, so it's never said anywhere.

Instead I'll posit this:

No one can take your masculinity away from you except yourself. The very act of believing otherwise is to deny yourself your masculinity already.

 Danielle Rae wrote:
Oh and don't worry about masculinity disappearing. We've been worrying about the death of masculinity at the hands of feminism for well-over a hundred years, and the arguments and timeframes given then are basically the same as the ones given now. masculinity evolves, as it has for thousands of years, but I don't see it disappearing.

There is a big difference between the historical feminism and the modern version, I will assume you know this so I will go on another tangent, communication, this is the biggest thing that has affected the whole ballgame in modern times, the ease of which people can convey any idea has proliferated to the point its impossible to stop, though many are trying across many platforms these days.

recent studies have shown that the modern version of feminism has taken a hold of most if not all forms of education, right from 1st school right up to university, but that in and of itself is not the issue, its the form of that feminism, the route core of its ideology, it uses certain buzzwords and behaviours associated with certain political ideologies, and that is the problem people have with it, when you have a school system designed for woman, that bars men based on gender and race you end up with situations like this, promoting woman as a minority when they make up 55% of the UK population is frankly... absurd, they also make up 63% of university students.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9484597/White-males-now-classed-as-a-minority-group-at-university.html

Now there are many reasons for the falling numbers of men in university, one of which is the style of teaching in UK schools, a problem that US schools also have, so these woman who have been educated in a certain kind of ideology go on to work in many fields, but its the ones that end up in the media and entertainment industry that are the issue, the propergate that ideology that they have been taught throughout their time in higher education.

So we have a system that promotes woman, teaches them to a higher standard than men, a system that has quotas to recruit and promote woman not based on merit but on gender, all the whole leaving men by the wayside.

this has led to the bitterness of young men these days, they see a system designed to work against them and see an ideology that hates them if they act a certain way, so they have a choice, fight or flight, the ones that fight are called all sorts of names and defamed, the ones that dont are feminised men, both have their good and bad people but neither is accepted by the other, due to the system behind the feminsed men however they have the upper hand in the media industry, if anyone speaks out against them they are called names or worse, having their safety of livelyhoods attacked.

The saddest thing of all though is this, it cant even be talked about, being pro men means your anti woman to these people, case in point the mens rights marches in UK, US, Canada, Australia all being attacked by the ideologues, the ideologues backed by the media, people pretend or outright lie and say this is not true, that there is not a stranglehold and that its only the fringes that do this, it isnt, its mainstream, one need only check the news for the last month to see this is true, trying to call MRA's the usual buzzwords and making no attempt to understand that these individuals face all kinds of problems that are ignored or outright laughed at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL-uQqQxlJ8

These ideologies are in the mainstream media, the governments and nearly all walks of life now, so after a long waffle I say that yes, men, mens rights and masculinity is under a tangible threat in the west, the next ten years I think we will see the ramifications of this.

Well... I knew that was going to happen :/

Utter rot.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Well... I knew that was going to happen :/

Knew what was going to happen?

 Formosa wrote:
The saddest thing of all though is this, it cant even be talked about, being pro men means your anti woman to these people, case in point the mens rights marches in UK, US, Canada, Australia all being attacked by the ideologues, the ideologues backed by the media, people pretend or outright lie and say this is not true, that there is not a stranglehold and that its only the fringes that do this, it isnt, its mainstream, one need only check the news for the last month to see this is true, trying to call MRA's the usual buzzwords and making no attempt to understand that these individuals face all kinds of problems that are ignored or outright laughed at.

I find that people tend to project their own perceived flaws and motives onto other people. People prone to cheat on others in relationships are typically concerned the other person is cheating. People who routinely lie believe others are lying to them.

Don't judge a person by their actions. Judge a person by how they react to someone acting the same way.

There’s also other, odder strings.

As covered, I’m a bloke. Fairly large in stature, and have suitably deep voice.

I work in high end consumer complaints. I have a far, far easier time on a phone shift and dealing with my consumers than the women. Why? Because being a bloke, society teaches I’m somehow more authorative. I’m more likely to know my onions. So when I’m telling someone ‘no, because’ I’m just more likely to have that accepted and indeed respected.

Sure, it’s not a universal thing. I still have to deal with the unreasonably unreasonable. Why, in April this year, one consumer decided to call me, now how did they put it again? Something like ‘short, Ginger, Fifer poof’. Now, I dunno about your tolerance, but nobody, and I mean nobody accuses me of being from The Kingdom Of Fife. Nobody. Passed the email on to my boss, and she told him ‘STFU, or we’ll throw your complaint out, and you can whistle’, or words to that affect.

Note the consumer did not attack my competence or suitability for the role. Just went for an (entirely inaccurate) physical description which I’m sure he felt would actually upset me.

So again, I have an easier ride, whilst others struggle through no fault of their own. How many times do you reckon you can deal with the unreasonably unreasonable before it takes a toll on your mental health? How many times can you deal with being told your incompetent and unknowledgable, only for the guy sat next to you to have no problem whatsoever getting the same person to accept exactly the same information? And that’s before we get into any kind of bias against race.

And it’s not just men that carry such an opinion. As I said, it’s societal in origin. And for many, a largely unconscious bias. Yet it affects the lives of 52% of the world’s population. Therefore, it’s a toxic trait.

The backlash against attempts to deal with toxic masculinity, and the role feminism plays in that, is largely made from ignorance. Saying ‘oh noes, mens can’t do nothing now’ is erroneous, and also damaging. Instead, it’s us men having to realise we can no longer live relatively free from the consequences.

‘playful’ touching? That now has consequences. Demeaning ‘banter’? That now has consequences. All that stuff. And the usual targets/victims know they’re more likely than ever to be taken seriously for lodging a complaint.

So in short, you can still be inappropriate to women. You’re just far, far less likely to get away with it. And that is objectively a good, good thing.

As covered, I’m a bloke. Fairly large in stature, and have suitably deep voice.

I work in high end consumer complaints. I have a far, far easier time on a phone shift and dealing with my consumers than the women. Why? Because being a bloke, society teaches I’m somehow more authorative. I’m more likely to know my onions. So when I’m telling someone ‘no, because’ I’m just more likely to have that accepted and indeed respected.

Could be more along the line that your voice is deep.
Have the same witnessed in my conscript time (yes switzerland conscripts us, no we don't plan to invade our neighbours, but someone has to contain the monarchist threat of Lichtenstein!)

All I know is that any time I’ve phoned a consumer back, with exactly the same information, I’ve not had a problem. And I objectively encounter fewer instances of people wanting a second opinion, let alone being Richards about it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I know is that any time I’ve phoned a consumer back, with exactly the same information, I’ve not had a problem. And I objectively encounter fewer instances of people wanting a second opinion, let alone being Richards about it.

who do you think followed orders more, those bossed around by a small dude with a pipey voice or when there was the 2m giant with a voice that could do opera barritone?

Happens to me too. I have an English accent and am biologically male, people accept things that I tell them after they have rejected the exact same information from a Canadian/biological female.

Not sure how it's really all that relevant to toxic masculinity, though. Misogyny is a related, but different, thing

All part and parcel of the same thing.

I’m easily identified as a bloke, even when there’s no visual contact. I have an easier time of it as a result.

That a guy with a traditionally non-Male voice gets grief basically helps my argument.

I'm a supervisor in a government office, and one of the most consistent patterns of behavior I've seen from employees is that they will show more respect, and aquiese more quickly, to a male supervisor than to a female one. Oddly, in many ways female employees can be nastier to a female supervisor. Being male/masculine makes the job easier, even though we're supervising educated employees of wildly diverse backgrounds.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Happens to me too. I have an English accent and am biologically male, people accept things that I tell them after they have rejected the exact same information from a Canadian/biological female.

Not sure how it's really all that relevant to toxic masculinity, though. Misogyny is a related, but different, thing

I got lucky as in i just was forced to become NCO of Füsilere. Thankfully, i am also rather on the big side and with a voice to match.
But generally i found the most effective way to get people to do what you want is beeing not a dick, most polar envelop pusher or radicals with an agenda, regardless of position, will however continue to scream Toxic whatever the heck is en vogue. Sometimes it works for them, especially when they can cow someone into submission. IN essence it's like the highschoolbully but this time instead of beeing a gakky ass he now is ideologically indoctrinated gakky ass.

Said strategy works aslong as it does not go over the general accetable boundries and automatically creates it's polar opposite in society.

In the end, i reccomend anyone to try it with reason and if not ignoring. If said radical force becomes a problem in the society which threatens peace the saying of stalin comes into play and the state has to enforce its monopoly of force.

There certainly is a 'feminist agenda' but it is largely subconscious. Yes there is a gender divide and societal privileges and restraints on both sides, and society is rapidly evolving and a lot of the prior gender balance is being undermined. In some ways this can be a good thing, but no amount of feminism will get rid of misogynists, however it will unfairly label males in general, most notably those who do not deserve any negative associations.
The second problem is that while activists talk about equality they act for supremacy, there are ever shifting goals and standards often imposed by more extreme feminists, which I will refer here as SJW's on both genders the former purportedly for their own good and the latter as a power exercise. It takes no effort to offend those who seek to be offended for social or political gain, and heavy restitution is often demanded.

The tragedy is that SJW dogmas are in fact very weak. They have teeth because society gives the SJW's teeth, we know this is the case because it works on some societies very strongly and not others at all. White males it works on because of force multipliers enacted by society to make perceived offence actionable. It has zero or next to zero effect on males from certain ethnic communities. SJW's know this and choose their targets well. Make an allegedly inappropriate comment as a white male and you can face sanction, even for mere words or rumours of words. However those communities which actively entrench what can be be described as medieval practices on gender equality (lack thereof) get a free pass.

What really niggles at feminists is that a portion of women, possibly a larger portion than might be admitted to are not as interested in empowerment, a number of women are naturally content for a man to take control, its what they expect and its what they want. Incidentally a number of these women are finding partners amongst more extreme sub communities where men are 'real men' and command women. I can sympathise with feminism on this up to a point, however the gender balance is engrained in the human psyche, and modern memes are not going to eradicate that in a few generations. So some women are submissive or docile, others ambitious eager to grasp opportunity for themselves. Many feminists cant see this and insist to speak for everyone, those who do so are dangerously deluded.

Feminism will run its course, the 21st century will know hardship and shortage far more keenly than the 20th and people will need to grow with the darkening times. Our current urbane, metrosexual, harmonious society will not survive real hardship, as such is likely coming, Sooner or later western society will need its men to be men, and if this happens the breed of predatory feminist will eventually have to be told to shut up and put up. As they already, evidently, comply with this when facing multiple minority groups with entrenched paternal standards, in these the good times, I think in the face of hard reality it will happen with mainstream western society also.

I should also explain....

Most if not all my colleagues are graduates. I’m a tosspot with a clutch Of now 22 year old C grade GCSEs that got lucky.

Yes, I do know what I’m doing at work, and I am pretty good at it. But even so, the qualification gap is notable when people are unaware of it.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Happens to me too. I have an English accent and am biologically male, people accept things that I tell them after they have rejected the exact same information from a Canadian/biological female.

Not sure how it's really all that relevant to toxic masculinity, though. Misogyny is a related, but different, thing

Midwestern male here with a deeper than average voice. I had similar experiences when I worked tech support on the helldesk. I was a point of escalation, not directly client-facing, so there was an inherent perception of authority presented as well when I got on the phone, but the ones who consistently needed me on the line to repeat what they just said most were usually the women there. We had a small clientbase that consisted of very regular people call in, which meant that it was pretty easy to identify that it was particular clients that were the problem. They frequently shared a common cultural background, but realistically you can't just blame that. donkey-caves are going to be donkey-caves, no matter where they come from.

The ironic thing about contemporary feminism is that it appears to value the "masculine" above all else, and hold it as the standard for everyone to achieve. It's a concerted effort to make women more like men in every way, with much less effort being put into the reverse direction. As such, I'd say that femininity is in crisis much more than masculinity is.

Erm.

What?

 Luciferian wrote:
The ironic thing about contemporary feminism is that it appears to value the "masculine" above all else, and hold it as the standard for everyone to achieve. It's a concerted effort to make women more like men in every way, with much less effort being put into the reverse direction. As such, I'd say that femininity is in crisis much more than masculinity is.

Idk who's selling you this stuff, but they're ripping you off.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All part and parcel of the same thing.

I’m easily identified as a bloke, even when there’s no visual contact. I have an easier time of it as a result.

That a guy with a traditionally non-Male voice gets grief basically helps my argument.

I mean the fact that people respond better to a deep voice than a higher one.

There's all kinds of weird things at play when it comes to voices that can't be pinned on conscious thought. I'm from Leeds originally and I have a recognizable, though somewhat generic, 'Northern' accent which is targeted for employment U.K. call centres 'cause Northern/Scots/Irish accents are perceived to be more trustworthy and friendlier than Southern accents while people with Welsh accents are dismissed as 'dumb', per the research. Note I'm not saying that Southerners are less trustworthy or that the Welsh are 'dumb'.

People back home with my accent have a tendency to defer to people who sound like Rees-Mogg. Canadians and Americans have a tendency to defer to English accents, though they deny it vehemently.

IIRC, there's research that shows that new-born infants respond better to deep voices long before they have a chance to absorb any learned behaviours.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I should also explain....

Most if not all my colleagues are graduates. I’m a tosspot with a clutch Of now 22 year old C grade GCSEs that got lucky.

Yes, I do know what I’m doing at work, and I am pretty good at it. But even so, the qualification gap is notable when people are unaware of it.

One of my best mates is an experienced electrical and mechanical engineer, but not a graduate. He frequently has had encounters with overconfident recent graduates who know only just enough to be a liability to themselves and others and cannot be taught anything.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Erm.

What?

Contemporary feminism completely devalues the "feminine". Things like domestic family life, child-bearing, and more socially focused or care-based career choices are anathema to feminism, the goal of which is to achieve perfect parity between men and women along lines that are almost entirely defined by the "masculine". Social constructionists like to pretend there's no biological or behavioral difference between men and women and that gender roles are entirely composed of socialization as opposed to having any kind of evolutionary or biological component, but their standards of parity are that women take on more traditionally "masculine" gender roles to the total exclusion of "feminine" ones. Since there is a shift even in feminism to devalue and denigrate feminine roles, I posit that femininity is in crisis, rather than masculinity.