In the war of toxic masculinity vs Trump badmouthing, toxic masculinity has lost.
- Thread starter Dreiko
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There are certainly people who've tried to use the term toxic femininity, but they're generally being sucky when they do that. Which is probably also why you don't like the term toxic masculinity, because a lot of the people using it are being sucky when they do. A female feminist using the phrase 'toxic masculinity' doesn't feel gross because there isn't toxic behavior associated with men that can reasonably be criticised, it can certainly be an appropriate term. It feels gross because a woman criticizing something masculine has a bit of "see, it's not my fault" in it, and nobody likes the person pointing fingers at others and not themselves. Criticizing exclusively the outgroup always feels gross, and that's the issue with the term. If it was something you heard from contrite men trying to better themselves instead, you wouldn't even question it.
The other problem is that many things that are coded as 'masculine' aren't solely masculine at all.
As a person who works with a bunch of females, thinking that females arent agressive is silly. They might not get physical, but no less competitive
It's a low bar to cross to find someone Trump could look up to. Here's another option, which saves Trump even having to worry about being fat, lazy and orange:
None.
When I say fighting is normal, I'm referring to it as being a part of the human condition. I'm not saying that can't be alleviated, but we have a prospensity towards violence. And by extension, that includes play fighting among children. If you want other examples of this, you can look at contact sports.
I'm pretty sure "dumb action movies" existed well before Star Wars. Heck, Star Wars itself was taking inspiration from them.
So if Trump is Garfield, who's Odie? I mean, there's no shortage of people who'll stop to lick Trump's arse while being morons, but...
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USA
But it is a word created by men for men. Shepherd Bliss first coined the term during the Mythopeotic Men's movement.
Toxic masculinity - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Men do speak openly about this in hopes to have more support to address these issues:
AskMen - Become a Better Man
AskMen is the No. 1 site to help men improve their lives—from discovering new products and trends to getting advice on dating, fitness, grooming and more.
me.askmen.com
Terry Crews has a simple way of describing toxic masculinity to men who don’t get it.
When the term “toxic masculinity” gets bandied about, some males immediately take offense, believing the term assumes that masculinity is toxic in and of itself.However, that’s not what it means.The term “toxic” is before the term “masculinity,” which means it’s a form of masculinity. Toxic...
www.upworthy.com
I mean more the tendency for SF movies.
I think SF movies existed in about three phases up until my adulthood. The B-movie type Invaders from Mars / Forbidden Planet of the 1950s-early 60s, the more thoughtful (probably SF New Wave) influenced late 60s-70s: Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run. And then Star Wars arrives and they're action movies. There are a handful trying to do something more in the 80s - Blade Runner might be an example. But it mostly seems pretty dry to me until Gattaca (late 90s), since which there's been a steady trickle. I like a good action movie as much as the next person, but I also appreciate a movie that likes to explore SF ideas rather than just use them as a background for fight scenes.
Point taken. I confess I get a little suspicious when people talk about aggression as normal as it brings back a lot of memories of getting bullied as a kid and authority figures too indifferent to do anything about it.
I think this is different depending on your temperament but I absolutely LOVED fighting as a young kid (think around gradeschool age) and that had nothing to do with bullying. I only ever fought defensively, either beating people up who came at me or at my friends. I also never fought with the intent to harm the other person, I was always kinda afraid somewhere deep down during the actual fights, afraid of harming the other kid too much. Still loved it though, I think it's part of how strong your personality leans towards leadership and dominance as a survival mechanism, similar to how younger children taste bitter flavors more strongly than adults.
This whole thing kinda evaporated around middle school, everyone just grew out of it, so past that point any issues were just plain old bullying, but before that it was more like just testing yourself and your limits. There was this one kid I had a "rivalry" with all through gradeschool, must have fought over 100 times easy, I punched him once so hard in the gut he literally shat himself, another time he pushed me and I hit my head on a radiator and I was bleeding everywhere like a vampire had bit me, had to get like 6 stitches, you know, fun times. But you know what, later when in early HS age I ran into him again in a shared friend's birthday party we were a bit awkward and legit friendly towards eachother. We didn't have any bad blood. It was just a weird phase we were in with all the fighting and through it all we had gained some genuine respect for eachother cause really neither of us ever backed down from a fight and we kinda lost count about who won more lol (I did beat his old brother up once though when he called him for backup, and he was a 6th grader when I was in 3rd grade, so that one gives me at least +10 on the score, even the teachers forgave me that one despite him being the one crying cause he was legit two heads taller than me lol)
But yeah, not everyone is like this. My best friend in gradeschool (that shared friend, incidentally) was a very timid and introverted kid who would never fight back unless you already humiliated him a bunch so I ended up standing up for him half the time lol. He wasn't weak or anything either, he just was very mellow. There's definitely nothing wrong with being like that, you just don't wanna make being the other way into some toxic thing either. Both are just normal ways some people just are.
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Easy- where it's reinforced, implicitly or explicitly, as part of the 'bro code', or being 'a real man',; if it's a cultural meme (in the pre-internet sense of that word).
No, to define a persistent observable phenomenon.
While I like this definition, I think it could be even simpler: anywhere it causes negative consequences for oneself or others.
Masculinity is not toughness. Masculinity does not make you more or less able to tolerate hard physical labour. It might make you more likely to believe that doing so is your purpose, or is part of your worth as a person. It might make you seek out jobs where you can prove your physical strength because you believe that doing so will make you more manly, but it won't actually make you better or worse at those jobs and it isn't required to do them.
As for mentally demanding jobs, I'm not sure whether you mean jobs which require intellectual ability, or jobs which require psychological resilience. It doesn't really matter though, because masculinity is actually a detriment to both of those things.
No, they actually can't, because that isn't how you build emotional resilience.
I mean, if you want psychologically demanding jobs, try being a paramedic, or providing critical care, or working in a domestic violence shelter or psychiatric ward, or working in the sex industry. Let's be real, you weren't thinking of those jobs as psychologically demanding jobs, even though they are. You weren't thinking of jobs where you have to provide care, or to deal with grief, or to try to help people in difficult situations, or save the lives of critically injured people, or pretend to be someone you're not. You were thinking of jobs where you have to hurt and kill people. "Hazing", as you put it, isn't about building resilience, it's about breaking down resistance.
The kind of stoicism which requires you to be able to endure emotional abuse without showing signs of distress is actually incredibly counterproductive to actually being able to endure stress. People are more resilient when they know their own emotions and know when to seek help or talk to someone, when they are able to form genuine friendships and when they can develop a widespread support network. Masculinity is extremely detrimental to emotional resiliance.
Why am I not surprised.
I mean, Jordan Peterson is a paragon of physical and psychological resilience.
The example given in the book is from the railroad industry, actually. The "rail crew"
But if you want to talk about jobs where you have to hurt and kill people, he happens to be talking to a retired Navy SEAL, who opens the conversation with "in the SEAL teams, it's non-stop hyper-verbal abuse, aggression, around the clock, 24 hours a day... any mistake you make, any display of weakness is going to be pounced upon..."
So @Gethsemani, there's an anecdote to counter your claim. But both can be true. They can be both tight-knit and rough with each-other.