Comment by rosser
8 years ago
Do you think it's somehow not "universally toxic" to be inculcated into the notion that the only legitimate (as in socially sanctioned) forms of emotional expression available to you are lust and rage?
And then to be told those are "bad" too?
That's absolutely universally toxic to men's mental health, unless you can suggest to me a circumstance in which that's healthy, correct, and appropriate?
Regardless, that's a straw-man notion of the term. Healthy aspects of a thing, over-valued or under-corrected, can become unhealthy, too.
For example, "Boys will be boys." There's a legitimate idea behind that phrase: we want to encourage boys to be risk-taking and adventurous. It's also used to excuse a lot of shitty behavior, which teaches boys that (their) shitty behavior is tolerated.
Please tell me how that's not inherently toxic.
EDIT: And maybe you're just talking to the wrong people; the folks I talk about these things with absolutely talk about toxic femininity.
Personally I don't think your example is even an issue, even in a much more restrictive time men openly had a much broader range of emotions than that. But regardless, if toxic masculinity had such a narrow scope then sure, there'd be no point in arguing about it at all. But it's not, it's a heavily politicized term which is often used to attack masculinity in general, or any aspect of it that happens to be convenient at the time. A lot of the value it might have had as a term has been taken away by how it's ultimately been used. It's largely boiled down to a sort of slur.
But in regards to your edit, yes it's very possible that we're just talking to very different groups of people. I have to admit that I typically interact with people who either have no interest in this at all or who are taking it too far and are overly zealous. And of course, I'm not going to get a great picture of things as a casual observer on the internet either since that tends to bring out the worst in people.