Comment by dguaraglia
8 years ago
> "oh well, she just smacked the waiter on his ass. What is the big deal? man up!"
I don't even know how to reply to this straw man. Have you ever had that happen to you or any of your friends? I know a lot of my female friends, sisters and girlfriends have been assaulted or harassed. My female friends? Can't think of a single one.
> And how many time have you seen men describe as sick or under the weather as being "weak" or "faking" with women under similar situation getting support and sympathy?
That's kind of the point, isn't it? This expectation that everyone needs to act like the idealized "man" makes people judge harshly people who aren't. That's pretty much the definition of toxic masculinity.
> What term should we use when the simple fact of owning the right set of genitals dictate if someone is a risk or an asset?
Sexism.
> toxic masculinity" and "toxic feminist" belong in the same bucket of political slurs
If you take it as a slur, that might tell you more about you than about the term. Personally, I'm a heterosexual male and I don't take either term as a slur. Maybe it's because I've been affected by it (e.g: not playing soccer while growing up in Argentina made me a "pansy" or "effeminate") so I'm aware of the nuance.
Ask your friends if they ever heard the phrase "man up" being said, and then in what context. You will get some funny looks because its a common phrase but it also extremely sexists.
Do I know a specific case where that happened. Yes. Is it documented, yes. Was there a police report, no.
> "That's pretty much the definition of toxic masculinity."
So sexism towards women is "toxic masculinity" and sexism towards men is also "toxic masculinity". That is a nice loop.
One could easily make the same argument that the expectation that women needs to act like the idealized "woman" is toxic femininity, or can we only blame the victim if its men and not women?
> Ask your friends if they ever heard the phrase "man up" being said, and then in what context.
Of course I have heard the phrase, I don't live under a rock. It's mostly in the context of relationship strife either at work or at home: "you should man up and tell them X, Y or Z".
Again, it's the perfect example of toxic masculinity: the person saying that is assuming that a "man" would do this or that, just because of their gender.
> So sexism towards women is "toxic masculinity" and sexism towards men is also "toxic masculinity". That is a nice loop.
Notice that I haven't brought up sexism, which is a more general topic. The reason the term applies to both men and women is because "toxic masculinity" is not about "men vs. women" but about "society vs. anyone who doesn't conform to norms". The same applies, if you will, to "toxic feminism". The main difference is that - going full circle - our society was built on the needs and wants of men so suggesting that things like "women need to look like barbies" or "women shouldn't be bossy" were concocted by feminists is a bit of a stretch (that's why the term "toxic feminism" doesn't make much sense).
I'm really not following your accusation that I'm "blaming the victim". How is saying "hey guys, this society has some really bad ingrained behavior" blaming anyone, and in particular, how is it blaming the victim?
This is the kind of logic that can attribute anything to "toxic masculinity". Terroism! It exist because our society was built on the needs and wants of men. Low birth rates in wester countries. Its because our society was built on the needs and wants of men. High birthrates in other countries. Must be because our society was built on the needs and wants of men. Cancer, earthquakes and global warming. Toxic masculinity.
I don't just find such theories utterly tiresome just because they don't have any anchoring in history, but untestable theories are worth exactly as much as any other untestable theory.
8 replies →