nothorses explains the concept of toxic masculinity (and later toxic femininity) since there is so much confusion and anger surrounding the topic. Pretty much every time it is brought up people who have never been educated about it get upset about the words without even knowing what they mean. When asked he also explains the flip side of the coin in toxic femininity. No one is saying men are bad and women are good, but it is often perceived that way. And that is obviously a false narrative since all humans are capable of toxic behavior. And these toxic behaviors hurt everyone. Anyway, this post explains the concepts very simply:
Source: nothorses
(via: Geek Girls)
Have you ever experienced toxic behaviors like these? Let us know in the comments below!
Yeup.
The vast majority of social talk on toxic masculinity is flagrant misandry and man-bashing; because unfortunately, the majority of such talk pours from radical feminist contributors who are more accurately flagrant misandrists. The old saying, “Empty vessels make the most noise” applies here: people full of doctrines rather than facts do an awful lot of shouting, because they seem to confuse quantity of an argument for quality of one.
This doesn’t mean that masculinity cannot be wielded in toxic ways; it can and frequently is. So indeed can femininity; and again, it often is.
An example of toxic femininity? Sure. How about demanding chivalry and equality at the same time? In this behaviour, the woman expects to be treated equally, right up until she expects the man to sacrifice himself, his safety or his means for her benefit “because that’s what a gentleman would do”.
Perhaps a gentleman would, under the rules of chivalry. But under the rules of equality, everything is equal… including personal sacrifice. If you expect to get preferential treatment because you’re a woman, then you’re NOT asking for equality. You’re seeking privilege over males. Own it, and amend your behaviour and expectations accordingly; because otherwise, you’re using your femininity in a toxic manner.
Then of course there’s the fake-crying trick (which nothorse above falsely relegates solely to white women) for emotional manipulation. And then there’s the Duluth Model of domestic abuse management, which is weaponized femininity incarnate. Not to mention the classic gaslighting technique, “But I’m just a girl, I could never!” Or the even more classic, “You can’t hit a girl!” after she’s just kicked you in the face (Oh yeah, I’ve had that one personally!). Or “but children need their mother more than their father!” (not if their mother is abusive, they don’t!).
[For those unfamiliar with the Duluth Model, it designates that in any domestic abuse case, the male will be the offender and the female the victim. This is an approach that gives free license to female abusers and prevents males from reporting the abuse of females against them for fear that, far from being helped as the victim, they’ll be treated as the perpetrator and arrested. There have been MANY reports of the Duluth Model having been used in exactly this way by abusive women towards their partners or their partner’s children.
Worst of all, the misdesignation of who is abuser and who is victim that this model engages in poisons the purity of statistics on domestic violence perpetration and victimisation, leading to unreliable data on those topics. And that unreliable data is then being used to decide domestic violence strategies at the political and legal level. Which means that by default, any country or region using it is basing their entire domestic violence management plan on bad data. Bad data derived from the toxic femininity argument that “a woman could never!”]
Is there such a thing as toxic femininity? There absolutely is. And it is absolutely a major societal issue, and absolutely discussed far less than it needs to be.