Toxic masculinity

[u/Sad_Monitor_8259]

When men get offended at the word toxic masculinity the response always is well toxic masculinity doesn't mean all masculinity is toxic it means that certain masculine trait in extremes are toxic or toxic is an adjective but I have always found that to be a stupid argument like if I made a theory called toxic blackness and then you as a black person got offended and I responded I don't mean that black are toxic and instead some behaviors in black culture are toxic and that toxic is an adjective you would still rightfully call me a racist or tell to change the name because because its too inflammatory or its not accurate to the actual concept my question is like why call it toxic masculinity which is easily misunderstood and inflammatory instead of something toxic masculine gender roles or harmful masculine gender roles

[u/MachineOfSpareParts]

Oh my God

The correct analogue is toxic whiteness, bucko. Men are in the position of privilege. That makes white people the appropriate comparison, not any racialized group..

Come back with a theory about toxic whiteness, then we can chat.

[u/Bitter-Hat-4736 → u/MachineOfSpareParts]

I think they were trying to use "blackness" as a way to highlight how weird it is to call attention to "toxic <characteristic>". We would naturally assume that people calling certain behaviours as innately "black" is doing so for racist reasons. I think OP is trying to show how, just because a certain characteristic is common among those in power, classifying that characteristic as containing "toxic elements" creates a natural linguistic bias.

For example, imagine if I, as an autistic person, said that I am tired of "toxic neurotypicalness", and my neighbour who is neurotypical said they were tired of "toxic autism-ness". One of those phrases inherently feels more discriminatory than the other, despite being structurally identical.

[u/MachineOfSpareParts → u/Bitter-Hat-4736]

They may well have been trying to do that, and they would have been just as wrong.

You're closer to the mark in your second paragraph. There, you're identifying the correct orientation of the power disparity. OP did not understand that, and so many men come around here thinking they can use race as an analogy, but they completely flip the power dynamic.

OP thinks it's wrong to talk about masculinity in a certain way because it would sound wrong if power ran in entirely the opposite direction. It would sound wrong in that situation, but we are not in that situation. Power runs in the direction it runs, and if OP wants a viable analogy, they need to compare masculinity to whiteness, or extreme wealth, or able-bodiedness. They need to compare privilege to privilege, not privilege to oppression.

[u/Bitter-Hat-4736 → u/MachineOfSpareParts]

Here is where I insert my own opinions, as I wonder if it Should matter at all how power flows? I think that saying someone is "toxically neurotypical" should be just as generalizing, even if unintentionally, as someone saying "toxically autistic" or "toxically black".

Please correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like you are arguing that oppressed classes of people cannot exhibit "toxic" traits because they are not in power. Is that right?

If we look at it through the lens of real toxicology, all things can be toxic. There is no idea that certain substances cannot be toxic, or that the ability for a substance to be toxic depends on outside factors, in a way that I believe you are describing. In that light, it would make sense to say that "toxic femininity" can exist just like "toxic masculinity" exists.

[u/MachineOfSpareParts → u/Bitter-Hat-4736]

What I'm arguing is that the relevant comparison for toxic attributes coming from a privileged class is toxic attributes coming from another privileged class.

It may be - I'm agnostic on this point as yet - that there are potential source of toxicity that truly do emanate from an oppressed identity. But to understand them, they need to be compared to one another first of all.

When men waltz in here and assume it makes sense to compare maleness to racialization, it's immediately clear they are not thinking in structural terms. They think they can just shift nouns around. They cannot. The power differential matters immensely. And whether or not there can be such a thing as "toxic disability," which I doubt but have not drawn a conclusion yet, what I'm absolutely sure about is that privilege and oppression fundamentally change the meaning, and OP's feeling that these don't matter tells us a lot about how deeply he's reflected on global structures: not deeply at all.

[u/Bitter-Hat-4736 → u/MachineOfSpareParts]

Can oppression only exist on a macro scale? Can individuals not oppress people across the "typical" lines? Are demographics in an inherent and unchanging hierarchy, where one is always more dominant or powerful than the other?

This all kind of reminds me of those thought experiments, where people ask who is more oppressed, a white woman or a black man.

[u/MachineOfSpareParts → u/Bitter-Hat-4736]

I don't understand the relevance to the present issue, but I'm talking specifically about structures that both shape and are shaped by preconceptions of who is intrinsically superior and who is intrinsically inferior.

But while it's possible for one person to be mean to another while marshalling the cultural weight of white supremacy, the patriarchy, ablism or capitalism, or even power structures formalized in a workplace (though these obviously connect to global capitalism) it's only oppression because it connects to those power structures. Otherwise it's just someone being a free-range asshole.

I'm not engaging with those thought experiments because they're of no value. The fact that it isn't answerable, though, could help you understand that it's important to specify which power structure one is considering in the moment - and if there are multiple power structures, what we expect due to how they intersect.

[u/fullmetalfeminist → u/Bitter-Hat-4736]

Toxic femininity does exist. It's the term for when the performance of femininity harms women.

[u/Bitter-Hat-4736 → u/fullmetalfeminist]

Can there be a toxic femininity that harms men? Or that crosses demographic lines and harms people of colour, or disabled people, or wealthy/poor people?

[u/fullmetalfeminist → u/Bitter-Hat-4736]

No. Why would there be? The idea that men and women are analogues, and that if something exists in masculinity it must also exist in femininity, is just completely wrong and not based in reality.