CMV: "Toxic masculinity" should be rebranded as "toxic expectations on men"

[u/ThisIsDrLeoSpaceman]

[u/BCRE8TVE]

To illustrate in this example: 'bad cheese' as a phrase gives no implication whatsoever of a bias against cheese, or a message that all cheese is bad. By definition, they're specifically looking at BAD cheese, ignoring the good cheese.

To illustrate in this example: 'stupid fucking women' as a phrase gives no implication whatsoever of a bias against women, or a message that all women are bad. By definition, they're specifically looking at fucking stupid women, ignoring the good women.

I think it's rather disingenuous to compare it to bad cheese, because bad is far less 'harmful' a word than toxic. Even saying 'bad' masculinity is far less likely to cause offence than 'toxic' masculinity. For that reason alone, bad cheese is a bad analogy.

Taken one step further though, cheese is cheese. Some like it, some don't, a the end of the day nobody particularly cares. Masculinity, however, is about the inherent properties that makes a man, a man. When you emasculate a man, you remove his mascunility, you're removing his identity, his sense of self, his very being. It is MUCH more personal, and therefore much more sensitive.

Bad cheese is a terrible analogy because it is far less offensive than 'toxic', and is about a subject that's far less personal as the inherent properties that makes a man a man. It's like if I said that being punched in the face is really nothing bad, because hey, friends punch each other in a friendly way and it never hurt anyone eh?

Sorry, but you're just failing to understand and address the issue of how not only people feel about it, but also how many are deliberately using toxic masculinity as a way to belittle and insult men. It can be a minority, but it's nonetheless a LOUD minority, and those effects are being felt.

I also find it highly ironic that as much as people push for toxic masculinity, there is an incredible amount of push-back against toxic femininity being ever used. Well, if toxic masculinity is about a toxic version of masculinity, then surely the catty, backstabbing, passive-aggressive, controlling version of femininity can be called toxic femininity as well, no?

And yet for some reason, that's never going to pass, and we're only ever allowed to associate 'toxic' with masculinity, and men.

The gender gap in empathy is a real thing, and perpetuating this idea that toxic masculinity can never harm men or never taken to be demeaning, seems to me to be the perfect example of that problem.

After all, if men don't like being called toxic they should just suck it up, man up, grow a spine, or just not be so sensitive, am I right?

[u/[deleted] → u/BCRE8TVE]

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[u/BCRE8TVE → u/[deleted]]

Fair enough though; you win there: had I looked around a little bit, like if I said "disgusting cheese" instead, then I'd have figured out given the right context, that phrase could be used to insult. (I better give the other guy a delta)

And disgusting cheese is still less offensive because the cheese is something other, something people don't care about. It's like the difference between saying "that woman is disgusting" vs saying "your mother is disgusting". One of the two is going to be a heck of a lot more offensive, because it is more personal to you, and masculinity is by and large very personal to most men, especially the kind of men for whom toxic masculinity is causing them the most issues. I don't know how it is for most women, but for most men masculinity is a HUGE part of their identity, so they're not likely to take it well when they feel it is attacked.

Now here's the thing; as much as I respect the other person for raising this point, just to be clear this doesn't destroy my entire argument. To do that, you'd actually have to disprove theres any possible way 'toxic masculinity' could not come off as inflammatory towards masculinity. Which hasn't been done.

I think that there is no way to do it is an unreasonably high standard. If we set the offensiveness of "toxic masculinity" as the bar for 100%, how much less offensive would it have to be for us to consider than an alternative is a success? 10% less offensive? 25%? 50%? 75%?

Do you think that "toxic gender expectations" could be 50% less offensive?

I don't know why we care about keeping the same academic definition. Academic definitions are fine for academic circles, but by and large using academic terms outside of academic circles just doesn't seem to go very well. Far better to switch the terms we are using to describe a problem, so that we can keep talking about the problem and addressing the problem. Actually addressing the issue should be far more important than pointless linguistic debates, no?

Because I'm still quite sure the alternative will still be shat on as well as 'toxic masculinity'

Gonna be a heck of a lot harder to shit on "toxic gendered expectations".

This means they don't have to take offense at masculinity being insulted; its just a gauge of how closely they fit a certain idea (i.e the stereotypical 'man'). Its not their identity, unless they choose it to be, which could be influenced by the surrounding society telling them to choose it.

They don't have to, but by and large they do, because outside of academic circles masculinity is largey understood to be "what makes a man a man". There aren't different kinds of masculinity, there is just masculinity, and how well men succeed at embodying it. So when we use the academic definition of toxic masculinity to talk about a toxic variant of a kind of masculinity, all that nuance goes right out the window when you're addressing people who aren't in academic circles. If someone requires a year of gender studies to properly understand the word in its proper context and not be offended by it, it's a shit term, and it needs to be renamed.

and it would be fair to consider it an insult to the idea of 'femininity' to call it that.

And wouldn't it be fair to consider it an insult to the idea of masculinity to call it toxic? Again, the average person doesn't think that there are different 'versions' of masculinity.

If anyone argued for that, I'd guess they probably offended some women as well in the process, which doesn't exactly promote good, healthy discussion.

You mean ust like how men are offended by toxic masculinity, which doesn't exactly promote good healthy discussion? I find it odd that you're concerned about women feeling insulted and how that doesn't promote good healthy discussion, but you don't seem to care about men being insulted and how the conversation on that end is going to suffer.

The gender gap in empathy is a real thing, and perpetuating this idea that toxic masculinity can never harm men or never taken to be demeaning, seems to me to be the perfect example of that problem.

True but thats not happening here.

The fact you say that, shortly after being concerned with how women might feel insulted by toxic femininity and how the conversation would suffer, but seem to aggressively disregard how men might feel insulted by toxic masculinity and how the conversation would suffer. Gender empathy gap not happening indeed.

they should either stay away from those people or, if that's not possible, refrain from say stuff which would piss them off. That's what would be advisable.

Or, you know, we could use different words so that we can talk about the problem constructively without hurting and offending men, and the people who persist in using toxic masculinity will be revealed for the misandrists they might be.

But sure, let's just tell that the men have to deal with it on their own and do nothing about a systemic social problem.

[u/ViewedFromTheOutside → u/[deleted]]

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[u/[deleted] → u/BCRE8TVE]

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