Everything’s Toxic These Days.
Guest Blog by Brett Jeffers
Toxic masculinity is somewhat of a political football. As with many sociological concepts, it is hard to pin it down and categorise it rigidly and coherently, but essentially the idea of toxic masculinity is a group of behaviours that are culturally embedded and are harmful to both men and women. According to the American Psychology Association, men demonstrate disproportionate rates of receiving harsh discipline, academic challenges, mental health issues, physical health problems, public health concerns (e.g., violence, substance abuse, incarceration, and early mortality), and a wide variety of other quality-of-life issues (e.g., relational problems, family well-being). Additionally, many men do not seek help when they need it, and many report distinctive barriers to receiving gender-sensitive psychological treatment (Mahalik, Good, Tager, Levant, & Mackowiak, 2012). So toxic masculinity, or culturally prevalent ideas of what it means to be a man, are hurtful to men.
According to the White Ribbon website, 85% of women in Australia have been sexually harassed by men. 1 in 5 women have experienced sexual violence. Between 2010 and 2014, one hundred and twenty-one women were killed by abusive, male partners. Last year, it was one woman a week. These statistics, when coupled with media reports labelling Peter Miles, perpetrator of the Margaret River tragedy, as a ‘good bloke who snapped’ we see a culture of masculinity that is harmful to everyone and excuses itself when things go wrong.
Toxic masculinity persists because it is about power and maintaining the patriarchy. It comes from a place of privilege, and it is self-perpetuating. If a man stands up to sexist or abusive behaviour in other men, his masculinity is questioned. If men seek help for emotional or mental difficulties, other men question their masculinity. This is the core of toxic masculinity.
The reason I am writing this is that there is a growing conservative backlash to the concept of toxic masculinity, and one of the forms it is taking is by creating a corollary: ‘toxic femininity’.
People who argue against the idea of toxic masculinity often paint it with a broad brush: it’s an attack on men, not all men are like that. This demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of what toxic masculinity is – a cultural problem that affects individuals, not an individual problem that affects our culture. This is the first place where ‘toxic femininity’ falls down. Evolutionary biologist Heather Heying suggests that ‘Femininity becomes toxic when it cries foul, chastising men for responding to a provocative display’. This is not a culturally endemic problem. This is rape culture – blaming the woman for the response and actions of the man. Rape culture is obviously offensive to women, leading to victim shaming. But it is equally offensive to men, because it takes away our agency and ability and desire to be moral and thoughtful beings. Rape culture reduces men to the level of instinctual beasts. Heying is trying to argue that women have a cultural problem similar to men, but in fact she is reinforcing that the cultural problem is endemic to men whilst making her personal moral judgments on women.
Toxic masculinity is about men trying to meet a cultural expectation of being masculine. It is toxic because it is harmful, leading to self-harm because of the concept that men must be stoic, and harming women because of masculine objectification of women and perceptions of power relationships. Femininity is often also about trying to meet cultural expectations of being feminine, but it is not toxic, because it does not lead to the same harms. Feminist writer Katie Anthony puts it well when she says ‘some women can and do inflict violence on other people. They do it because they’re hateful. They do it because they’re sick. They do it because they’re bigoted. They do it because they’re greedy and selfish. They do it because they’re desperate. They don’t do it because they’re trying to meet society’s expectation of “feminine.”’
Women can and do abuse men sexually, physically and emotionally, and of course men who experience this abuse suffer because of it. But is that really toxic femininity? Such behaviour is not about meeting society’s expectation of the feminine. An example quoted to me was women who lie in court to gain custody of their children and get away with it, or women who falsely accuse men of inappropriate sexual advances. This is unacceptable behaviour, but it is not toxic femininity, because it has nothing to do with what is culturally expected in order to identify as a woman.
Toxic masculinity affects everyone. Men who do not ascribe to toxic masculine behaviour (and there are many) have their masculinity questioned by those that do. Women’s interactions with men are consistently precarious. Men rarely seek help when they need it because ‘Men don’t cry’. Toxic masculinity is clear in the statistics and in the academic literature. Toxic femininity, on the other hand, is a reactionary response targeting certain weaponised behaviours by women. It is neither endemic, nor culturally widespread. It has little or nothing to do with meeting societal expectations. Toxic Femininity is only a problem in that it distracts and attacks the genuine problem of men conforming to a twisted and dangerous idea of what it means to be a man.
Brett Jeffers is a teacher of English and Drama in the public school system, and a man.
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