We need to stop calling it "toxic masculinity" and go back to calling it "woman hating" or "misogyny". Every fucking instance of so called "toxic masculinity" involves a performance of contempt for women somewhere. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

mall.bsky.social • 4 days ago

We need to stop calling it "toxic masculinity" and go back to calling it "woman hating" or "misogyny".

Every fucking instance of so called "toxic masculinity" involves a performance of contempt for women somewhere.

Comments

weirdfictionfan.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think you are correct, I believe this applies to a few other issues as well. And we must stop the shaming. They don't care a bit. They don't have an empathy switch that's going to suddenly kick in. They are in it for the long haul. No regrets

transvestight.bsky.social•4 days ago

"toxic masculinity" as an analysis ironically makes it so hard to tie these behaviors back to masculinity writ large without getting a ton of pushback about how it's mean to criticize masculinity.

venomsnake.ca•4 days ago

i think toxic masculinity is for when men impose restrictions or behavioral guidelines on other men. everything else is pure misogyny indeed.

elizabethveldon.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yea, that’s misogynistic still.

andros-haldane.bsky.social•4 days ago

even that, tho, is still based in misogyny

venomsnake.ca•4 days ago

mmmh i guess! maybe it's associating certain things with "female behavior"? i cant rly understand this mentality to begin with.

southernviolet.bsky.social•3 days ago

Usually, yes. Its because women enjoy or do that thing. Sometimes its the other way around: the man does a neutral or good thing and other men dont like it and the worst possible insult for cishet man is call another man is woman-coded so do that.

andros-haldane.bsky.social•3 days ago

💯

feminine = weak
weak = bad

tigerpournelle.bsky.social•4 days ago

Think the toxic thing came about as a defensive "they were taught that by their fathers," and, okay, but it's not a culture and you can stop that any ol time.

jason.tracys.org•4 days ago

Agreed.
Plus, I’d like to just throw away “masculinity” along with “femininity”.
To me, they’re just behaviors that are labeled one way or the other to reinforce gender stereotypes.

stephens.website•4 days ago

I feel like it's more all-encompassing than that. After all, toxic males hate men, too.

mall.bsky.social•4 days ago

Which they express through pejoratively feminising male rivals. The issue is male supremacism.

gwamhurt.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think this comment put to bed my few objections about your original statement.

rowyourbot.bsky.social•4 days ago

Toxic masculinity is supposed to be toxic to the man, right? I thought the idea was supposed to be—Pete Hegseth. He classically embodies it. He cheats, he lies, he rapes, he may drink himself to death, his own mother says he is a bad person. His version of masculinity poisoned his own life.

southernviolet.bsky.social•3 days ago

yeah thats misogyny. He poisoned his life through choosing to view women as lesser. Literally everything else stems from that.

rowyourbot.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oh exactly. The poison of it goes to everyone. But also to them. I think the person who I first heard talk about was explaining all the things the manosphere blames women for are the effects of misogyny ON men. Their deadly addictions, the way they fuck up their own lives.

greenowl.bsky.social•4 days ago

It's a rare instance of a term RW men's movement invented then being adopted by academics, rather than the reverse. It meant men "losing their way" from positive traits that sexism deemed masculine & adopting negative traits - misogyny, homophobia (related to misogyny) & violence. So yeah, misogyny.

mall.bsky.social•4 days ago

But no-one seems to be able to spot misogyny unless you point it out. We need to understand misogyny as the central problem, not a bad type of manhood that needs replacing with a good manhood.

We need people to stop hating women and stop acting on that hatred.

volition-newlove.itch.io•4 days ago

a lot of the time there's also a weird implication that this "toxic masculinity" is a recent problem, as if there's some vague period in the past where This Wasn't a Problem (ie, the cis male speaker didn't see it as a problem back then)

mall.bsky.social•4 days ago

The opposite of stopping perpetuating the supremacy of manhood in society isn't perpetuating a morally virtuous manhood in society it's setting women on an equal footing socially, politically and economically.

mall.bsky.social•4 days ago

That should have said "the counterpart of stopping..."

queerpaisley.bsky.social•4 days ago

Oooo I love this thread! Thank you.

alexanderhay.bsky.social•3 days ago

None of this is new. Even current technology merely streamlines the process rather than encourages it. While the mass deployment of misinformation and far right propaganda is new, insofar as Goebbels didn't have access to the Web, the impulses they exploit have always been there.

mxthemfatale.bsky.social•4 days ago

I don't quite know how to frame the feeling, however 'toxic masculinity' feels like a derail, entirely because it centres the masculinity. So women/femmes got erased from their own misogynist oppression somehow.

elizabethveldon.bsky.social•4 days ago

This is exactly what the cultural moment is though, isn’t it.

Misogyny is about how men are hurt, the bruised knuckles of the misogynist and not the blood of their target

mxthemfatale.bsky.social•4 days ago

"Misogyny is about how men are hurt, the bruised knuckles of the misogynist and not the blood of their target"

Arrrow to bullseye, absolutely this!

elizabethveldon.bsky.social•4 days ago

Thanks :-)

mxthemfatale.bsky.social•4 days ago

no no, thank you, powerfully put!

rowyourbot.bsky.social•4 days ago

I thought it was a way of explaining to men—that shit’s gonna kill you. And it does. Statistically speaking, it’s killing them. More and more lately. Yes, they are a major hazard to others. But they’re also a hazard to themselves.

blunderball.bsky.social•4 days ago

My understanding of 'toxic masculinity' was that it was a separate thing to misogyny, but that they were often found in the same people.

My impression was more that it was 'macho' culture putting down other men, or pressuring men to behave a certain way with regards to emotions/health.

mxthemfatale.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yes, however what is the emotional state that is viewed as negative, and where does that idea come from?
Soy Boy - the mistaken idea that soya products have estrogen in, and make you a woman.
Cuck - not the aggressor in sex, so again, women coded
etc etc

mxthemfatale.bsky.social•4 days ago

So when you boil down those ideas, those masc traits the toxic masculinity adheres to, its a polarisation of everything they view as female/femme. Not being manly enough is a default to the feminine. Its rooted in misogyny because its still based in femme/female = lesser.

elizabethveldon.bsky.social•4 days ago

All of this.

‘Macho’ culture is misogynistic because it views the female/ feminine (as it constructs the idea) as lesser.

blunderball.bsky.social•4 days ago

Do not disagree. Femininity as weakness and homophobia, were particularly common examples when I was growing up (90s-00s)

It's the old, *slightly* more subtle stuff that I often associate more with the term, your "man up" type examples. The 4chan version is too extreme for this category imo.

mspraxis.bsky.social•4 days ago

I’ve never stopped calling by those terms. Because that’s what it is.

riotstarz.bsky.social•4 days ago

tbh, I think we need to stop trying to separate out "toxic" vs "non-toxic" masculinity. I swear the category's been created partly to allow men who "aren't like that" to absolve themselves and not have to look too hard at what rituals of misogyny they *do* reinforce.

riotstarz.bsky.social•4 days ago

& to give the idea that, rather than being a construct based around specific cultural manifestations of the dominant power in a patriarchy, "masculinity" is a natural role that has inherent positive attributes complementary to those of "femininity" (as all these "real men are xyz" liberals protest)

riotstarz.bsky.social•4 days ago

like I want to be careful insofar as "queer masculinities" can be positive, but I think they're positive insofar as they are distinct from "how maleness is constructed in our society", which is through the instillation of ideologies of domination.

mall.bsky.social•4 days ago

Meh, this is still spending much more energy on trying to classify good and bad masculinities than it is addressing the root issue

riotstarz.bsky.social•4 days ago

eh, that's fair enough - I think the main thing is that ppl are constantly instilled with their place in a patriarchy - men to dominate, women to accept that domination. and men can never fully absolve themselves of that role while society continues to lend them the power to enforce it.

aprilciate.bsky.social•4 days ago

And women go programmed to apply good faith/sympathise with oppressors rather than just stand on business. Even neutral. They are told to align with those who will protect them. The adolescence stuff has been depressing, not the content but the discourse around it; seeing women make men the victim

inanna-nalytica.bsky.social•4 days ago

You are right, though I also want to urge to not forget they also show similar contempt/harassment/violence to men they consider beneath their own station, to perceived rivals, and to those (whether true in either regard or not) they consider to be inadequate men.

(To be clear, I agree with you!)

volition-newlove.itch.io•4 days ago

i think it's kind of a feature of any kind of hierarchical system of oppression, even within the dominant group, one can build clout by claiming others within the group are proximal to the oppressed group, in this case via the concept of 'emasculation'

inanna-nalytica.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yes.

inanna-nalytica.bsky.social•4 days ago

And this is the function of misogyny - to create a present outgroup that the hierarchy can lever itself against.

kgoldschmitt.bsky.social•4 days ago

Something I admired about the Swedish title for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was that it got to the point: Men Who Hate Women.

duckrabbitpro.bsky.social•3 days ago

It’s rather a toxic *view* of masculinity/femininity, which encompasses misogyny.

Which also explains how some women can embrace the same self-hating views: they are not themselves “toxically masculine” but embrace a toxic view of masculinity/femininity.

mall.bsky.social•3 days ago

You're describing misogyny

duckrabbitpro.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yes, but it is the binary view that should, imho, be questioned FIRST.

Both because women often end up on the oppressed end, but also because a *LOT* of pain, hatred & violence towards MEN results from the same dichotomy.

This way of framing could garner more support *among* men!

1/

duckrabbitpro.bsky.social•3 days ago

I’m talking about male teens’ obsession with performative physical dominance, which also causes hatred/shaming against women/girls, AND against kids who are introverted, neurodivergent, gay, sensitive, intellectual, nerdy, overweight/underweight,…

2/

duckrabbitpro.bsky.social•3 days ago

Having taught art appreciation to teens age 15 to 18, I was pretty shocked that the classes that had *unanimously* misogynist views, openly calling Tate their “hero”, openly homophobic/transphobic attitudes openly justifying/glorifying violence,…

3/

duckrabbitpro.bsky.social•3 days ago

…were *not* my least educated/least informed classes, but specifically *Sports* classes! (which go into higher ed to become phys ed teachers, semipro athletes, kinesitherapists…)

Nowhere else, views on M/F dichotomy & male performative physical dominance was *this* pronounced and monocultural.

4/4

postboyprime.bsky.social•4 days ago

i think toxic masculinity is a substrain of misogyny. it's just being more specific in its expression, i think, as it usually refers to interactions between men. i think both work. like all "toxic masc is misogyny, but not all misogyny is toxic masc" kinda thing. idk just my vibe, could be mistaken

rowyourbot.bsky.social•4 days ago

That was my understanding. It’s not the only set of masculine norms that women have to evade or be concerned about —there can be others. It’s the one that causes men to be a total fucking wreck. And yeah this kind of man bullies other men into it. They’re all dupes of one another, living in misery.

southernviolet.bsky.social•3 days ago

Nah, its just a way to center men in conversations that should be about women. Literally everything it describes that is worth talking about is either misogyny or the effects of misogyny.

postboyprime.bsky.social•3 days ago

I didn't disagree with that. But misogyny is a broad category. Toxic masculinity is just one aspect.

thephoenixvents.bsky.social•3 days ago

I was going to bring up men isolating and not allowing themselves to show emotion or seek help as an example of "toxic masculinity", but upon further thought it would seem that could be down to them seeing showing emotion and having emotional connections with people as being a thing only women do...

mothpiss.bsky.social•2 days ago

this language also allows for it to be easily turned on "masculine" queer people, while "misogynist" is a very specific accusation.

as a transmasc butch, atp "toxic masculinity" to me just means "any time a gnc/trans person does something i find weird or icky or confusing"

mothpiss.bsky.social•2 days ago

"toxic masculinity" doesn't differentiate between the toxicity & the masculinity, both of which are ALSO extremely vague words in their own right

misogyny is a far more difficult claim to uphold without evidence, and isn't linked to a specific gender identity/expression more than any other