When the #metoo hashtag hit Twitter, and women around the world shared their stories of sexual harassment, assault, and rape, some men replied by arguing that not all men were rapists or harassers.
While perhaps technically true, this “not all men” response was lacking in empathy for victims of such actions, and failed to take responsibility for the part men collectively play in a culture that enables them.
This culture has been referred to by many names such as “rape culture” or “toxic masculinity.” Recently right-wing commentators have perhaps deliberately been confusing the issue by interpreting the phrase “toxic masculinity” to falsely portray feminist-friendly views as seeing all masculinity as toxic.
This has lead to feminists to respond with a “not all masculinity” argument. Some masculinity is “toxic,” while other masculinities are not.
But is this accurate? Is there such a thing as a non-toxic masculinity? I think it is worth taking seriously the idea that in fact, all masculinity may be toxic at its core.
What Makes Masculinity “Toxic”?
“Every time feminists talk about toxic masculinity, there is a chorus of whiny dudes who will immediately assume — or pretend to assume — that feminists are condemning all masculinity, even though the modifier ‘toxic’ inherently suggests that there are forms of masculinity that are not toxic”
— Amanda Marcotte
So what makes masculinity toxic?
One obvious one is physical and sexual violence. A culture that supports men and boys in harassing, assaulting, and raping women is certainly toxic to women’s bodily autonomy.
Stereotypical male gender roles can be toxic in a number of ways including encouraging violence, aggression, and dominance, in suppressing “feminine” qualities such as nurturing and compassion, limiting the emotional spectrum (“boys don’t cry”), diminishing self-expression, choice of hobbies or activities, and so on.
Masculinity can also be toxic if it is homophobic, transphobic, racist, etc.
These aspects of toxic masculinity no doubt contribute to bullying, depression, suicide, and murder amongst men, as well as domestic violence, substance abuse, greed, cutthroat competition, war, and of course, rape and sexual assault.
Approaches to “Non-Toxic” Masculinity
Many individuals and groups have attempted to “reform” masculinity, or uncover a deeper or non-toxic masculinity, often by looking back to history.
I think this approach leads to at best a partial “cleansing” of the toxicity.
For example, the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement sourced Jungian archetypes in history. The book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover developed four of them in depth.
A King of course is a patriarch, an unelected man who rules over others with absolute authority and can never be questioned. This is not the best symbol to represent a non-patriarchal, non-toxic masculinity, for obvious reasons.
A Warrior is someone who kills others, as ordered by the state. This archetype does not help us get away from the violence of toxic masculinity, but instead places violence as central. And of course women can be warriors too.
A Magician is someone who creates or transforms things. This might be useful. But why would this be specifically masculine? Seems sexist, especially when you consider the actual persistent sexism within entrepreneurship, software development, construction, etc.
A Lover is someone who loves. Not toxic, but again, not necessarily masculine either. Loving is non-gendered.
Is Masculinity Different from Femininity?
Across the political spectrum, nearly everyone will agree with the statements “men and women are different” or “masculinity and femininity are different.”
But when you get into the details, everything gets muddy.
“Men are…”
Anything you can fill in to make up the rest of that sentence is either toxic masculinity or not specifically masculine.
“Men are loyal.”
This either implies that women aren’t loyal (a trope thrown about in toxic masculinity communities such as the Red Pill subreddit), or is a statement that could also be said about women.
But of course not all men are loyal, some cheat or lie or manipulate. So clearly this is a statement about what men should be. But women and nonbinary people also should be loyal, because virtue is not gendered.
“Men should be strong.”
Either this means women should be weak (toxic masculinity), or it says the equivalent of “all humans of all genders should be strong” while weirdly emphasizing men for no good reason.
“Men should be in charge.”
Oops, that one is definitely toxic.
See? Everything you can say about what men are or should be is either a) toxic masculinity or b) not gender-specific (e.g. about virtue) and thus why are you saying it about men only?
Men Must Be Different From Women
People will continue to insist that men and women are radically different however (perhaps even from different planets).
Why do we do this?
I think it’s because one group cannot be considered superior to another unless the two groups are radically different.
Similarly, if racial categories are mostly made-up garbage whos definition has changed throughout the years as immigrants become accepted into the dominant group, then white people cannot be said to be superior to people of other races, because they aren’t even different.
Perhaps Masculinity is Not About Gender
Sometimes people don’t associate masculinity with what it means to be a man, but make it more abstract, not about gender at all.
A man can “get in touch with his feminine side” and a gay woman could consider herself quite masculine.
This doesn’t really solve our problem of finding a non-toxic masculinity however.
A man contacting his feminine side may cry or dance or nurture someone, but it is still not clear why these things are considered feminine and not masculine in the first place, except due to stereotypical gender roles of men and women (aka toxic masculinity).
Similarly, a gay woman who considers herself masculine doesn’t resolve the issue of why we need the term “masculine” to describe her desire to take charge, play aggressive sports, or whatever else she deems “masculine” in the first place. There is no need to use any gendered language here at all. One could simply replace “masculine” with “assertive” or “loves sports.”
These terms are still defined by the criteria of toxic masculinity: men are aggressive and violent leaders, women are nurturing and passive followers.
It just takes those qualities unquestioned and abstracts them into non-gendered categories.
Perhaps All Masculinity is Toxic After All
If everything we can say about men is toxic or else not specifically male or masculine, then either all masculinity is toxic or it doesn’t exist.
Personally I think it doesn’t exist.
Masculinity is just some made-up stuff, and it’s time we got rid of it.
Now getting rid of it doesn’t mean that individuals won’t have preferences or personalities. Some people might enjoy leadership and others not so much. Some people might enjoy aggressive sports and others hate them. No problem.
But trying to reform masculinity by purifying it of its toxicity is a losers game in my opinion. All such reform efforts end up doing is trying to make aggressive, dominant, sexist ideas more palatable.
I think it’s high time we just jettisoned the whole masculinity thing into space and started fresh.
Since masculinity is just our ideas, this does not in any way imply that “men” are toxic (or the popular phrase, “men are trash”). Men are just human beings, some more pleasant than others, just as is true of people of other genders.
What is toxic is our ideas about men and masculinity, and I think it’s worth questioning them endlessly, and not trying to replace them with anything new either. Just open up a void where masculinity used to be and stare into it.
