Toxic Masculinity Could Not Exist Without Toxic Femininity, Because All Relationships Are Co-Created.

Don’t worry, you didn’t just read the title to another victim blaming article. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe too much in victims (I have some exceptions), and I also see that we (men and women) are all victims, which is just another way of saying, no one is at fault or to blame, in my mind. Not only that, but finger pointing is infantile and indicative of our lacking in interpersonal evolution.

There’s this really popular thing happening right now in the world. It seems that a lot of people are blaming men (especially white men), for their individual problems, as well as the collective’s problems. The term “toxic masculinity,” is being thrown around in many domains as a way to describe the ways how being a man is today’s world is toxic to the rest of us.

Let me be clear: While I do find some of the things we describe as “toxic” to be ridiculous and the result of a culture conditioned to victim consciousness, I do not completely disagree that there are some toxic patterns that males carry and assume in the world that does harm. At the same time, we are starting to pathologize maleness, and that is dangerous territory.

Let’s play a little game: What if everything you experienced in your reality was a reflection of you in some way, or a message to be received by you about who you are and what you need to see, in order to know yourself better (and make adjustments if you wish based on that understanding)? What if life was your mirror?

I believe, at my core, that it is, and that it how I choose to operate in the world. You see, when I am in the world with no agency, and things are simply happening *to me*, for no particular reason other than, “everything out there is good,” or “those people out there are bad,” then I am in an incredibly disempowered position. If for no other reason, I choose this perspective to take a sense of radical self-responsibility for my life, because if I don’t, I will always be at the whim of other people’s actions and words.

Herein lies the problem I am witnessing with the “women’s empowerment” and toxic masculinity movements. It isn’t that toxic masculinity doesn’t exist, it’s that it plays to and supremely validates those who are in a victim trap. As in, those who are gripped by the victim mentality, and will not take responsibility for their lives and experiences. I am not seeing women take responsibility for their part. AND WE ALWAYS HAVE A PART (and no, by this I don’t mean that your part was that your skirt was too short).

If relationships are our mirrors, and if what we’re seeing is toxic masculinity, then that means toxic femininity exists, too. Relationships are co-created. I believe, 100% of the time.

Women shouting “toxic masculinity” en masse is no different than a woman who continually dates unavailable/abusive/dysfunctional men and is perpetually pointing the finger at him and taking no responsibility for her experience. The woman claiming, “good men don’t exist, all men are dogs.” In her reality, all men are dogs, but who is the common denominator?

The insistence on blaming men for all of our problems is just that scenario being played out on a mass scale.

People might hear this and think I’m blaming women (more victim consciousness) and absolving men of their responsibility in these co-created dynamics. I’m not doing either one of those things. But there is a way I see some people perpetuate their victim-hood by refusing to look at their part. I am not not referring to blatant attempts and acts of abuse…but honestly, I played my part in those relationships, too, as in, they reflected back to me something I believed about myself.

These same people seem to encounter a lot of toxic masculinity, ironically. To be honest, I don’t. I used to a lot. I used to be in abusive relationships and had toxic male friends, but all that changed when I did. It’s not that men don’t have a part, it’s that it’s none of my business if they choose to look at it or not, because if I am taking care of my side of the street, my reality will reflect that (and it does, because I am with a man and surrounded by men who also take care of their part).

But women, we are not always the victims of men. We undermine females everyday by victimizing each other and ourselves with every touch, whistle, gaze, and miscalculated attempt at flirting a man sets onto us. I used to burn with rage when a man would catcall me. And now? I smile. I smile because I am an embodied woman who can appreciate a non-threatening man appreciating her in whatever silly way he chooses. I realize that my rage before had nothing to do with the man who was catcalling me.

There is a way we as women aren’t fully embodying and accepting our femininity. So when a man is in awe of it and admiring it, we feel uncomfortable and make him wrong and shame him for it. We project our own shame onto him. It’s instances like that that I believe if we could look below the surface and honestly identify and own those feelings of shame and discomfort, then we could help free men and women both.

As a woman, I’m not sure I can say I’ve been a perpetrator of sexual harassment (but not denying it either), but I have absolutely perpetrated *emotional* harassment, rape, manipulation, and have violated many men.

I’ve never acted entitled to his body (actually, that’s not even true), but I acted entitled to his time, attention, money, and relationships.

I never harassed him with hoots and hollers and whistles, but I coerced and manipulated him into agreeing to things I know he didn’t want to do.

I never raped his body, but I purposely undermined and shamed his behavior in order to feel that I had more control of the situation and of him.

I have emotionally tortured men.

All of our transgressions are a result of living in a culture that operates with a lot of trauma. I just think it manifests and looks differently for men and women in how we act out our pain. If we could honestly look one another in the eye and own our individual pain that drives these harmful and toxic behaviors, I believe our chances at healing and creating sustainable and fulfilling change between men and women would happen exponentially quicker. But to have that, we have to own and admit the ways we pretend (because women’s toxicity is much more covert than a mans) we are innocent. And that’s painful.