Toxic Masculinity — What really defines a man?
“Be a man,” “man up,” “take it like a man”. These are only a handful of the many remarks and jabs that men have received from other men for feigning even the tiniest indication of emotion. The patriarchal notion that being feminine means being weak and submissive underpins nearly all of these comments.
While it is true that we have made significant progress in terms of rights for women and gender minorities rights in the twenty-first century, the pervasiveness of podcasts and social media channels centred on ideas of hypermasculinity in society, as well as the male youth’s attraction to problematic figures such as Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, and Jordan Peterson, has seriously hampered this progress.
Misogyny, patriarchy and toxic masculinity —
To provide an insight into what connects the aforementioned topics, we need to look at the remarks made by self-described “sexist and misogynist” Andrew Tate. Tate, through his social media channels and various podcasts, has said women “deserve to be cheated on,” are “properties to be owned by men,” are “lazy,” are “corrupted by sex”, and that they should “bear responsibility” for being raped. This is the type of content that boys as young as 13 are consuming online. To assess the penetration of such content online, The Guardian set up a TikTok account pretending to be a teenage boy, and instantly they were inundated with an abundance of Tate’s videos.
Tate, the poster boy of insecure “men”, espouses the idea that to be a “true man”, one must be domineering toward women and not express any emotion whatsoever. Through men like him, teenage boys are being radicalised to be virulently misogynistic and detest women, especially the “feminist types”. This issue presents itself due to the fact that a woman in a position of power poses a direct challenge to patriarchy and hence diminishes the masculinity of all men beneath her. The male society is losing its long held privileges and the control it had over women. The incoming equality seems to have triggered some “Alpha” men to revert to hyper-masculinity to assert themselves.
“Toxic masculinity hurts men, but there’s a big difference between women dealing with the constant threat of being raped, beaten, and killed by the men in their lives and men not being able to cry.” — Robert Jensen
Toxic masculinity through the lens of queerphobia —
The contemporary zoomer fashion trends have been revolutionary in that they have given men the freedom to explore masculinity outside of their comfort zones and adapt to non-mainstream gender roles. And in doing so, they have caused the “crusaders” of masculinity to rise to the fore.
Some things as simple as painting one’s nails, growing out your hair, and even applying sunscreen (yes, you read that right) have been deemed too gay and girly for men. Given society’s attitude towards homosexuality and femininity, it has become the norm that if a man is seen doing anything outside his assigned gender role, it exposes his affinity towards being gay and subsequently girlish.
For people like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, just so much as fathoming the existence of a person beyond the gender binary can set off a chain of emotions (surprising for these “alpha” men) that ultimately lead to statements like “Trans People will cause societal collapse.” Denying trans women their identity results from the belief that being a transwoman is something one “has chosen” to do and is content with, even though a woman is an “inferior object”. Toxic masculinity victimises trans men and women and shames people who are attracted to them.
One has to wonder about the hypocrisy of queerphobes as they continue to claim that gay men are too effeminate while still dismissing the veracity of trans women. It is hypocrisy at its finest when men who indulge in testosterone injections, jaw shaping surgery, and facial hair transplants to confirm their masculinity have the audacity to oppose HRT for trans people.
Given the fact that both masculinity and femininity are societal constructs, a masculine man is one who thinks himself to be one. To protect young boys from the grips of toxic masculinity and its draconian ramifications, a complete overhaul of patriarchy and gender roles is required. It is of prime concern that they be taught that it’s okay to cry, to express themselves freely, to wear what they want to wear, to love who they want to love, and to treat women as equals. Only then can we expect to fight toxic masculinity and the subsequent misogyny, patriarchy, and queerphobia.
Ultimately, there is comfort in the knowledge that toxic masculinity is too delicate a thing to sustain even the tiniest whisper of feminism.
