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funeralxempire
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27 Jul 2021, 7:41 pm



This video seeks to explore how toxic masculinity impacts the mental health of young men who buy into it. I don't believe this concept solely occurs on the right but right-wing political movements have sought to capitalize on it for quite awhile.


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old_comedywriter
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27 Jul 2021, 7:55 pm

They're sad because only right-wing women will date them - and right wing women are not "easy."

A self-defeating machismo indeed.


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27 Jul 2021, 7:59 pm

old_comedywriter wrote:
They're sad because only right-wing women will date them - and right wing women are not "easy."

A self-defeating machismo indeed.


I'm not right-wing, not left-wing either, but you're correct about women on the right.


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27 Jul 2021, 9:26 pm

Oh great!

You have managed to COMBINE the PPR with "Love and Dating" in the same thread! :lol:

Duck for cover!



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27 Jul 2021, 9:33 pm

^ :lol:


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27 Jul 2021, 10:20 pm

I think it's sad that masculinity is vilified and shamed as being toxic.

Is there toxic femininity too?

Of course I understand the "toxic" parts of social expectations on men, and they're wrong. But people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, overusing the phrase and making masculinity offensive. I hate catch-phrases where people jump on the bandwagon and start repeating them without respect for the people affected. There are many men who feel ashamed of being good men, just because they're men ... and that's wrong. There are also masculine women. Are those women to be shamed for wanting to be male, because we now associate masculinity with poison? I wish the phrase was "toxic society" or "toxic advertising" or whatever, instead of implying that something inherent to masculinity is toxic.

This is not against you FXE and I didn't even watch the video. It's just my public service rant for the day.

To repeat, yes I do hate the toxic pressures on men. And women. And everyone.



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27 Jul 2021, 10:36 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I think it's sad that masculinity is vilified and shamed as being toxic.

Is there toxic femininity too?

Of course I understand the "toxic" parts of social expectations on men, and they're wrong. But people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, overusing the phrase and making masculinity offensive. I hate catch-phrases where people jump on the bandwagon and start repeating them without respect for the people affected. There are many men who feel ashamed of being good men, just because they're men ... and that's wrong. There are also masculine women. Are those women to be shamed for wanting to be male, because we now associate masculinity with poison? I wish the phrase was "toxic society" or "toxic advertising" or whatever, instead of implying that something inherent to masculinity is toxic.

This is not against you FXE and I didn't even watch the video. It's just my public service rant for the day.

To repeat, yes I do hate the toxic pressures on men. And women. And everyone.


I do think toxic femininity is a thing, but I don't think there is as much pressure with women as there is with men, except in Evangelical Christianity and conservative branches of Islam.


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27 Jul 2021, 10:39 pm

My new word is going to be toxic dehumanisation.

It seems being an individual or a human is considered poison.

We're all supposed to be pseudointellectual sock puppets and parrot the same phrases to avoid being shamed.

I wouldn't dare to guess whether gender socialisation is more toxic for men or for women.

It's toxic for everyone. We all deserve to be whoever and whatever we want to be.



funeralxempire
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27 Jul 2021, 10:44 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I think it's sad that masculinity is vilified and shamed as being toxic.

Is there toxic femininity too?

Of course I understand the "toxic" parts of social expectations on men, and they're wrong. But people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, overusing the phrase and making masculinity offensive. I hate catch-phrases where people jump on the bandwagon and start repeating them without respect for the people affected. There are many men who feel ashamed of being good men, just because they're men ... and that's wrong. There are also masculine women. Are those women to be shamed for wanting to be male, because we now associate masculinity with poison? I wish the phrase was "toxic society" or "toxic advertising" or whatever, instead of implying that something inherent to masculinity is toxic.

This is not against you FXE and I didn't even watch the video. It's just my public service rant for the day.

To repeat, yes I do hate the toxic pressures on men. And women. And everyone.


The thing is toxic masculinity refers to a specific problem related to our cultural attitudes towards what makes one masculine, and the phrases you propose don't address that aspect.

A lot of criticisms of the term don't actually address what it refers to and if you haven't dug into what is meant your criticisms end up not really being relevant even if they're well-intentioned. It isn't calling masculinity toxic, it's referring to toxic understandings of masculinity so criticisms about the former aren't actually relevant.

Because men are harmed by toxic masculinity, addressing it liberates men from having to hold themselves to self-defeating, unrealistic and harmful standards of masculinity.

If toxic femininity does exist it would be a different set of traits. Can being Karen-like become self-defeating? Would the superficial toxic friendships for the purpose of snarking on each other that some NT women only seem capable of having count?


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"If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made... and they won't even admit the knife is there." Malcolm X
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


IsabellaLinton
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27 Jul 2021, 11:02 pm

I'm addressing the fact that the word "masculine" is now forever associated with poison. Not all masculinity is poison, and the phrase only applies to the toxic standards --- but I still think the damage is done. Many people won't stop to differentiate masculinity as a whole (where and when it exists in normal healthy ways), from toxicity. There are some men (women, people, humans) who want to be manly in a traditional sense, and / or in a gentlemanly sense. That shouldn't be vilified. I know you aren't suggesting that it should be. I just hate that "masculine" now has a negative connotation which can easily seem sexist, when that was never the intention. The phrase should shame people who put the pressure, not the recipients and not the gender itself. You know and I know that gender is fluid, and men shouldn't have to act like men just like women shouldn't have to act like women. I'm only suggesting that the phrase be modified to "toxic sexism" or "toxic gender roles" or "toxic conditioning" or whatever, instead of suggesting to the uneducated that there's something inherently wrong with being male, having a penis, or identifying as a trans man.



funeralxempire
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27 Jul 2021, 11:18 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I'm addressing the fact that the word "masculine" is now forever associated with poison. Not all masculinity is poison, and the phrase only applies to the toxic standards --- but I still think the damage is done. Many people won't stop to differentiate masculinity as a whole (where and when it exists in normal healthy ways), from toxicity. There are some men (women, people, humans) who want to be manly in a traditional sense, and / or in a gentlemanly sense. That shouldn't be vilified. I know you aren't suggesting that it should be. I just hate that "masculine" now has a negative connotation which can easily seem sexist, when that was never the intention. The phrase should shame people who put the pressure, not the recipients and not the gender itself. You know and I know that gender is fluid, and men shouldn't have to act like men just like women shouldn't have to act like women. I'm only suggesting that the phrase be modified to "toxic sexism" or "toxic gender roles" or "toxic conditioning" or whatever, instead of suggesting to the uneducated that there's something inherently wrong with being male, having a penis, or identifying as a trans man.


The problem is that a term that removes masculinity fails to really describe the idea. 'Misguided and self-defeating masculinity' would, but since misguided and self-defeating mindsets are usually termed toxic it makes sense how they ended up with this term.

Honestly I think punk bands had a better jargon term for these attitudes than the 'experts' but somehow needledickery would be consider more vulgar even if it's less likely to trigger men who aren't familiar with the broader concept of toxic masculinity.

Jargon from fields like sociology often ends up being used outside of it's original intended context and that always carries the issue of uneducated/unfamiliar people failing to understand what is meant, but generally speaking when a jargon term is coined it's done to save people from having to describe things they regularly refer to with paragraphs of speech. I don't think this term is any worse than any of the other terms from that field that have crossed into common usage.


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"If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made... and they won't even admit the knife is there." Malcolm X
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


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27 Jul 2021, 11:24 pm

Re: Karens. Dear God, I hate that too. I understand the concept but WTF. Women are being shamed for standing up to other people when they're offended, for possibly having meltdowns, for using their voice, and this is somehow OK? I know that a true "Karen" means that the woman was out of line, acted entitled, or whatever. I get that. So it's an attack on their ability and their mental health, when women get upset or ask to speak to a manager or they become irate? It's OK to judge another human as entitled without knowing the full story? It's OK to shame women we've never met and ridicule them in the media? When I grew up women were encouraged to speak up and speak out, to have a voice. Not all people (women, men, humans) have the verbal, intellectual or emotional capacity to speak eloquently or to follow the proper steps when they're under duress.

I know "Karen" not meant to vilify all women. I know sometimes the women ARE entitled b*****s. I know many of them. I also know that some men are called "Kyles" or whatever it is, with hopes that the word "Karen" won't be considered sexist, or it will be justified as fair. I know all this, but it's not the public understanding. People jump on board the SJW cruise ship to tease women as "hysterical or histrionic" when they speak their mind. It's a safe put-down because if the woman defends herself she's even more histrionic. I can't deal with that shite. For the most part it's socially-acceptable ableism, sexism, and shaming against women and it's set women's rights back decades in my opinion.

People need to give their heads a shake. The catch-phrase is so overused that all women are now afraid to speak their mind, to scream, to cry, to be autistic, to melt down, or to make a mistake for fear of public shaming.

That's toxic.



Last edited by IsabellaLinton on 27 Jul 2021, 11:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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27 Jul 2021, 11:25 pm

Toxic masculinity really is just the elements of masculinity that are toxic. It can be really to differentiate them, say for example it is masculine to carry something that is too heavy for someone, that can be good, but it can become toxic when a man refuse to let someone carry something and then try to one up other men by carrying heavy things to demasculinize them. Kind of really feels like this has continued to be a talking point because a lot of men refuse to accept any part of their masculine characteristics as toxic and act like they are just being told that it is all toxic, which is silly.

The thing is that these toxic attitudes hurt not only other people but the men themselves, like telling a young boy that he cannot cry because men don't cry. Evidence points to these bottling up of emotions being a key part of why women can on average live longer than men. I am sure there exists ideas of toxic femineity too, which as a base example could include instances of saying men are all brutish and less intelligent, or perhaps that men cannot look after children and or the women should do it. Which can be a bit confusing when we might talk about feminism, which itself often tries to break these assumptions. Masculinity can be good, just when it used in the right way.

I think that it was a bit since I watched the video a couple weeks ago or so, but I think it had good points. A good sumary of thoughts I already had.


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funeralxempire
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27 Jul 2021, 11:34 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
Re: Karens. Dear God, I hate that too. I understand the concept but WTF. Women are being shamed for standing up to other people when they're offended, for possibly having meltdowns, for using their voice, and this is somehow OK? I know that a true "Karen" means that the woman was out of line, acted entitled, or whatever. I get that. So it's an attack on their ability and their mental health, if women get upset and asks to speak to a manager or they become irate? It's OK to judge another human as entitled without knowing the full story? It's OK to shame women we've never met and ridicule them in the media? When I grew up women were encouraged to speak up and speak out, to have a voice. Not all people (women, men, humans) have the verbal, intellectual or emotional capacity to speak eloquently or to follow the proper steps when they're under duress.

I know "Karen" not meant to vilify all women. I know sometimes the women ARE entitled b*****s. I know many of them. I also know that some men are called "Kyles" or whatever it is, with hopes that the word "Karen" won't be considered sexist, or it will be justified as fair. I know all this, but it's not the public understanding. People jump on board the SJW cruise ship to tease women as "hysterical or histrionic" when they speak their mind. It's a safe put-down because if the woman defends herself she's even more histrionic. I can't deal with that shite. For the most part it's socially-acceptable ableism, sexism, and shaming against women and it's set women's rights back decades in my opinion.

People need to give their heads a shake. The catch-phrase is so overused that all women are now afraid to speak their mind, to scream, to cry, to be autistic, to melt down, or to make a mistake for fear of public shaming.

That's toxic.


I'd say there's at least two toxic patterns going on.

The one being exactly as you describe, attacking women for being disruptive or speaking up for themselves etc. It's not unlike the toxic media treatment that famous women used to get where their worst moments would be documented and shared to shame and discredit them.

Although, the other one might have to do with women who internalize that appearing as a victim is a successful strategy for getting their way. If toxic masculinity leads to white knight and warrior mentalities, might toxic femininity lead to damsel in distress reactions when entitled women want to get their way?

All of that said, I'd suggest you watch the video to comment on it because it's a widespread problem that harms men you know from here. It isn't just men on the right who fall for those notions of masculinity but men on the right who are fixated on traditionalism are less likely to question them and this plays into why incels and MGTOW lean heavily to the right. Those red-pill mindsets emotionally stunt the men who buy into them and potentially ruin their lives and the lives of others.


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funeralxempire
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27 Jul 2021, 11:35 pm

Bradleigh wrote:
I think that it was a bit since I watched the video a couple weeks ago or so, but I think it had good points. A good sumary of thoughts I already had.


I think Fnord will appreciate it, even if after realizing he agrees he'll yell at himself for letting YouTube think for him. :lol:


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"If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made... and they won't even admit the knife is there." Malcolm X
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


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27 Jul 2021, 11:47 pm

I have heard the male version of Karen being Kevin.

My understanding is not that it is about speaking up for themselves, but that the ones often called such go out of their way to make the day worse for the employee, or random person put at a disadvantage socially. Like a customer using the mantra of the customer is always right to abuse someone that is just doing their job.

I do wonder if the likelihood of it being a woman has something to do with that girl power stand up for yourself when offended, but toxic in the way of looking for something to be upset about, and taking it out on someone else who doesn't deserve it. IsabellaLinton, it might be exactly the kind of toxic femineity that you were asking if it exists. It doesn't mean any case of standing up for themselves or those who might need it is bad, just that there are times that it can be taken too far.


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