Lately I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about toxic masculinity and its destructive effects on individual men, and by extrapolation on society in general.
But what is it?
Ask that question in a crowded room and it’s likely the answers would swing from one end of the spectrum to another while sticking to a central theme that something is definitely wrong with males and male culture — but here’s an interesting offering from somebody named Tyler Zimmer, writing in Slate:
“This is the double standard at the heart of masculinity: Men are taught to regularly say and do things to women that they would never say or do to other men, that they would never want men to say or do to them. That is not due to some timeless ‘male libido’ driving their behavior. It’s because masculinity is founded on the myth that men alone are rights-bearing persons and women are subordinate, passive, second-class beings who either need the protection of or deserve to be subjected to men.”
Here Zimmer assumes an odd willingness and unearned authority to speak on behalf of all men, which may stray a tad bit onto the presumptuous side. More importantly, I think what he’s actually talking about is a thing called bad manners, which isn’t exactly a new discovery, and I’m not sure that any of it has anything intrinsically to do with masculinity.
And also, he’s just dead wrong. He’s not only wildly exaggerating the contemporary state of masculinity – which is admittedly in weird shape – but he’s also ignorant or assuming facts not necessarily in evidence when he wanders into foundational myths of manhood.
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