What Is Toxic Masculinity?
 | Bateworld Member |
| Posted on: | January 28, 2021 |
| Categorized: | Featured Articles |
Greetings my brother bators,
This will be the first in a series of articles discussing the issues of toxic masculinity and how it impacts our bator community. It is my goal with these articles to explore a topic that affects all men in one way or another.
All of us have grown up in societies where we have had other people – our families and friends, members of our communities, or voices of authority at school, work, or in government – that have tried to shape us and dictate to us ideas and ideals of what “manhood” is supposed to be. While often these voices can mean well and have positive values associated with ideas of masculinity, there are things that we are taught that do more harm than good.
As men trying to live the best lives we can, we need to take time and make ourselves aware of these traits and of the harm they do, firstly, to ourselves, and to those around us.
So, WTF is Toxic Masculinity then?
The term “Toxic masculinity” is used to designate a set of toxic traits that are held up as being both the ideals of and criteria for an individual’s masculinity. These traits can include hyper-aggression, hyper-sexualization, emotional repression, hyper-competitiveness, self neglect, and a culture of bullying and shaming of other men who are perceived as being not the right kind of masculine.
This term comes from the field of gender studies and is taken from the parallel notion of toxic femininity. It is based on the idea that genders are culturally constructed by a group and then performed in different ways by group members. Gender is different from sex in that ‘gender’ is a changing set of ideas held by a group and ‘sex’ is determined by our genetics in regard to the primary and secondary sexual characteristics of our bodies – your gender is what is learned, your sex is what you grow.
Now before we get started I would like to talk about who I mean when I say “men”. Here I am talking about anyone who recognizes themselves as male, be they cis or trans, of any age, race, orientation, or body. All who identify as men are affected by toxic masculinity in some way: straight men being ranked on how much sex to have, trans-men being excluded from manhood because of their bodies, queer men being told how butch or fem they need to appear, or BIPOC men being subject to racist and colonial perceptions of their bodies and their relationships to white men. Oh yea, we are going there. The forms of toxic masculinity that many of us experience here in North America are deeply rooted in our colonial capitalist systems that either implicitly or explicitly benefit from enforcing these ideas.
This topic is something deeply personal to me as I continue to learn and unlearn years of encoded behaviours and mental habits that hold me back from living my fullest life. I am a gay/cis/white/man and I have had many of the privileges that upbringing can provide, so I will not pretend to know the challenges faced by all men, but I hope to come to understand them by listening and sharing their stories. I believe that many of the things that hold me back are the same things that are holding other men back, holding them back from developing that deep rooted love of self that is the basis for a truly positive life.
“…If we want to change that we need to learn to recognize what it looks like in ourselves.”
These things are the toxic suite of negative habits, faulty ideas, and maladaptive social practices that have been embedded in our cultures’ ideas of the ‘masculine.’ And if we want to change that we need to learn to recognize what it looks like in ourselves. These articles will aim to shed some light on how these toxic masculinities impact men’s lives as well as trying to talk about ways that we as men and as bators can overcome these hurdles.
Till next time brothers,
Next Month; What Does Toxic Masculinity Look Like?
Written by Bateworld Member SatyrBatorBro
Twitter: @Dextergrey8
Further reading:
What We Mean When We Say, “Toxic Masculinity” – Teaching Tolerance
The Difference Between Toxic Masculinity And Being A Man – The Good Men Project
The Problem With a Fight Against Toxic Masculinity – The Atlantic
Greetings my brother bators,
This will be the first in a series of articles discussing the issues of toxic masculinity and how it impacts our bator community. It is my goal with these articles to explore a topic that affects all men in one way or another.
All of us have grown up in societies where we have had other people – our families and friends, members of our communities, or voices of authority at school, work, or in government – that have tried to shape us and dictate to us ideas and ideals of what “manhood” is supposed to be. While often these voices can mean well and have positive values associated with ideas of masculinity, there are things that we are taught that do more harm than good.
As men trying to live the best lives we can, we need to take time and make ourselves aware of these traits and of the harm they do, firstly, to ourselves, and to those around us.
So, WTF is Toxic Masculinity then?
The term “Toxic masculinity” is used to designate a set of toxic traits that are held up as being both the ideals of and criteria for an individual’s masculinity. These traits can include hyper-aggression, hyper-sexualization, emotional repression, hyper-competitiveness, self neglect, and a culture of bullying and shaming of other men who are perceived as being not the right kind of masculine.
This term comes from the field of gender studies and is taken from the parallel notion of toxic femininity. It is based on the idea that genders are culturally constructed by a group and then performed in different ways by group members. Gender is different from sex in that ‘gender’ is a changing set of ideas held by a group and ‘sex’ is determined by our genetics in regard to the primary and secondary sexual characteristics of our bodies – your gender is what is learned, your sex is what you grow.
Now before we get started I would like to talk about who I mean when I say “men”. Here I am talking about anyone who recognizes themselves as male, be they cis or trans, of any age, race, orientation, or body. All who identify as men are affected by toxic masculinity in some way: straight men being ranked on how much sex to have, trans-men being excluded from manhood because of their bodies, queer men being told how butch or fem they need to appear, or BIPOC men being subject to racist and colonial perceptions of their bodies and their relationships to white men. Oh yea, we are going there. The forms of toxic masculinity that many of us experience here in North America are deeply rooted in our colonial capitalist systems that either implicitly or explicitly benefit from enforcing these ideas.
This topic is something deeply personal to me as I continue to learn and unlearn years of encoded behaviours and mental habits that hold me back from living my fullest life. I am a gay/cis/white/man and I have had many of the privileges that upbringing can provide, so I will not pretend to know the challenges faced by all men, but I hope to come to understand them by listening and sharing their stories. I believe that many of the things that hold me back are the same things that are holding other men back, holding them back from developing that deep rooted love of self that is the basis for a truly positive life.
“…If we want to change that we need to learn to recognize what it looks like in ourselves.”
These things are the toxic suite of negative habits, faulty ideas, and maladaptive social practices that have been embedded in our cultures’ ideas of the ‘masculine.’ And if we want to change that we need to learn to recognize what it looks like in ourselves. These articles will aim to shed some light on how these toxic masculinities impact men’s lives as well as trying to talk about ways that we as men and as bators can overcome these hurdles.
Till next time brothers,
Next Month; What Does Toxic Masculinity Look Like?
Written by Bateworld Member SatyrBatorBro
Twitter: @Dextergrey8
Further reading:
What We Mean When We Say, “Toxic Masculinity” – Teaching Tolerance
The Difference Between Toxic Masculinity And Being A Man – The Good Men Project
The Problem With a Fight Against Toxic Masculinity – The Atlantic
2 Responses to “What Is Toxic Masculinity?”
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Growing up in rural Australia, I have very specific memories of noticing and learning the rules of how to be masculine. To be other would be to put yourself in danger. So gender has always intrinsically felt constructed to me, with specific value given by entry into the ‘boys’ club – that tribal way of being that is comfortable and safe for straight white men to bond with each other, and excluding and judging those who don’t fit it. Learning and adopting the mannerisms, attitudes and culture made me feel superficially safe from their judgement/violence, but that in turn made me more fearful of being found out – and, inside, made me feel like a fraud. I know that rural Australia is particularly backward in this, but that culture exists in every corner of the world – therefore seems like an intrinsic part of dominant straight culture for mankind. The evolutionary reason for its existence is perhaps to create an aggressive stoicism and brutality, to protect the tribe. Whatever its origin, it’s outlived its usefulness, and is something to notice and try to root out of our species.
If masculinity is toxic then femininity is opportunistic and trans is trick you all love attacking men to brag about women in heterosexual society! you don’t fool me !