By Cristina Cabrera-Ayers (they/them)

CW: discussions of toxic masculinity, VAW, sexual assault, mental health and suicide, gendered behaviours

There is a lot of talk these days about toxic masculinity. It is one of those terms that gets thrown around so much it can start being difficult to figure out what people mean when they use it. Are they referring to a behaviour that actually reinforces traditional gender norms, transphobia, and all the other fun things that are inherent to patriarchy? Or are they using the wrong word to complain about a behaviour they just don’t like? Criticisms of toxic masculinity can feel overwhelming too; it seems like almost everything men and boys do can in some way be tied back to gendered imbalance of the power endemic in our society.

How do you even begin to approach what can feel like a blanket criticism of such a big part of your identity? How do you separate what is toxic from what is a fine, normal form of masculinity? How do you identify these strains of toxicity when they are coming from people you trust and look up to; your parents, family, teachers, friends?

The first thing to do is recognise that toxic masculinity really is just that: toxic. The behaviours it teaches are all underpinned by this idea that men (and only cisgender men) are the most powerful in any situation, and must maintain that power by being dominant, controlling and possessive of what (and who) is theirs. Furthermore, if men ever break away from the very narrowly prescribed gender role, say, by being non-heterosexual or choosing to dress in a way, or even crying, he has failed at masculinity. Instead of, you know, experiencing a normal human emotion, or having a sexuality over which he has no control, or just wanting to wear clothes whose cultural significances are fluid and constantly in flux anyway.

Throughout this article, you will see a collection of memes and the odd, old-fashioned bumper sticker, lovingly harvested from the internet to demonstrate the harmful sorts of sentiments that get passed around when attempting to reinforce traditional gender roles.

How did we get to this point, anyway?

A lot of the problems that the term ‘toxic masculinity’ describes can be traced back to the underlying assumption that gender and sex are the same thing, and have certain characteristics that can never be changed. These ideas are ancient. In the Western world, they go back as far as Plato, who came up with a theory of ‘essentialism’, which says everything in the universe has an essence, and all the versions of a given object that we see are trying to emulate that original, perfect essence. In this case, Plato’s argument has been applied to the sex-gender dichotomy to equate them. Also, to argue that there is no possible way for one to separate them, nor change them - particularly to change one’s physical, gonadal sex (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). In a world where transgender people and others who don’t experience their assigned gender existing, you’ve either got to toss this theory out the window, or assume that every single non-cis person in the world is lying or delusional.

So if sex is incidental to what a person’s gender is, what implication does that have for gender?

Basically, it means that gender is a construct. The reason we have it at all is, to quote an academic published in 2014, as an “organisational tool” (p2, Schilt & Westbrook, 2014). Let’s take a very basic example of traditional gender-organisation from the Western world: in the family unit, women stay at home to raise the children and keep the house, while men act as the breadwinners to support the family. By dividing labour like that, the future of society is secured by ensuring there are future generations who will be brought up by the Stay-at-Home-Mum to fulfill the same roles, while Dad works the jobs and keeps the economy ticking over. This system doesn’t take into account what an individual wants from life, but ensures there is always pressure to conform to these roles by making them the cultural norms. Suddenly, if you want anything different to the life-roles set out by society, according to what your assigned gender is, you are making a political statement - and this is how we have ended up treating the existence of transgender and non-binary identities as though they are contingent upon having a certain political belief system.

In the same way, the breaking-up of traditional gender roles is a political statement, when really, it should be something we are all invested in doing because it does harm to everybody, or every gender.

What is toxic?

Toxic is something that causes harm. And the harm itself, can be turned out, external, toward the world and other people. The ways that toxic masculinity harm men and women are very different from one another.

A lot of the time, we hear about types of harm directed at women and AFAB people, as men are positioned by traditional gender roles to be dominant over women. This leads into other toxic ideas; for example, that women are naturally ‘weaker’ in all things and must rely upon a man to defend, provide for them, and ultimately protect them from the outside world. As a result, women and AFABs are pressured to stay in roles subjugated to men in private and public. At a societal level, this looks like having fewer female politicians, less women in STEM, or in work that requires a lot of physical labour or leadership. And women who do hold those positions are scrutinised much harder than their male colleagues. In the Australian context, we have Julia Gillard’s stint as Prime Minister as an example of how much harder women are policed in roles that men traditionally have had.

One frequent manifestation of toxic masculinity is the relentless sexualising of women, girls and AFABs, which also positions them as ‘objects’ to be desired and pursued, rather than people who, you know, can give consent or refuse advances. This is one of the underpinning ideas of rape culture; if a woman is ultimately there as an object for masculine domination and pleasure, then why even consider whether she is a willing participant or not?

The feeling of entitlement to women’s attention, bodies, and sexuality is taught to men from an early age, and harms both transgender and cisgender women, as well as people who are not necessarily women, but present feminine or have bodies that are constructed as female. Again, this is the type of harm we hear about most often: cases of harassment and assault like those at the center of the #MeToo movement.

But let’s not forget that toxic masculinity targets men and boys as well. With gender roles having cast men into the position of protector, leader, dominant over women, it leaves very little wiggle room. Men are not supposed to show emotions, aside from ones that can be associated with ‘power’, like anger, because emotions are a sign of weakness. This relates to mental health problems as well; men are far less likely to seek help for depression, anxiety, and other life-limiting conditions, and as a result, have a much higher suicide rate than women. This relates to non-mental health problems as well. Men are far less likely to seek out preventative care for health issues, and report higher rates of social isolation and substance abuse issues.

To keep things simple and succinct, below is an example of a tox-masc myth and how it might manifest as an expectation of male behaviour.

Where do I start?

An important thing to remember: dismantling toxic masculinity shouldn’t be an attack on masculinity entirely. The ‘work’ of undoing your own toxic masculinity and the issues associated with it can be difficult to engage with, because men and women’s issues have been posed as though they are antagonistic to each other. As though you can’t oppose toxic masculinity and the behaviours it encourages without trash-talking men. And you’re going to see a lot of that in feminist spaces, most often in the form of mocking or other humour-based, venting behaviour. Surviving as the primary target of male sexual aggression and domination is difficult and using humour is a common survival strategy, so have patience with that, and don’t engage with venting behaviour as though they are serious arguments.

You also don’t necessarily have to position yourself as a ‘men’s rights activist’, because most of the time when you’re discussing issues that men have, you’re really talking about an intersectional issue. For example, the way that male survivors of domestic abuse are often ignored or ridiculed for being victimised, especially if the abuser was a woman. Speaking up about the need to acknowledge men’s vulnerability to abuse is not necessarily a men’s issue strictly, but relates to broader sexist ideas; in this case, the idea that a woman could never exercise coercive and/or violent power over the ‘stronger’ gender. If you want to talk about the disproportionate imprisonment of young men of colour, that’s not a men’s issue so much as it is an issue with systemic, structural racism.

Once again, we are at that point where the tox masc starts to feel like a monster with too many heads. How do you approach a problem with this many faces?

To start with, education! Educate yourself by listening to people who have already been talking about this and working on solutions to dismantle the tox masc within their own lives. Include female, male, and gender diverse voices in what you consume, and listen to their reasons for criticising what they target. If your immediate thought when hearing a criticism is “that isn’t right”, then make your second thought questioning why that was your reaction. Where did that training come from? Where else have you been having these messages confirmed? What kind of harm would this behaviour do to someone who doesn’t have the privileges associated with being a cis-man, even if it seems trivial to you?

When you hear tox masc ideas in your own life, if it’s safe to do so, go ahead and challenge it. Especially from your male friends, and especially if it makes you feel uncomfortable to do so. Even though it’s annoying to have to stay polite and respectful, do that too, if you can.

At the end of the day, the fight against tox masc is one that everyone should be involved in because everyone stands to benefit from it being dismantled. These conversations are not always going to be positive or constructive.

You aren’t always going to change someone’s mind or behaviour, but you might get them thinking and lay the ground-work so that the next person to call them out on tox masc can change their mind.

Bibliography

Chaplin, T. M., & Aldao, A. (2013). Gender differences in emotion expression in children: a meta-analytic review. Psychological bulletin, 139(4), 735–765. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030737

Crockett, E. (2016). There's a better way to talk about men's rights activism — and it's on Reddit. Vox.com. Retrieved 13 October 2021, from https://www.vox.com/2016/9/21/12906510/mens-lib-reddit-mens-rights-activism-pro-feminist.

Friedman, J. (2013). Toxic Masculinity. The American Prospect. Retrieved 13 October 2021, from https://prospect.org/power/toxic-masculinity/.

Mayer, D. (2018). How Men Get Penalized for Straying from Masculine Norms. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 13 October 2021, from https://hbr.org/2018/10/how-men-get-penalized-for-straying-from-masculine-norms.

Mikkola, Mari, "Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/feminism-gender.

Pappas, S. (2019). APA issues first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys. apa.org. Retrieved 13 October 2021, from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner.

Shah, K., McCormack, C. E., & Bradbury, N. A. (2014). Do you know the sex of your cells?. American journal of physiology. Cell physiology, 306(1), C3–C18. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpcell.00281.2013