I’m wondering how old this is because it has some fantastic points but is missing some big ones that are a part of modern feminist discourse and some of its points are lacking some nuance that’s become more common in the current discourse.
That said for the most part it’s very good and is likely to hit on several things that in my experience many men don’t really think about. The bits about having to ask yourself if something was misogyny really hits hard. And I think a reasonable summary of several of these points is that men are treated as the default kind of person
ETA: the nuance here that I think was really missing is that as time has gone on we’ve gotten more acknowledgement of male victims of sexual and domestic violence and the ways in which toxic masculinity uses threats of emasculation to push men into a specific role. This is all bad and the ways in which toxic masculinity hurts men are real things. But it too privileges a theoretical maleness and the punishment it presents to failure is accusations of womanhood or femininity (alongside genuine physical or economic violence). The degendering that women are threatened with is rarely accusations of manhood, but more often accusations of not even being a woman.
And to clarify toxic masculinity is not the claim that masculinity is toxic but that there is a set of expectations placed on men by each other and by women that pushes them into a rigid role devoid of gentleness and emotional honesty. In that role they are granted agency and power as the trade off. It is a role that often would rather they hurt others for their own pleasure than to display vulnerability. And that role comes with varying degrees of manifestation. It can be calls for young boys to not cry but it can also be things like frat bro rape culture. In the end it hurts everyone.
I’m wondering how old this is because it has some fantastic points but is missing some big ones that are a part of modern feminist discourse and some of its points are lacking some nuance that’s become more common in the current discourse.
That said for the most part it’s very good and is likely to hit on several things that in my experience many men don’t really think about. The bits about having to ask yourself if something was misogyny really hits hard. And I think a reasonable summary of several of these points is that men are treated as the default kind of person
ETA: the nuance here that I think was really missing is that as time has gone on we’ve gotten more acknowledgement of male victims of sexual and domestic violence and the ways in which toxic masculinity uses threats of emasculation to push men into a specific role. This is all bad and the ways in which toxic masculinity hurts men are real things. But it too privileges a theoretical maleness and the punishment it presents to failure is accusations of womanhood or femininity (alongside genuine physical or economic violence). The degendering that women are threatened with is rarely accusations of manhood, but more often accusations of not even being a woman.
And to clarify toxic masculinity is not the claim that masculinity is toxic but that there is a set of expectations placed on men by each other and by women that pushes them into a rigid role devoid of gentleness and emotional honesty. In that role they are granted agency and power as the trade off. It is a role that often would rather they hurt others for their own pleasure than to display vulnerability. And that role comes with varying degrees of manifestation. It can be calls for young boys to not cry but it can also be things like frat bro rape culture. In the end it hurts everyone.