See this is where the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater..I wholeheartedly agree with your description of those who might conflate the whole of masculinity with toxic behaviors, but you seem to be of the stance that common, historically and contemporarily practiced tents of masculinty haven't had a toxic and regressive effect on men and women alike, and I just can't agree with that. Im arguing for better, more earnest and introspective policing of the historical toxicities of common practiced masculinity, i think it foolhardy to think it's going along just fine with no need for checks.
Why So Many Men Are Triggered By The Term Toxic Masculinity?
- Thread starter JayPR
- Start date
You do realize the original concept of a Large Penis Support Group was done in a joking manner to highlight how unnecessary one would be, right?
hypolimnas
Superior Member
Hello petal, I have been here for some time before you (2006), with multiple academic qualifications in History, my interests extend to the history of this site, and I also have a nice fat cock. Oh also, I have big balls - all of which I regard as quite necessary. Thank you.
hypolimnas
Superior Member
I think you misunderstand my point of view. I agree with you - we can all do better as a species and the past is not a guide for the future. There is a better language to use to work towards that though. I am particularly enthusiastic about advocating for civil rights and fighting for equality regarding race, class and gender. I do not believe identity politics achieves anything, and only splits apart the unity required for genuine social change.
Except the "unity" always devolves into a predictable hierarchy running the show, with yet another predictable set of disenfranchised getting whatever scraps of agency and equality the aforementioned are willing to grant them. I also find identity politics distasteful, but I see them more of a symptom of ongoing problems rather than the problem itself.
It may be that some people misunderstand the term or it may simply be that some people use the term differently and this adds to the confusion.
I absolutely agree with you that being civilised rather than living as beasts is a result of education and so I cannot possibly agree with Jordan Peterson that parents resisting having their boys educated is the answer. I also agree with Camille Paglia that for those men who are a risk to the safety of women there has been a failure of that education. But as soon as you acknowledge that innate masculine behaviour needs to be directed by education to be constructive within our society and call the uneducated behaviour toxic it is easy to see how this could be seen by some as an attack on masculinity itself. In fact, as I think you said in one of your earlier posts, children of both sexes need to learn how to behave in a civilised society but women for whom that learning has failed are not accused of having toxic femininity.
So I think it is an unhelpful term and we should stick to talking about whether a certain behaviour is acceptable in our society or not and not be so concerned with the sex of the person displaying that behaviour.
It is also interesting to note that both Jordan Peterson and Camille Paglia are concerned that modern society is trying to educate the masculinity out of boys in pursuit of some imaginary utopia in everyone behaves like a woman. In Camille Paglia's case she has some concrete examples as why that would not be utopian and why at least some of the stereotypically male behaviour is required.
Personally, I think to suggest that the way things have been in the past has not held women back is ignore the obvious but that doesn't mean it is time for the pendulum to swing the other way. One classic example here is that girls have started to outperform boys on many school subjects. In the UK at least, this started when the system of assessment was switched from final examinations to continuous assessment. Some see the change as way of saying how much better girls are than boys and that the boys previous better results were just because the system was unfair to the girls. As far as I can see its a bit like having the 100m and 200m races as the only ones in the Olympics, then for the next Olympics switching to 5,000m and 10,000m and wondering why the top runners are a different group from last time.
So there are all kinds of things that affect how well people do in our society and I think we should be alive to things that disadvantage people who are otherwise able and who would contribute positively to organisations or society as a whole. At the same time we need to dispense with the silly notion that there are no cognitive differences between the sexes, that it is all social conditioning and that babies of either sex are equally capable of being conditioned into any behaviour. There is a good reason why engineering, including IT, is male dominated and the caring professions are female dominated and it's not just social attitudes.
We should encourage anyone to pursue the career they want and give support and encouragement for people who find they are in a minority but at the same time we should avoid silly targets and comparisons that are based on the assumption that everyone is the same or even that everyone being the same would be ideal.
hypolimnas
Superior Member
Oh I agree but I don't agree with giving up on the hope for change. Identity politics has the advantage of making people feel better and part of a tribe. But real change requires a unity and it is the only way to change the world - and we have to be determined, resolute and hopeful about that.
hypolimnas
Superior Member
N
Equality of opportunity is very important for excellence in any field. Agreed.
I never mentioned anything about hypermasculinity. Enjoying images of the male phallus, the main ostensible purpose of this site, has nothing at all to do with hypermasculinity. Why would you suggest it does?
Major unfairness can be corrected, but equality of opportunity is idealistic in the extreme. People are different in endless ways.
hypolimnas
Superior Member
Well I know that gay people, black people, working classes, and women have stood together in the past for civil rights and equality. Indeed many do today as well. Equality of opportunity is essential for excellence. Diversity is essential for creativity in business and every sphere of human activity. Understanding how opportunity, creativity and success are related is the business of all of us - including the expression of masculine traits of men. Risk taking, endurance, physical strength, competition, effective teamwork, leadership and sacrifice to give to the tribe/community.
No. Hypermasculinity is a psychological condition wherein the male rejects anything that could remotely be considered feminine or female.
Heres a couple of articles:
Shaping of Hypermasculinity and Its Influences on Sexual Behaviour: A Study of Youth in Slum Communities of Mumbai, India
Hypermasculinity is a Plague on the Modern Man
Hypermasculinity - Wikipedia
As you can see, while a large phallus may be an ideal of a man suffering from hypermasculinity disorder, it can also simply be an esthetic or functional preference. And frankly, I doubt whether a large majority of members here would want a large phallus attached to a psychologically scarred male. I'm sure there are some...
In essence, hypersexuality seems to be another term for toxic masculinity.
Are you confusing equality of opportunity with equality of representation?
If you were to survey the nurses at a hospital and found that 90% of them were women and only 10% were men does that mean that those who recruit nurses are biased against the men such that a suitably skilled male candidate has only 1/10 the chance of being selected compared to a suitably skilled woman? Almost certainly not. It more likely reflects that women made up the majority of the applicants.
Does that in turn mean nursing school was an unwelcome place for male trainees? Not necessarily, though it may have been. Or did more women apply to that than men?
Ultimately you have to admit that the reason women dominate that profession is because it uses skills that are more frequently seen in women as part of the way our brains our sexually dimorphic.
But in the same way that one can say that on average men are taller than women, we all know some tall women and some short men. So when a man says he wants to be a nurse or a woman says she wants to be an engineer we should take that seriously and encourage it. We should even go as far as trying to make those people welcome in the institutions that train them for those professions, accepting that being in a minority can be awkward. But we shouldn't look at the numbers within any particular profession, see that there isn't 50:50 representation of the sexes and assume something is wrong.
As in many things the extreme points of view are problematic. To suggest that all humans are born the same and could be equally capable of doing all jobs, and that thus the proportions of people in each line of work should match the proportions in the populace, if only we pushed them the right way in childhood, is a silly fantasy. But equally to judge people's competence based on characteristics that only apply to people of their sex in general, rather than to the specific person being considered is also wrong.
He was triggered by a simple question from me, too. Taken with some of his other responses, I'm gonna hazard a guess that this topic touches him deeply.
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Evil toxic men don't appreciate feminist art berating them. Sexists!
Totally predictable. Wait until the James Bond franchise (will they change the franchise name as well?) switches to a female lead. Destined for failure. And it will be men’s fault. After all, we refuse to support the new direction.
You do know that a woman erroneously blaming men for her movie's failure has nothing to do with toxic masculinity, right? Her ridiculous claim does not suddenly make toxic masculinity right, nor does it make it go away. Its still a thing.
The point is that it’s rather de riguer at the moment to point where the blame comes from.
hypolimnas
Superior Member
Not especially, it is really just that uninfomed posts are easy to challenge. There is always something compelling about an impending train wreck. I'm personally excited to anticipate what google searches and wikipedia entries will be the next inspiration for extraordinary leaps of logic across the grand canyons of ignorance.
She's smearing men when we don't deserve it.
That's the same problem as using the term "toxic masculinity" against us, men have to be brought down so that femininity can ascend in their minds.
Women have the same freedom to create opportunities where they can surpass anything that men can achieve, we all know this, the defamers are actually conveying the inaccurate message that women are weak and less capable than men.
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