Why So Many Men Are Triggered By The Term Toxic Masculinity?
- Thread starter JayPR
- Start date
It looks like the original question has been indirectly answered quite well throughout the discussion: conflating "toxic masculinity" with "masculinity" in general.
I think an important point is that while there are some people who are honestly mistaken about this, there are many who are deliberately mischaracterising the term for cynical/propagandistic purposes. The MRA/alt-right types regularly play that game, effectively transforming meaningful, well defined terms (usually with academic origins) into hot button phrases, or trigger words, with the dual purpose of robbing them of their original meaning and utility and further sowing division.
I think an important point is that while there are some people who are honestly mistaken about this, there are many who are deliberately mischaracterising the term for cynical/propagandistic purposes. The MRA/alt-right types regularly play that game, effectively transforming meaningful, well defined terms (usually with academic origins) into hot button phrases, or trigger words, with the dual purpose of robbing them of their original meaning and utility and further sowing division.
- Joined
- May 31, 2018
- Posts
- 3,662
- Media
- 45
- Likes
- 13,170
- Points
- 433
- Location
- Los Angeles, California, US
- Verification
- View
- Sexuality
- 69% Straight, 31% Gay
- Gender
- Male
I'm of the crowd that the terms "triggered", "slams or slammed", or "destroyed" are the terms coined by the alt-right. And now it's sadly spreading to the masses. I move right past a headline on the net that uses these terms.
Some guys are just dicks or assholes. (Pardon my French).
Deep down it's a probably a fear of not being 'man enough'.
There are differences in how the male brain works though, compared to the female brain. And society sometimes still has different expectations of us. Nothing is set in stone or black and white.
When you list
It's not that repression of emotions and feelings is a good thing, but what works for me is turning emotions and feelings into action. Like most males just showing feelings and emotions is something that by itself just doesn't do it for me.
And joking a bit roughly as long as everyone's aware it IS a joke and all in good fun should still be ok.
In the end it's about intent and respect I guess. Or it should be.
While still having fun and being able to be lads.
Deep down it's a probably a fear of not being 'man enough'.
There are differences in how the male brain works though, compared to the female brain. And society sometimes still has different expectations of us. Nothing is set in stone or black and white.
When you list
as part of 'toxic masculinity' I do feel triggered by this myself.
It's not that repression of emotions and feelings is a good thing, but what works for me is turning emotions and feelings into action. Like most males just showing feelings and emotions is something that by itself just doesn't do it for me.
And joking a bit roughly as long as everyone's aware it IS a joke and all in good fun should still be ok.
In the end it's about intent and respect I guess. Or it should be.
While still having fun and being able to be lads.
You do realise that "alt-right" is also a smear label aimed at centrists, moderate liberals who suffer from wrong think, the working class and basically everyone else who doesn't support extreme leftist ideals?
Everyone who isn't a neo nazi or a communist is part of the "alt-right", therefore the majority of people in the west.
That's why leftist smear tactics no longer work outside their shrinking echo chambers.
Seems to be that repression of the outer signs of fear is necessary in confronting enemies, bullies, etc.
When fearful of dangerous people, feeling a bit more resolved and confident might do the trick a bit better than just 'not show fear'.
"Centrists" Lol, good try.
The term "alt-right" was coined by Richard Spencer back when he was trying to rebrand the far right as an intellectual movement. Well spoken guys in sharp suits, not raging skinheads waving swastikas. But eventually the mask slipped, much earlier than he would have liked, around the time of the 2016 election falling away completely at the 'Unite the Right' rally.
What a shame... lol
Exactly, it is a smear used by the extreme left to associate everyone who rejects extreme leftist views with the far-right.
Only those of us who live outside the leftist belief bubble can see how it is being used objectively and how ridiculous it can be when those people who question left-wing authoritarian tactics (and clearly have nothing to do with the far-right) are labelled alt-right.
It has reached the point where the label can't be taken seriously as something negative any more.
When you begin a sentence with the word "exactly", it's customary in the English language not to follow it by blindly asserting the opposite of whatever it is you're responding to.
Keep practicing. You'll get there!
Because it requires explanation for someone to know that it's not targetting all masculinity. Also the lack of toxic feminity as a term just makes this term feels extremely sexist towards the guys. Toxic behaviour is toxic behaviour, don't bring masculinity into it because I still think masculinity is a very positive term, as well as feminity.
I was really referring to empathy here, i.e. an aspect of brain dimorphism rather than bodily strength. The other thing I didn't make clear is that selection for higher empathy in becoming a nurse is mostly self selection, i.e. women are drawn to the caring professions generally because it gives them to express a part of themselves.
I think it is hard to understand why women would be drawn to nursing if you approach it from the angle of what status the profession commands and therefore consider that it a case of women doing the jobs that men don't want.
There is to my mind no doubt that women are, in many cases, collecting the scraps allowed to them by men when it comes to how much they are paid both within some professions and also between professions and that is an area of equality yet to be addressed, but there is more to selection of a line of work than reward and status.
As an example, I now work in IT having started out training to be an electronics engineer. Whilst I am pleased that is reasonably well paid my prime motivation was that it was something that interested me. There is a sense in which it is not work if you enjoy what you do. Had I been more interested in money alone I might have studied to be a lawyer. No offence to anyone here who is a lawyer but it was something that didn't interest me when I was at school.
It is certainly the case that parents, schools etc. place expectations on children and that, along with privilege, will be why one person sets out to be a lawyer and another is not bothered that they stack shelves in a supermarket. When it comes to guiding girls and boys into different jobs, though, it seems to me there is more than that at work. I have three daughters and it is interesting to note that one of the three is less "girly" than the other two despite having the same parents, having attended the same school etc. There have also been experiments to show that baby girls gaze longer on faces than their baby boy peers while the boys are more fascinated by a mobile, and that children too young to have been conditioned by pre-selected toys nevertheless select their own toys much along the lines of what we would give them anyway. It seems to me that female tendency for greater empathy and the male tendency for how things work and are constructed is innate. We then reinforce it.
Id be interested to see if such studies about boy/girl tendencies take into account literally all of the influences that could inspire said behaviors, as subtle as the way we talk to fetuses in utero, or even the colors and patterns we wrap our newborns in. Plus I think when we take such generalities as empathy vs how things work, we neglect to consider things across the broad spectrum of behaviors; in that I think there are some ways in which men are more empathetic, and other categories in which women display the most interest in how things work or are constructed...
Lets also not forget the values that get imparted along with said employment indoctrinations; keep in mind many men aren't getting into more strenuous and harder working jobs because they want to or are drawn to them, but simply because they are motivated to earn as much income as possible because they are expected to be the primary provider of the family. Many women may gravitate to these lower paying jobs not necessarily because of some innate empathetic advantage, but because they aren't expected to grow up and provide/protect for another adult.
spaj8987
Legendary Member
I think it's because we men in general are spoiled. That we men on average are more emotional than women. That of course doesn't account for all men everywhere. And most certainly doesn't include all men throughout history. With that said we men have been the main focus for humanity for ages. Which is kind of difficult not to fall into because many of the systems we have in place, be it social systems, financial systems, religious or governmental all cater directly to us a good 9 out of ten times. Worldwide.
Religion in general was created by insanely overly emotional men. Men who were so insecure in their own abilities, physical nature and so on that they specifically wrote man cards into the fabric of religion so women weren't considered anywhere near as equals.
Same goes for government. For hundreds of years women had to fight just to vote the same as men. And that's not even mentioning body rights.
The medical community was no better.
Even now having women in positions of power flat out scares a good amount of men so much that they are willing to sacrifice their own well being just to keep said women from gaining more.
Strangely enough it even cross sexuality borders. Gay and bisexual men also somehow fall into the same ways of thinking.
The effect of all that is men become more emotional than women and most of all the stereotypes of women. There have been countless very very bad movies with male leads. Where said male lead magically doesn't die in a hail of bullets, can summon power that others in the movie had to work for without inconvenience of any kind and save the day in ways that literally laugh in the face of gravity. I would even go so far as to say hundreds of those kinds of movies have been made and enjoyed.
The second a woman is in that role though all of a sudden youtube explodes with videos about how it's some sort of feminist agenda, female agenda to take men's rights away, libtards, political correctness, sjws and virtue signaling. When again, that same format has been used in hollywood since the beginning.
We are spoiled. Very, very spoiled. Name a position of power and there's not only a guy in it but many. We do not want for good or bad role models. In fact we have an over abundance of them in every last category known to mankind. And unfair abundance at that. Because the second a woman takes over a fraction of a fraction's fraction of those roles a large portion of men can't handle it.
So when it comes to masculinity and toxic masculinity it's like trying to pry a diseased puppy out of the hands of a very spoiled child. The quote "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppress" comes to mind and can be applied to this topic.
Other than people confusing masculinity for toxic masculinity there's also the fear of losing both. And not knowing how to be. For a lot of people masculinity and femininity are central to their identity. Which is ironic considering most people agree they don't like identity politics. When we all not only do it but have always done it and always will. Boiling that down it becomes a fear of change. Of having to start over from scratch. The unknown. The void.
Put them all together and you have the fear of losing what is in abundance because change scares us men more than it does women.
Sure, there's a massive amount of ignorance having to do with all that but ignorance without insecurity becomes curiosity. When you're ok with not having already known and it isn't tied directly to your ego an there for emotions the reaction is to find out. To be ok with change enough to not react irrationally. Men being spoiled towards thinking we always have the correct answers erodes those abilities before we even know they exist. Leading us to come out the gate not only unprepared but more emotional than women who right from the start have to face all those questions in one way shape form or another. Either knowingly or not.
Religion in general was created by insanely overly emotional men. Men who were so insecure in their own abilities, physical nature and so on that they specifically wrote man cards into the fabric of religion so women weren't considered anywhere near as equals.
Same goes for government. For hundreds of years women had to fight just to vote the same as men. And that's not even mentioning body rights.
The medical community was no better.
Even now having women in positions of power flat out scares a good amount of men so much that they are willing to sacrifice their own well being just to keep said women from gaining more.
Strangely enough it even cross sexuality borders. Gay and bisexual men also somehow fall into the same ways of thinking.
The effect of all that is men become more emotional than women and most of all the stereotypes of women. There have been countless very very bad movies with male leads. Where said male lead magically doesn't die in a hail of bullets, can summon power that others in the movie had to work for without inconvenience of any kind and save the day in ways that literally laugh in the face of gravity. I would even go so far as to say hundreds of those kinds of movies have been made and enjoyed.
The second a woman is in that role though all of a sudden youtube explodes with videos about how it's some sort of feminist agenda, female agenda to take men's rights away, libtards, political correctness, sjws and virtue signaling. When again, that same format has been used in hollywood since the beginning.
We are spoiled. Very, very spoiled. Name a position of power and there's not only a guy in it but many. We do not want for good or bad role models. In fact we have an over abundance of them in every last category known to mankind. And unfair abundance at that. Because the second a woman takes over a fraction of a fraction's fraction of those roles a large portion of men can't handle it.
So when it comes to masculinity and toxic masculinity it's like trying to pry a diseased puppy out of the hands of a very spoiled child. The quote "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppress" comes to mind and can be applied to this topic.
Other than people confusing masculinity for toxic masculinity there's also the fear of losing both. And not knowing how to be. For a lot of people masculinity and femininity are central to their identity. Which is ironic considering most people agree they don't like identity politics. When we all not only do it but have always done it and always will. Boiling that down it becomes a fear of change. Of having to start over from scratch. The unknown. The void.
Put them all together and you have the fear of losing what is in abundance because change scares us men more than it does women.
Sure, there's a massive amount of ignorance having to do with all that but ignorance without insecurity becomes curiosity. When you're ok with not having already known and it isn't tied directly to your ego an there for emotions the reaction is to find out. To be ok with change enough to not react irrationally. Men being spoiled towards thinking we always have the correct answers erodes those abilities before we even know they exist. Leading us to come out the gate not only unprepared but more emotional than women who right from the start have to face all those questions in one way shape form or another. Either knowingly or not.
If I may be so bold, I love repressing my feelings and show aggressiveness. The simple thought of expressing emotions makes me uncomfortable. Every single time people tell me to open up it always comes down to "It's ok to cry" or "don't be so angry"; however, I like to believe that this "positive vibes only" or "happy go lucky" act is damning as well. Some Men simply don't want to open up, some Women don't want to smile. I always get told, by people who only know me for 5 minutes, that I'm trapped in toxic masculinity. On the other hand I never had any problems with women who know me for years. This might sound all over the place, but, oh well.
Similar threads
