As I psychologist, I’m concerned about mental health, especially the mental health of men and boys because it’s been overlooked for so long. Because there was so little interest in how much the negative discourse around masculinity impacts boys, my colleagues and I ran a survey. We found that around 85% of respondents thought the term ‘toxic masculinity’ is insulting, and probably harmful to boys.
My latest research has just been published. It assessed the views of over 4000 men in the UK and Germany, and found that thinking masculinity is bad for your behaviour is linked to having worse mental wellbeing. [… And] positive views of masculinity are linked to better mental wellbeing.
This is why we oppose the usage of the term toxic masculinity and any negative generalizations of men as a gender.
The reason toxic masculinity is favoured as a term is to avoid acknowledging misandry.
Feminists commonly used to that discrimination against men is actually due to misogyny. For example, men are afraid to cry because it’s seen as feminine. So since they believe men’s issues root from misogyny, toxic masculinity is the perfect term for them.
This is problematic since some issues such as male suicide are thought to be due to toxic masculinity. Whereas real world data shows that men aren’t afraid to seek help, therapy is both difficult to access (in the UK) and isn’t really geared towards dealing with men.
“The startling statistic from the research showed that of those men who had taken their own lives and had actually sought help and were assessed for suicidal risk in 2017, 80% had been assessed by clinicians as having low or no risk of suicide; this is troubling and an issue that must be addressed. These men are talking but who was listening? This lack of understanding of male suicidality (stressors, transversal issues and life transitions) is key, especially when presented in indirect ways.”
https://equi-law.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/APPG-MB-Male-Suicide-Report-9-22.pdf
The verbage of the term toxic masculinity has absolutely nothing to do with avoiding misandry, nor does it have anything to do with the male suicide rate. That said the realities of toxic masculinity do absolutely contribute to male suicide. Toxic masculinity is not primarily a men-on-women issue, it is a men’s interpersonal issue and it is probably most salient for men in intergenerational relations (think of your dads). Toxic masculinity has also been extremely present in norm policing in adolescents. Think about kids too young to know any better picking on each other for girlish behavior. Male suicide is absolutely a critically underserviced issue but very little of it has to do with misandry.
Read the room, and the article. You’re trying to normalize the use of a toxic term. That is not acceptable here.
Thats actually pretty interesting. I was under the assumption that all men are like my father. But considering the amount of help any person needs from others, it makes more sense that it’s more diverse that “toxic masculinity”.
Why does it seem to me that feminists try to pick examples and situations that support their agenda?
Did we not have feminists who were terrorists in the 1970s?
My theory on the reason they pick examples that supports their agenda is because it’s all a zero sum game to them. Claiming that fighting toxic masculinity will solve men’s issues, requires little to no funding. They fear that funding of actual men’s mental health or abuse services will reduce funding for women’s organisations. The owners and CEO’s of women’s organisations rely on government funding to fill their pockets which is why Women’s Aid tried protesting against funding men’s services around 2-3 years ago.
