The societal shift away from toxic masculinity doesn’t mean that you have to trade in your Man Card for membership in the Milquetoast Club.
Society is fuming mad these days over men who exhibit the unflattering characteristic known as toxic masculinity.
It’s a term that some believe defines “manliness” as stoicism and strength; someone who gets up in the morning and pisses vigor and is the dominant force of his respective tribe. Others would assert that what makes a man toxic isn’t that deep. The toxic masculine male is just a raging asshole. These bastards don’t cry, they don’t like gay folks and don’t want their women doing anything that doesn’t include standing in the kitchen making them a goddamn sandwich. The men who fall into this category oftentimes have a reputation for being violent and domineering. They don’t mince words when it comes to who’s the biggest swinging dick in the room, and they’ll bounce their woman off the wall if she dares get out of line. All told, these dudes are creeps. Harvey Weinstein is a prime example, the epitome of a piss-poor excuse of a man. But it’s not always to this extreme. The toxically masculine male doesn’t have to be rapey to fit the bill. Sometimes it’s just that they act as if they’ve been castrated if a woman lifts a finger to do so-called man’s work.
“Just because I enjoy sports and hunting shouldn’t make me an enemy. I’ve never acted anything other than gentlemanly toward the women I’ve dated.”
Jeremy
The movement to cancel the toxically masculine male also, unfortunately, seems to have gotten decent men ostracized on occasion. At times, it might appear, any dude who doesn’t display a soft demeanor has a target on his back. But this position is misleading—not every man who exudes traditional manliness is discriminatory, anti-feminist swine. “Just because I enjoy sports and hunting shouldn’t make me an enemy,” complains Jeremy, a 33-year-old ironworker from North Royalton, Ohio. “I’ve never acted anything other than gentlemanly toward the women I’ve dated.”
And truth be told, men are battling against millenia of conditioning in the fight to avoid being a callous bastard. Many of our fathers (and their fathers, too) were taught all their lives that they’ve got to be tough and that showing emotion is a character flaw. Sure, these lessons were misguided—all men should be allowed to bawl their eyes out on occasion—but these patriarchal philosophies weren’t inherently evil. It wasn’t necessarily the teachings of toxic masculinity as much as it was, for better or worse, just being a man, as our forebears saw it.
“I swear my dad didn’t speak to me until I was 15 years old,” recalls Alex from Rushville, Indiana. “He was too busy working to support all of us. That was his job. He got up, went to work and mom took care of the kids. He was tough, but also there whenever anyone needed him.”
