Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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Also - the topic has veered slightly off-course, but there's another point I'd like to make.

I've always been disheartened at the "war of the sexes". The "women are superior to men" or "men are better than women" talking points. Those talking points are just plain garbage, period. I'm not saying the two are equal - men and women have their strengths and weaknesses. We also think differently, although even in that there's a lot of overlap. We socialize differently, and so forth. A lot of the troubles we face are beyond our immediate control - violence, squabbles, and so forth. The best we can do is to be kind to one another - teach our kids (if we have them) to follow suit - and work to stop division. The other thing we can do it try our best to treat each other equally.
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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Since 1999 at Columbine High School there have been many school shootings in America. Do you know what all school shootings have in common?

They are all perpetrated by males. They can’t deal with their emotions. Boys should be raised to be more feminine.
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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jamie001 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:16 pm Since 1999 at Columbine High School there have been many school shootings in America. Do you know what all school shootings have in common?

They are all perpetrated by males. They can’t deal with their emotions. Boys should be raised to be more feminine.
Is every single male on the face of this planet a school shooter, or just a very tiny subset? I understand that 100% are men - I don't find that comforting in the least. We are dealing with a mental health crisis where drugs pushed by the pharmaceutical companies can lead to said behavior, a lack of parental role models, a culture that shames men for being men (ie, "neckbeards", "mouth breather", "incel", etc...), a video gaming culture that desensitizes people to violence, and so on. It's not masculinity at fault but something deeper in our culture. Women get called nasty things too - are bullied - so I realize it's not because of the names people are called, or the stereotypes. But men are unique in having "toxic masculinity" as a pejorative that is wielded against them daily.

I wasn't raised to be more feminine but somehow turned out OK (in fact, I got flack from my mom for liking "feminine" things, all before telling her about my skirts), as did other males around me (except they don't wear skirts, or at least none that I know of).
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

Post by Ray »

Jamie,

You are talking nonsense. There’s more to equality than psycho shooters. Id say it’s your sick society rather than men, who seem to be highly capable of not running around schools killing people in countries outside of the US.

So feminine is good? Which sex buys excessive amounts of clothes? That absolutely destroys the environment. Wrecks it. Makeup and cosmetics? Ditto.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being male. All of my male friends are amazing people. They don’t have a toxic bone in their body. They are caring, fun loving and intellectually curious. None if these characteristics are uniquely feminine.

I’ll stay male, thanks, and will happily embrace a wider range of experiences - extending my definition of male. Men aren’t superior to women. Nor the reverse. That’s my view and it serves me well.
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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Ray wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 10:05 pm Id say it’s your sick society rather than men, who seem to be highly capable of not running around schools killing people in countries outside of the US.
I would say of all the things I'm ashamed of in the US (which isn't a lot) this is the one that sickens/saddens me the most. Again it's a small number of people causing the violence, but it happens and is not being addressed and should not happen in this "modern" day and age. I'm not an expert so all I can do is grasp at straws and throw poo at the wall of ideas (sorry for the analogy - I wanted to delete it but it seemed fitting).
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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jamie001 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:16 pm Since 1999 at Columbine High School there have been many school shootings in America. Do you know what all school shootings have in common?

They are all perpetrated by males. They can’t deal with their emotions. Boys should be raised to be more feminine.
OK - Let's take a breath and step back a moment :|
"They can’t deal with their emotions" - - - -
They ARE dealing with their emotions. They have been taught to FIGHT, that anything going against what they've
been taught is wrong and MUST be dealt with FORCE. SOMETIMES this teaching is done by parents(0) and other
times it is done by a cult(1), brainwashing the kids into thinking/believing that the world is against them.
They have been taught that ANYONE who doesn't feel/believe their way, is inferior and must be eliminated.
This creates bullies, that they(the bullies) are better than those around them.

The kids have not been taught that it is OK to be kind, to love, to have compassion and to cry when hurt.

Due to a teacher shortage, thus larger class sizes, the teacher is not able to fully comprehend the psychologies of,
and recognize, "damaged" kids. Anymore, they(the teachers) are not allowed to enforce discipline in the class room.
Parental support of the teacher, is no where to be found. The teachers have become more of a referee to keep the
kids under control instead of teaching the topic at hand.

The current generation of parents, give their kids I-Pads(tablets) and violent video games.
The kids are not taught that THE VIDEO GAMES ARE NOT REAL.
The kids then try to emulate the "games" into real life.

As being married to a teacher/librarian, with in-laws who were "old school educators", I've seen this first hand.
Education has become second in priority to Neanderthal, and video game, life.

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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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jamie001 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:16 pm[Males] can’t deal with their emotions. Boys should be raised to be more feminine.
No. Flat plain NO. Full stop. Boys should be raised to be men -- and that encompasses the full range of human emotions. Your assertion that only females have the full range is patently and abjectly wrong, and does not stand up to scrutiny.

Attributing emotions like empathy, compassion, wistfulness, and sadness to be the sole province of women is demeaning and hurtful to normal men -- masculine men -- all of whom have that range of expression. Knock it off.

What we're dealing with now is an aberration that's peculiar to what radical feminism has been pushing -- at high velocity and volume -- for 40 years. Just because it's been adopted as politically correct now does not relieve it from being an aberration. Please stop pushing a deviant agenda that does no-one any favours -- least of all women, who would probably entirely like more sensitive caring guys in their midst. (Sadly, many women now do not know how to interact with a real man who exhibits the full range of emotions. BTDT, didn't get the t-shirt.)
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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Uncle Al wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 10:59 pm
jamie001 wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:16 pm Since 1999 at Columbine High School there have been many school shootings in America. Do you know what all school shootings have in common?

They are all perpetrated by males. They can’t deal with their emotions. Boys should be raised to be more feminine.
OK - Let's take a breath and step back a moment :|
"They can’t deal with their emotions" - - - -
They ARE dealing with their emotions. They have been taught to FIGHT, that anything going against what they've
been taught is wrong and MUST be dealt with FORCE. SOMETIMES this teaching is done by parents(0) and other
times it is done by a cult(1), brainwashing the kids into thinking/believing that the world is against them.
They have been taught that ANYONE who doesn't feel/believe their way, is inferior and must be eliminated.
This creates bullies, that they(the bullies) are better than those around them.

Uncle Al is correct. The have been taught to FIGHT! Toxic Masculinity includes two acceptable emotions for males.

1. Anger
2. Aggression

Anger and aggression lead to physical violence.

Boys are taught that anger and aggression are acceptable modes of expression. Girls are taught to act like ladies and that anger and aggression are unacceptable and not befitting of a lady. We need to put a stop of rough-housing and other forms of physical violence that boys typically participate in. That is the reason that we should raise boys to be more ladylike in their expression.

I see that many of you here don't believe in or don't understand simple statistics. 100 percent of school shooters are male! What does that tell you?

Over 90 percent of all violent crimes are committed by male. What does that tell you?

The answer is that we have a problem with the socialization of boys that promotes anger, aggression, and violence as acceptable forms of expression. It is basic Toxic Masculinity.

I suggest that some of you do some research on these statistics and also read articles in psychology publications about Toxic Masculinity. It is true that not all males suffer from this problem, however there are enough males being taught Toxic Masculinity and those are the males that resort to violence whenever their position is threatened.
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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Over 90 percent of all violent crimes are committed by male. What does that tell you?
Women are taught how to express anger and agression in a different manner than men?
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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jamie001 wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 5:34 pmToxic Masculinity includes two acceptable emotions for males.[

1. Anger
2. Aggression

Anger and aggression lead to physical violence.
Mod Hat on.

Knock it off with the hate speech. Just stop or there will be consequences.

What you are describing has nothing whatsoever to do with masculinity; it's all about machismo -- and, yes that is toxic. To label each and every man on the planet as "toxic" is hateful, pure and simple, not to mention entirely incorrect.
100 percent of school shooters are male!
Thus far. Give it some time before a macho tomboy shoots a place up for the fun of it.
Over 90 percent of all violent crimes are committed by male.
Psychological abuse does not count as violence? False charges to the police don't count as violence?

Contemplate your writings and what they say about you.
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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Here is a good article from Psychology Today Magazine:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... asculinity
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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jamie001 wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 3:19 pmHere is a good article from Psychology Today Magazine:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... asculinity
Of note, the author paints the topic as an abnormality that's being externally driven, NOT the way the term is usually wielded in conversation -- and also note that he's talking about machismo, not masculinity. Interestingly, he omits another key part of the equation -- immaturity.

On the concept of external drivers, I began to notice that in the 1970s, and have watched it grow worse ever since. Men have been being pushed into a tinier and tinier box regarding how they're expected to behave -- and now here we are wondering why we've got a mess on our hands. We as a species have done this to ourselves, and a subset of men have been complicit in going along with it.

Well, the news is remarkably good. Whilst, yes, we have quite a few problem types -- and they're the ones that get the news headlines -- the overwhelming percentage of men are good caring fathers, brothers, sons, lovers, and productive members of society -- and those behaviours are hardly "toxic". Do you regard any of those as being "toxic"? Is the ability to stand up and make a difference in something you may not actually have a personal stake in to help somebody else "toxic"? Is a quiet sense of confidence in being able to handle new situations "toxic"? (There is a vast difference between confidence and cockiness.) Is being polite to others "toxic"? Real men tend to be quite polite. They can afford to be. Real men also do not need to be "The Alpha Dog" all the time; real men are frequently perfectly content to be on the sidelines, but they also have the capability to be alphas if the situation requires it. You know, the ones you never hear about because they do not seek the limelight (nor the heat of the television cameras); the "quiet ones".

So, please stop using the broad brush term that the third- and fourth- wave feminists coined called "toxic masculinity". In the real world, the reality is quite different. For every Geoffrey Epstein there are a million men who you never hear about because there's no cause.
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Re: Books reviews: How Toxic Is Masculinity?

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I was aware of sex and the mechanisms from an early age and was perceptive enough to realise that there were customs and rules about those areas. I remember buying a book called "Sex: It's Meaning and Purpose" when I was about 13 and my parents caught me reading it. No need for a birds and bees talk then. I discovered pornography - I used to deliver ( after I'd had a quick skim through it ) a copy of Penthouse on my paper round. While on said paper round there was a teenage girl who used to get changed in front of her window. She left nothing to the imagination. I went through the sixties but I think I have had a healthy perception of relationships an sex. Screwed up, not in the least.
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