It’s not the first time society has pathologied someone’s gender.

It’s not the first time such people were subjected to bogus psychological interventions, to exorcise them of their sex-based demons.

It’s not the first time we vilified and ridiculed ‘the other’, stoking fear and panic toward them, to drive the divide between men and women deeper, and deeper still.

One hundred years ago we did this through the shameful concept of ‘female hysteria’, that pathologised female distress and vulnerable women as ‘hysterical’, rather than seeing them as the product of their environment and lived experience.

An abused women with a trauma response? Hysterical.

A neglected wife finally snapping back? Hysterical.

A woman addicted to an opiate? Hysterical.

A woman in poverty, in desperate need of help? Hysterical.

Today, I want to ask, are we doing this to men, under the similarly problematic concept of ‘Toxic Masculinity’?

A bullied boy, finally fighting back? Toxic.

An abused man, acting out his trauma? Toxic.

An addicted, or mentally unwell man? Toxic.

A man conditioned never to express pain? Toxic.

Once again, ‘toxic masculinity’ puts all the blame in the wrong places, or as Professor Heidi Matthews puts it, ‘excludes the material conditions that produce and encourage dysfunctional performances of masculinity themselves.’

So round and round we go, but this time the whip is in the other hand, and brandished by fools so enamoured by themselves, and too virtuous, that they’ll never realise they’ve now become the villain.

So is ‘toxic masculinity’ the modern equivalent of ‘female hysteria’?

What do you think?

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Discussing #malesuicide, and its hidden societal causes with @aiminguppodcast

Full Pod here https://tinyurl.com/2km55uye

#mensmentalhealth #menshealth #mensmentalhealthawareness

2024-11-06