The problem with ‘toxic masculinity’ as a phrase, is that nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about. I have seen it simply everywhere. It’s why men don’t recycle plastic bags. It’s why others die by suicide. It’s why men don’t wear masks, or why they eat meat. It’s why the UK is leaving the European Union and it got Donald Trump elected. Apparently it’s driving global warming and it’s stopping men from washing their hands. It’s the explanation for gun crime, abuse and gang violence, and it crashed the economy in 2008. How could one thing do all this? How can something be the bane of men’s mental health, whilst also causing climate change and gun crime? It is a cringey, jumbled and incoherent mess. A word that simply maligns men and does its best to tie anything, and everything bad, to masculinity. No matter how tenuous or absurd. Whether it’s in the media, in politics, online or in scholarship – it is increasingly used to just signal disapproval of men, and nothing more. So often the first word in a diatribe of bigotry; it’s an insult, it’s inexcusable, it is ironically, toxic itself. And perhaps most shameful of all, is how it has sunk its insidious roots into the lower echelons of the psychological industry. With low effort professionals using such silly viewpoints, like snake oil, in the treatment and understanding of vulnerable men. Somehow to call a suicidal man ‘toxic’ is considered compassion, advocacy and even ‘treatment’ these days. So what does ‘Toxic Masculinity’ mean to you? And is it time to stop using it? ~ Source Dr Carol Harrington Pew Studies Write up  Male Psychology Network Poll Helen Lewis  Images by Gradient, Cesar Rincon, Olu Famule, and A-Z from Unsplash.

2022-12-19