Toxic Masculinity

[Baruch]

But Marxism, like poverty, isn't going anywhere.  Once radicalism was let out of the bottle in Paris in 1789 ... it can't be put back.

What I notice most in the US, is that the current neo-marxism most similar to the Red Guard Cultural Revolution in China, in the 1960s.  It is youth oriented, anti-authoritarian (anarchist) and politically correct.  Here is a clear example of toxic masculinity (of political correctness).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCA6ME81RLQ

I await the Little Red Book of Chairman Obama or Hillary.

[pr126]

Talking about the personality cult, I saw that Obama did have that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHsAO3-crcs

No doubt, HRC would have had that too.

[PickelledEggs]

This is what I imagine is a younger picture of you. And yes, I mean literally. I'm not even joking.

[Mermaid]

Haha! Me too.

[Shiranu]

On a more positive note, three men who (purely from the video, I don't know how they behave off camera) seem like three very good examples of how men should be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lavllxWY7QM


This actually reminded me of something I noticed last night... it was very hard to find good representations of men, because youtube and google are absolutely flooded with this pseudo-manliness that snake-oil peddlers try to get men to buy. It's all a big, broken system... the system beats you over the head with how inferiour you are and then says only they know the solution... for just $9.99 a month you can be as mainly as them!


At it's core, I think it probably has much less to do with gender roles and far more to do with people who want to make money are willing to exploit any and everything to do so. Just today a footballer I respect died in his sleep before a match... and within minutes, his card on FIFA was bought up and being sold for a 10-20 time markup.

Nothing is sacred to people anymore, and that is both a shame and a major stumbling block we as a society need to recognize. If it can turn you a buck, then who cares how it effects anyone else?

[PickelledEggs]

Haha! Me too.

tmw the truth is actually hilarious lmfaooo

[PickelledEggs]

On a more positive note, three men who (purely from the video, I don't know how they behave off camera) seem like three very good examples of how men should be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lavllxWY7QM


This actually reminded me of something I noticed last night... it was very hard to find good representations of men, because youtube and google are absolutely flooded with this pseudo-manliness that snake-oil peddlers try to get men to buy. It's all a big, broken system... the system beats you over the head with how inferiour you are and then says only they know the solution... for just $9.99 a month you can be as mainly as them!


At it's core, I think it probably has much less to do with gender roles and far more to do with people who want to make money are willing to exploit any and everything to do so. Just today a footballer I respect died in his sleep before a match... and within minutes, his card on FIFA was bought up and being sold for a 10-20 time markup.

Nothing is sacred to people anymore, and that is both a shame and a major stumbling block we as a society need to recognize. If it can turn you a buck, then who cares how it effects anyone else?

their hands make those teacups look like thimbles..... :O

[PickelledEggs]

I think that video of the 3 guys demonstrates that everyone has a complex set of things that make up their backstory, what is going on in their head.

Idk if this is an example of "how [ x type of person] should act, but it is definitely something that allows you to connect with them, because they are being open about themselves and revealing what is going on.

I personally live like that from my day to day life. I am honest and open. My one friend told me that she knows exactly how I am feeling from the moment I walk in to the room. That if I'm feeling upset or depressed, that it's clear, if I'm happy, it's clear. Another friend of mine introduced me to some people at an art show and after saying "This is my friend Steve, and he knows exactly who he is more than anyone else" (implying that I am confidently.... me. I'm open about what is going on in my life and what my intentions and aspirations are etc) It's because i don't hide behind a facade and I say what is on my mind. If I like you, I'll tell you. If I don't like you, I'll tell you. Things like that.

If you are implying that people should be open and honest in their day to day life, which is what i think you were implying, then I agree. But it's not just men that need to do that more. Women also. Men just get shamed for it more (by men and women both) and therefore "manly men" do it less.

It's hard to be open about your emotions though, especially for most people, less so for others though. And again, I'm talking about men and women. Think about all the insecurities that people bottle up inside someone. After a while, they pop. Like a balloon. There is little to no support for men. Women complain about "aesthetic standards that the patriarchy imposes on them" but lets be real here. No one is forcing them to put makeup on. They do it because it's culturally acceptable to do so and it gives them an advantage when they can do it well, compared to people that cant, or don't use makeup at all.
On the other hand, men don't seek mental health or talk about their feelings because they are actively shunned by the society around them (a good percentage of the time), their families, their friends, etc. And then they wonder why men are so violent.... Men are violent because they aren't taught more effective and useful tools to communicate their troubles and overcome them. When the only tool you have in your bag is bottle up until you're in fight or flight mode, what do people think is going to happen?

One of the biggest examples of this is the difference between my father and I, who I luckily haven't spoken to in a full year.... even didn't go to a Christmas party with my family because he was going to be there, but it was worth it. My father, in contrast to me had zero communication skills in terms of his feelings. This can of course be attributed to him being a narcissist, but the outcome is the same, nonetheless. He resulted in physical intimidation countless times. He didn't know what else to do. Where in contrast, because of how I was brought up (thank you mom) I am able to express myself. My emotions, what is going on with me, what i have a problem with, how to fix it, etc. If I didn't have those skills, I'd probably be very violent and abusive. In fact, I know i would be, because before I learned these skills, and before I identified where a lot of my bad traits came from (they came from my dad, btw), when I was very young, I had severe anger issues.... to the point that I was incorrectly diagnosed as bi-polar. I wasn't bipolar, I wasn't given any tools. I didn't know what to do, so when I got upset, it swiftly turned into anger, then rage. There were many holes in my wall in my basement bedroom from me punching through the drywall. I once broke a door from continuously slamming it. I was lucky to have such a caring mother, because she taught me so many important and caring skills. Eventually I learned how to problem solve issues, so they don't escalate to that point of violent rage, and now even if I get very angry, I have more useful tools than violence that I can turn to and prefer to turn to.

Sadly though, this isn't the case for many, many men and boys. One change to my story would mean I wouldn't be an artist, I wouldn't be able to express myself with words. I would quickly turn to violence. That alternate plot is the exact story for a huge percentage of men. In fact we have prison systems full of men with that exact plot-line.

All of us here are lucky. We have the communication skills we need to not need to result to violence. For most of us, im assuming, but for me at least, there isn't even a reason to result to violence unless you are in direct physical danger and you need to defend yourself. But we need to have compassion (different from acceptance) for the men that do not have it this way. For the men that do not have the skillsets we have to talk it out and only have the very crude coping skill of violence.

[Baruch]

Human variety is all fine and good, but what if it doesn't match the conformism of the 60s Leftists (and their children today).  You can be a variant, as long as you are all the same, as the commissar says so.   I am not saying, anyone here is like that, I am speaking to a type ... that is out there.  I suppose people here would just say that is a straw man, and that pr126 is tilting at windmills.

[Munch]

The world and societies are complex, and while striving for an ideal world is well and good, I doubt theres ever going to be a stage in humanities history where cultural and societal aspects have a unified following of how one needs to act to progress.

You could be lucky in life and be born into a good neighborhood with good parents in a place thats developed and calm, and you get to have education and chance given to you. But then again you might be born into a bad environment, like born in a city with gang violence around, unsafe to even go out, a survival of the fittest mentality anywhere you go, that forces you to develop walls, to shut out softer emotions and just toughen up just to survive before someone else stronger, more aggressive then you comes along and snuffs you out.

I never had any strong masculine role models in my family to look up to. I suppose you could say my grandfather was the most I had, since he fought in the second world war, but I was only a child when he passed away, and only saw him like a couple times a year. He was also someone who didn't open up about anything deep, simply played with me and my brother, I loved him, but I feel my respect for him years on came from stories my mother told me more then what I got to do with him when he was here. My father, think I said enough about him, he was a drunk, useless and shut off from even doing anything with us except to hurl verbal abuse. My brother was never really there for me and never really looked out for me. I was pretty much raised by my mother.

Despite that though, it didn't create this negative vibe in me about men, or masculine behavior, I was never boyish myself when young but things like movies, games, comics, gave me examples of characters and stars I enjoyed and was drawn to, Batman, superman, the x-men, bruce willis, schwarzenegger, Stallone, Wesley Snipes, for me it helped give me a positive outlook on strong male role models, idealistic, but enough to make me understand no, not all men are like my drunk ass father or ineffectual brother.

I like men, infact I love a lot of men out there, and anyone claiming masculine behavior is some negative thing based on that alone, it isn't that which makes it bad, its other things thrown in that ruin the best aspect of being a man. Just sad those aspects exist, be it religious or political indoctrination, upbringing and environment, or someone psychological buried underneath, those are the things that ruin any positive social construct, and that goes for things like feminism, liberalism, conservatism, and even religious belief itself.

[Baruch]

I combined what I positives knew about my father, and other male members of my family.  In addition there are the historical materials and biographies of famous people (who have some positives).  The negatives told me what not to do or be like.  And you can even do this, to a degree, with fictional characters who have admirable characteristics.  Of course the latter is on a slippery slope of solipcism.

[PickelledEggs]

Something I HATE about this sudden rush to "end toxic masculinity" is that the movement to do so is literally not even doing anything.

They just demonize men for being toxic and basically just say "stop being bad". They don't address the reasons that cause it. They just want to seem like they have a moral highground. If you want to fix toxic masculinity, you need to address the toxic environment that breeds it. But there is a rhetoric of just simply "toxic masculinity is bad" "men are toxic" "you don't see women shooting up schools do you? that is because of toxic masculinity" that is rampant...,. and these things do ab-so-lute-ly NOTHING other than give people that pander to it a feeling of moral high ground. All it is, is pandering and it pretty much none of it, for the most part is actually actively helping. In fact, most of the pandering is making it even worse. It's basically just like screaming at a kid for doing something wrong, without explaining what they did wrong or how to not make the mistake again.  It's stupid and frustrating. Because violent men are a problem. Its a fact that more men are on average more violent than women. No one is denying that, at least no one that isn't detached from reality

[Baruch]

Virtue signalling is for political purposes.

[Cavebear]

Toxic masculinity does not infer that masculinity is toxic.

Neither masculinity nor femininity are toxic.  We need both to continue our species.  But either can be drawn to excess as they are in many other animals not as able to think as we can.  So we try to learn to adjust ourselves socially to make things more equal. 

Even in intelligent human history, it has been a painfully slow process.  I doubt I will live to see equality myself, there is a basic imbalance in sex and reproduction.  But the more we try, the better we will get.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Saw the title of this thread, and before I even clicked I knew that the first response would be someone revving up the anti-feminist circle jerk. *sigh* Never change, AF.com.

I'm just going to copy and paste from Urban Dictionary real quick before giving me $0.02.

A social science term that describes narrow repressive type of ideas about the male gender role, that defines masculinity as exaggerated masculine traits like being violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth. Also suggests that men who act too emotional or maybe aren’t violent enough or don’t do all of the things that “real men” do, can get their “man card” taken away.

Many people confuse the difference between Masculinity and toxic Masculinity. However, one can be masculine without having toxic Masculinity.

Some beliefs of toxic masculinity is that:

-interactions between men and women always has to be competitive and not cooperative.

-men can never truly understand women and that men and women can never just be friends.

-That REAL men need to be strong and that showing emotion is a sign of weakness... unless it’s anger, that is considered okay.

-The idea that men can never be victims of abuse and talking about it is shameful.

-The idea that REAL men always want sex and are ready for it at any time.

-The idea that violence is the answer to everything and that REAL men solve their problems through violence.

-The idea that men could never be single parents and that men shouldn’t be very interactive in their children’s learning and development and that men should always be the dominant one in the relationship or else he’s a “Cuck.”

-The idea that any interest in a range of things that are strictly considered feminine would be an emasculation of a guy.

Think of things that are traditionally thought of as "male virtues." Toxic masculinity is a subversion of those male virtues that ultimately harms men in some way. In other words, if we assume that masculinity is a good thing, then toxic masculinity is when too much of a good thing causes it to become harmful. That's the simplest way I can think of to explain it without over-simplifying it too much.