Of course both men and women can be toxic. The point of toxic masculinity as a term is to draw attention to the fact that there’s a certain brand of toxicity that has much more harmful outcomes in male-dominated spaces, for a variety of social and cultural reasons. It tends to be a rather controversial term mostly because it gets conflated with the idea that masculinity itself is toxic (which is not what it’s supposed to mean).
The discussion should be about the magnitude of the problem, not hand-waving it away because women do it too but in different ways. The “different ways” is kind of the whole point of the argument.
Also, that’s a lot of extrapolation you did simply from a username in a screenshot. Would you describe any of their actual words in the post as misandrist?
I mean, it pretty clearly implies “feeling like a man” is only a bad thing. That “feeling like a man” can only be done in ways that make others feel inferior. That seems pretty misandrous. to me. Enough to call misandry right away? No. But between that and the name, they’re starting to set a theme.
I got the impression that it’s fine for a man to “feel like a man” but that that needs to be something he finds on his own terms, and needs to come from within. It’s not something he gets to impose upon others, such that it demands their cooperation or subordination. If to anyone, masculinity requires them being superior to others… maybe they need to do some soul searching.
Perhaps the user’s name does contribute to a theme. I don’t see anything specifically wrong with what was mentioned in this post, but we would need more context to determine who’s in the wrong, Reddit AITA style.
Of course both men and women can be toxic. The point of toxic masculinity as a term is to draw attention to the fact that there’s a certain brand of toxicity that has much more harmful outcomes in male-dominated spaces, for a variety of social and cultural reasons. It tends to be a rather controversial term mostly because it gets conflated with the idea that masculinity itself is toxic (which is not what it’s supposed to mean).
The discussion should be about the magnitude of the problem, not hand-waving it away because women do it too but in different ways. The “different ways” is kind of the whole point of the argument.
Also, that’s a lot of extrapolation you did simply from a username in a screenshot. Would you describe any of their actual words in the post as misandrist?
I mean, it pretty clearly implies “feeling like a man” is only a bad thing. That “feeling like a man” can only be done in ways that make others feel inferior. That seems pretty misandrous. to me. Enough to call misandry right away? No. But between that and the name, they’re starting to set a theme.
I got the impression that it’s fine for a man to “feel like a man” but that that needs to be something he finds on his own terms, and needs to come from within. It’s not something he gets to impose upon others, such that it demands their cooperation or subordination. If to anyone, masculinity requires them being superior to others… maybe they need to do some soul searching.
Perhaps the user’s name does contribute to a theme. I don’t see anything specifically wrong with what was mentioned in this post, but we would need more context to determine who’s in the wrong, Reddit AITA style.