Toxic Masculinity Response

Masculinity is defined by many ideals in many different societies but the general definition is: “possession of the qualities traditionally associated with men” (1). These are usually assumed to be strong, the protector, the provider, tall, etc. Although due to these stereotypical ideas of what a man should be, that leaves very little room towards expanding the viewpoint of what a man could be. This is because society views any man who is not any one of those ideals as a non-manly or for a lack of better terms, unnatural. Which would cause the man to change his appearance/traits to fit in. This leads into a discussion about toxic masculinity because it is defined as “the socially-constructed attitudes that describe the masculine gender role as violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth.” (2) Men are taught from a young age to be a man, that means to follow the social norm that has been laid out for them. Just like how the subordinate group is taught to be subordinate, the dominant group is taught to be dominant. The dominant group would be the white, heterosexual, Christian, male, middle-class to upper class, etc. and whereas the subordinate group would be females, gays, lesbians, trans-genders, immigrants, etc. So using this example, a man is taught that it is his natural right to be dominant, that is he given all these benefits and rights just because he was born male.

This has negative impacts on them because when a person growing up with this ideology, they feel that they don’t have to work hard to achieve something and that everything will be laid out for them. Examples of this would be a white man would get hired but easier than an Indian woman would. Another would be a man who demands that a woman should be willing to have sex with him because it’s his right to do so. The list goes on and on. But the problem with this; is that it’s not how reality works. Reality is where people have to given a fair advantage no matter who they are rather than what sex they are. When people give men the advantage in life because that is what they are expected to do based on social norm, and this doesn’t just happen with white males. An example of this would be in China where girls are of lesser value than the boys and are given away for adoption because the families in China want a boy because of the one-child policy that limits the children they can have and also their ideology is that boys are of greater value. The impacts that toxic masculinity has left on society is that people have become so used to the idea that men are expected to act, think and feel a certain way that is damaging to them and the people around them. People can’t let this continue because it makes subordinate groups feel that they aren’t worth of equal value to men.

But the next question that we should ask ourselves is there a way we can redefine masculinity? Yes, we can redefine it because since modern society is reaching its stage where subordinate groups are gaining their rights to equal wages, same rights and privileges as the dominant group; the definition of masculinity is changing as well. People are realizing that with the technology and the media spreading the way that it is now, it’s becoming much more easier to access to these topics and learn about what people have to say about them. Although this does cause problems because with everyone saying their opinions it becomes hard to focus on whom to pay attention to. How does the audience know if what they are saying is the right thing? We can’t. We can only look at what is given to us and develop our own ideals and this says the same thing regarding masculinity because when people are developing their ideas, they can influence the reader’s. They may not change them completely but they can think about what the author is saying and then turn it into what they want to place upon their own children. That’s why it’s so important to change masculinity because if people stick to the old fashion ways that men should behave, think, dress in a certain way, there’s not room to change for the future which is saying that, society is harming men by not giving them the chance to develop their own sense of being and instead forced to listen to society and the ways it is telling men to act and behave.