The Problem With a Fight Against Toxic Masculinity

Article here. Excerpt:

'Over the past several years, toxic masculinity has become a catchall explanation for male violence and sexism. The appeal of the term, which distinguishes “toxic” traits such aggression and self-entitlement from “healthy” masculinity, has grown to the point where Gillette invoked it last month in a viral advertisement against bullying and sexual harassment. Around the same time, the American Psychological Association introduced new guidelines for therapists working with boys and men, warning that extreme forms of certain “traditional” masculine traits are linked to aggression, misogyny, and negative health outcomes.
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Masculinity can indeed be destructive. But both conservative and liberal stances on this issue commonly misunderstand how the term toxic masculinity functions. When people use it, they tend to diagnose the problem of masculine aggression and entitlement as a cultural or spiritual illness—something that has infected today’s men and leads them to reproachable acts. But toxic masculinity itself is not a cause. Over the past 30 years, as the concept has morphed and changed, it has served more as a barometer for the gender politics of its day—and as an arrow toward the subtler, shifting causes of violence and sexism.

Despite the term’s recent popularity among feminists, toxic masculinity did not originate with the women’s movement. It was coined in the mythopoetic men’s movement of the 1980s and ’90s, motivated in part as a reaction to second-wave feminism. Through male-only workshops, wilderness retreats, and drumming circles, this movement promoted a masculine spirituality to rescue what it referred to as the “deep masculine”— a protective, “warrior” masculinity—from toxic masculinity. Men’s aggression and frustration was, according to the movement, the result of a society that feminized boys by denying them the necessary rites and rituals to realize their true selves as men.
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Since then, the return to toxic masculinity has leaked from academic literature to wide cultural circulation. Today the concept offers an appealingly simple diagnosis for gendered violence and masculine failure: Those are the “toxic” parts of masculinity, distinct from the “good” parts. New proponents of the concept, sometimes unaware of its origins, tend to agree that men and boys are affected by a social “sickness” and that the cure is cultural renewal—that is, men and boys need to change their values and attitudes. Former President Barack Obama is championing mentoring programs as the solution to a “self-defeating model for being a man” in which respect is gained through violence. A range of classes and programsencourage boys and men to get in touch with their feelings and to develop a healthy, “progressive” masculinity. In some educational settings, these programs are becoming mandatory.'