Toxic Femininity: The Shadow to the Great Mother

Becca Demosthenes

Becca was born and raised in the Midwest, the ope is strong with this one. She studied English literature and linguistics in grad school; she taught for ten years until she gave it all up to become the ever tired servant to a tiny tyrant. Most of Becca's writing these days consists of sharing her thoughts and Bible studies on her blog as well as very random content on Twitter under @LadyDemosthenes. Given enough sleep and time Becca hopes to put together a children's book about Knowles VanderBeak, her son's stuffed owl.

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56 Responses

  1. Murali says:

    The problem with wading into these things is that toxic masculinity (at least insofar as its been used in common discourse is poorly theorised*. Why are certain behaviours coded as masculine? Why are some coded as feminine? Also, what makes certain masculine behaviours toxic? At least two things have been run together which are in fact distinct phenomena: Firstly, there are behaviours that are detrimental to the subject’s emotional and physical well-being (e.g. “excessive” stoicism and risk taking). Then there are behaviours which lead to or which constitute wrongdoing (e.g. homophobia**). They are distinct in the sense that sometimes doing the right thing is not going to be good for you. Given that we need to be really careful in deploying these concepts, we should be doubly cautious about deploying terms like toxic femininity.

    The standard array of problems associated with toxic masculinity also apply to the concept of toxic femininity. What makes gossiping***, cattiness, backbiting etc feminine? In addition, there is a worry that such criticisms buy into mistaken norms that contribute to the subordination of women (i.e. the patriarchy).

    *I won’t say its undertheorised since I’m not that familiar with the literature (and said literature is probably really extensive), but its clear that things are far from settled. Certainly, the way its used in popular (as opposed to academic) discourse evinces a certain lack of nuance and coherence.

    **Clearly homophobia is wrong, but its unclear why it’s coded as masculinity.

    ***Also, for a bit of nuance, is gossiping always wrong?Report

    • Kristin Devine in reply to Murali says:

      Dude, thank you for a really great comment. Insightful and spot on.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Murali says:

      I think the OP misses the mark somewhat. I agree with Murali and his question of “Why is this behavior coded as masculine / feminine? But I also think the OP definition of toxic isn’t complete.

      ‘Toxic masculinity’ isn’t just about male-coded negative behaviors, but about how those behaviors are supported and encouraged during the development of young men. So likewise, ‘toxic femininity’ would not simply be the collection of female-coded negative behaviors, but rather how those negative behaviors are supported and encouraged during the development of young women.Report

      • InMD in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        I don’t even really buy this framing. I see a lot of assertions out there that we ‘teach men x’ or ‘teach women y.’ My question is always ‘do we’? Where was the class held and who was the teacher? My upbringing was not unusual and yet I feel like I was sick for a lot of these lessons.

        I don’t want to get into one of these circular, deductive evolutionary conversations but implicit in all of those assertions is that there is no nature only nurture, and that socialization is under the control of some unnamed, nebulous puppet master. At best I think it’s a very unproven assumption to base things on, and at worst I it becomes the convenient question begged for any number of suspect political projects.Report

        • Rufus F. in reply to InMD says:

          Yeah, my parents were Reagan Republicans, and they still taught me that it was fine to cry or play with dolls or dress in whatever costumes I wanted for dress up play, and bad to bully other kids, because, ya know, it was the 70s. So, I don’t know- I think the flaws of excessive machismo have long been known about.

          And, for the record, I’ve not once heard anyone say (unironically) that “boys will be boys!”Report

          • InMD in reply to Rufus F. says:

            I went to Catholic school as a kid, and while I did hear the phrase ‘boys will be boys,’ it was as the preface before imposing some serious discipline, not an excuse for poor behavior.

            Not to totally take this off in a different direction but there was some other stuff there too that seems relevant, like rejection of a might makes right ethos and all being equal before the almighty. I experienced variations on this too when I went to public high school with the literature in the curriculum, so I don’t want to make it just a religious thing. This stuff is complicated, I just think people need to show their work when they make these claims. Otherwise I sense it’s a premise that’s been picked just to go where someone already wants to go.*

            *All speaking generally here, none of this meant to be personally at anyone in the comments.Report

          • Oscar Gordon in reply to Rufus F. says:

            When I was 6 & I set our landlords field road on fire in July (he was the farmer who worked that field), I was told “boys will be boys” by the farmer (he has 7 kids, 4 of them boys).

            My mother was not amused (& I was severely punished).Report

            • InMD in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

              Fair points, but I still think we’re going down the road of explaining a lot of stuff with pathology in a way that I’m not sure is merited, or at least is stealing a few bases on the question of causation.

              Children behaving badly or imitating exactly what their parents wish they wouldn’t is not a new or unique phenomenon. Some degree of it is almost certainly part of human development. Are we really justified in connecting that to ‘toxic masculinity’ or ‘toxic femininity’ which we then use as shorthand for a slew of adult problems from the trivial to the most serious? Per below I’ll defer to Chris on the academic journals but it seems like there’s a combination of milk as a gateway drug and first world problems going on when we look at things this way.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to InMD says:

          Note my phrasing. I did not say “teach” or “educate”, but “support” & “encourage”, sometimes without even meaning to.

          We have a girl in our neighborhood, same age as Bug, who started do the whole ‘mean girl’ schtick to the kids in the neighborhood. We heard about it from Bug and his friends, and talked to her parents, who were aghast at her behavior. Turns out, mom & dad were a bit too busy with her little brother and not paying enough attention to the TikTok/youTube she was consuming, and she was picking it up from various videos aimed at teen & pre-teen girls.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Murali says:

      Does “why is this coded as masculine/feminine?” contain a hidden “okay, I agree that it is, but let’s talk about ought instead”?Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Murali says:

      I think that “toxic” implies “self-reinforcing”, or maybe “meme-spreading”. It’s not just “a man doesn’t whine about hardship”, it’s “a man doesn’t whine about hardship and criticizes those who do“. Not just “a man avoids femme-coded stuff”, it’s “a man eschews femme presentation and considers those who engage in it morally suspect.”Report

  2. Let me preface this by saying I think this is a solid piece, brings up some issues we should think about (that part about the serial killer being a hunter, wow! I’ll be thinking of that in the future) and if you’re bored sometime you should check out my pieces on toxic masculinity https://atomicfeminist.com/2017/01/11/the-cure-for-toxic-masculinity-is-father-mulcahy/ and toxic femininity. https://atomicfeminist.com/2020/08/09/deceive-all-women/

    I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the seven deadly sins lately, and the concept underlying them, I feel, is at the heart of what you’re saying – that there are things in our lives we must do and must be, and that those things, which cannot be avoided, can run amok and take over our lives for some people. Eating can descend into gluttony, the joy that comes from a job well done can all too easily become pride and arrogance, and perhaps womens’ natural innate drive to be more focused on social elements of life might equally become toxic if allowed to be.

    That having been said, I’ll echo what Murali said above. In some places here, it feels to me like you are making some points where you absolve male foibles too easily by making them the equivalent of female ones – I’m sorry but I’m really extremely, profoundly tired of articles that equate “nagging and manipulation” with abuse. And in other cases, you’re laying some behaviors at women’s feet, as female behaviors, that men 1000% absolutely do – gaslighting, jealousy, false accusations. We can talk about #metoo and indeed we should but there are men, and not a few of them, that have made false accusations against women to get their parental rights terminated. My very good friend, whose marriage broke up after her husband sexually assaulted her, was blamed for a broken window at her ex-husband’s house, put in jail, lost custody of her children, and now has a criminal record and sees her children every other weekend. She is not a perfect person, engaged in her fair share of toxic behavior over the years, but she did not deserve that.

    And yet I can go to the Internet and read basically infinity articles in which men’s bad behavior (which has always been excused and handwaved away) is overlooked in favor of people saying “let’s not forget that women have a lot of flaws too!” Ok. We do. So what? It’s derailing a really important convo that we as a society need to have, putting the focus back onto women’s behavior (where it has always, always been) in ways that as Murali said, are the equivalent of justification of the worst excesses of patriarchy.Report

  3. Greg In Ak says:

    Firstly Jung is at best a historical artifact re: the start of modern psychology. I learned plenty of him in grad school and am amazed people still talk about him. Interesting but more spirituality then anything else.

    The framing you are using is to absolutist and black and white. Also, not to pile on, waaaayyyy off on the history of the change of the idea of men. What a Man is started to change massivly in the 70’s with emotions becoming a thing men should accsess and crying starting to become okay.

    This is good thing. For to many years men generally had to stuff most emotions since it wasn’t acceptable for them to be open. That started to change way back then even starting in the 60’s with the hippie etc people. This has been great for many men, like myself, who can’t and don’t want to repress every emotion. Many men nowadays even avowedly conservative men are far more involved in child rearing and more open about emotions.

    Good for us. Men can still be closed off if they wish but us guys have a lot more options to be fully humans now.

    Any concept like Man or Woman is always changing. There is no set rules on how we should behave. Now we can be more authentic to who we wish.Report

    • Chris in reply to Greg In Ak says:

      Jung’s resurgence in the last 5 years has been one of the most unexpected-but-should-have-been-expected phenomena I’ve seen. I realize it can specifically be credited to a certain grifting Canadian psychologist, but I add “should-have-been-expected,” because, like Evolutionary Psychology, Jung is easily used to justify reactionary views of culture and the individual.

      Don’t get me wrong, Jung doesn’t necessarily lead to reactionary views — I had my own leftist Jungian phase in my late teens, and still have Psychology of the Unconscious sitting on my bookshef — but it is easy to use him that way, as can be readily seen in the aforementioned grift.Report

      • Greg In Ak in reply to Chris says:

        Yeah Jordy is responsible for a lot of really stupid stuff. It’s like with Joseph Campbell his work, for whatever scholarly value it had, became a different thing, an all purpose explanation for every thing in the world. Even Freud who had a few issues is more useful nowadays for some things. And Siggy isn’t useful for that much other then being the person to put names to important things.

        Jung was just the first bong rip, listen to prog rock and FEEL THE ENTIRE WORLD IN MY BLOOD guy we all knew, or were, in college.Report

      • Rufus F. in reply to Chris says:

        Yeah, same. The thing is Jung is an extremely fascinating thinker and writer, but he’s not exactly clear as an unmuddied lake. I never read him in a particularly reactionary way, but I was never 100% sure I got him either.Report

        • Chris in reply to Rufus F. says:

          I mentioned Evolutionary Psychology, because it’s not that dissimilar to this breed of Jungian psychology: where Evolutionary Psychology sees the current essence of social categories like the masculine and feminine deriving from our distant past and coded in our DNA, Jungian psychology sees them as deriving from from our distant past and coded in our primitive unconscious. In the Psychology of the Unconscious, for example, he (stealing from Human, All Too Human) discusses the Unconscious as, effectively, the brain of our distant ancestors, hidden beneath the modern, socialized, repressive conscious mind. It’s all too easy, as both Evolutionary Psychologists and the reactionary Jungians do, to see the primitive unconscious, and its ancient archetypes, as our true nature, more or less distorted by modern contexts that differ greatly from the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness (EP) or the repressive nature of consciousness (Jung).

          It’s interesting, in a sense, that “toxic masculinity” arose out of Jungian psychology. Like reactionaries, they believed in an ancient, or essential masculinity, but unlike the reactionaries, they did not believe that these archetypes were reflected in traditional masculinity in the late 20th century. Instead, centuries of violent (aristocratic, competitive, warrior) cultural ideals, particularly when combined with modern (capitalist) social relations, had repressed traditional masculinity in a way that caused masculinity to manifest in culturally and individually harmful ways: a heightened focus on aggression and violence (both individual and societal), emotional repression, a lack of intimate (in a general, not merely sexual sense) relationships with other men, etc.Report

          • Rufus F. in reply to Chris says:

            Thanks for explaining that. It’s a bit of a lightbulb moment because I’ve been reading a handful of Romantics who were big on the “perennial philosohpy” idea, which is similar but different: original core religions archetypes that have been distorted by modern social living, but correspond to our assumed inner nature, etc.Report

            • Chris in reply to Rufus F. says:

              Ah yeah, I remember you mentioning the perennial philosophy stuff you were reading. Interesting stuff that I know little about, but I can see how it’d look similar to Jung, and in particular the weird new-agey Jung of the 70s and 80s. Accepting how little I know about perennial philosophy, and related 19th and 20th century movements (e.g., theosophy), like Jung/new-age Jungians, they ground a lot of their ideas in a reading of various myths and mysticisms.Report

    • A Jung man ain’t got nothing in the world these days.Report

  4. Greg In Ak says:

    I’m splitting my reaction into this second comment because one thing you said really stands out as super wrong. Not trying to be harsh but this is:

    “Men don’t play these games, probably because they prefer to just duke it out. That aggression is good for something. As much as the world hates male aggression, at least men confront an issue and find resolution. ”

    is as wrong as something can be.

    Some men duke it out by brutally beating other men who don’t want to fight or far more commonly just be beating the women in their lives. It isn’t settled, it’s repeatedly beaten into others, almost always women, that “men” will punish you for misbehavior of any sort with fists and slaps and verbal abuse. Men are far more often physical abusers. This is as toxic as anything. Domestic violence and child abuse are the radioactive waste of human behavior.

    The more violent the man the more they will find resolution through violence. They will make violence their tool for solving all their problems. Nothing is settled until you are bleeding, bruised and doing what they say.

    One thing that does distort how we see all this is that as with many things most of the worst stuff is done by a minority of the pop. Most men aren’t abusers and find that just as revolting as i do.

    You are correct in a subset of mens fights that can be shaken off with a handshake afterwards. But men do not , as a generalization, just forgive and forget. Plenty of men are petty, vindictive and forever wallowing in desire for revenge for long ago harms.

    Side note here but i’ve worked with DV victims and with couples in custody battles. Every stereotypical characteristic in women is present in men. To your point that women can often be horrible. Well heck yeah. People are often terrible to each other. Some of the most dysfunctional clients i’ve ever had who were toxic to everyone around them were women. I”ve seen women convicted of filing false complaints and even one case of Munchhausen’s by Proxy in a mom. Bad bad stuff. People are really f’d up sometimes.

    With all that said, men are far more often physically violent in a terrible way that i am personally so sick of seeing. I had to interview a teen for a judge regarding her preference on where to live. She had a very brief story about all the bruises her dad put on step mom and broke her finger. On the scale of DV that i have heard this is way down there. Maybe a 3 on a 1-10 scale. And it is horrible. That girl will remember what her dad did to stepmom forever. Permanent wound there. Not that she is doomed or damaged forever, but there will be a scar. This is what to many toxic men have done. To much violence which the “shake hands and be best buds stuff” doesn’t even relate to. Just to much violence by men.

    One of the ways people spread the inane culture war and whip themselves up into a frenzy is by taking most extreme examples and framing. There is plenty to fix with men and violence that doesn’t explain away the damage women can do. People can be terrible. Men are often terrible in a particular way that causes extra damage.

    Let me say again that i have heard roughly 100 billion stories about how bad women can be from other women. Some of the most strident feminist social worker/therapist types ( good friends also) have endless stories of women being terrible. We know it’s people being terrible to each other not just men. But the violence of the worst men has unique and terrible effects.Report

  5. Chris says:

    Remember when Tod Kelly wrote on this site about MRM culture, after meticulous research? Who’d have thought, back then, that this site would have authors who use MRM websites as reliable sources.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Chris says:

      Oh, the main thing I was looking for was a reason to ignore the stats on domestic violence.

      I’m glad you gave me one. Whew.

      And we don’t even have to look at its sources! We just have to say “Heh. MRM websites.”Report

      • Chris in reply to Jaybird says:

        Whew, wonderful rhetorical move you made there, suggesting that instead of impugning the reliability of the source, I am ignoring stats on domestic violence altogether. Really well done. Put me in my place. You have won, in the way that, to take us back to the days when Tod was writing that stuff, TvD used to claim he’d won.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Chris says:

          The site that you’re disparaging was talking about Domestic Violence and giving stats.

          Your complaint was that it was even linked to.

          Did I misunderstand your complaint about it being a reliable source?

          What in the stats was unreliable? Just the fact that it is, heh, an MRM website?Report

        • DensityDuck in reply to Chris says:

          “suggesting that instead of impugning the reliability of the source, I am ignoring stats on domestic violence altogether.”

          this is the part where you present other sources that have different statistics (and, as a bonus, show us that the statistics are different because of Motivated Reasoning on the part of the originally-cited source)Report

  6. JS says:

    “We hear an awful lot about toxic masculinity these days. Anything that seems to even hint at strong masculine traits gets shouted down. Men are blamed for any and all aggression, and are told they need to be more in tune with their emotions and sensitive side”

    That’s not even remotely what toxic masculinity is. It’s not a good thing when your post starts off with something so wrong you can’t even bring it into “Strawman” territory.

    Toxic masculinity is the cultural encouragement of “masculine” traits that harm men themselves.

    Watching you twist it into some attack is weird — like the comment about sensitive sides? You’re clearly trying to refer to the fact that it’s unhealthy as hell to teach men they’re not allowed to show certain emotions —- I mean you do see it’s unhealthy as hell to teach men that they’re to swallow and ignore feelings such as “sadness” and “despair” — there’s a reason men are less likely to see out mental help when they need it, and are more likely to kill themselves!

    And when people say “Look, here are some of the cultural issues that are outright killing men — maybe promoting mental illness shouldn’t be seen as a crown jewel of masculinity” — it’s taken as an attack?

    The word “toxic” is there for a reason. There’s nothing wrong with masculinity in general. But there are some traits of it — at least as we assign them in the Western world — that do harm to society, and men themselves are often the foremost victim. And those need highlighting because, again, it’s literally killing some men.

    Ain’t nobody complaining that a guy with a giant bushy beard is out doing lumberjack contests or spending a weekend hunting in the woods or getting jacked and power lifting or whatever the heck else you want to consider super-masculine. They’re complaining that society says those guys can’t even acknowledge if they’re sad, that they’re encouraged to show anger but not love, and that they’re told seeking help when they have problems is NOT MASCULINE and they shouldn’t do it.

    Again, how the heck someone takes “Some of the societal expectations of masculinity are literally killing men, we should change that” and makes it into some attack on men is beyond me.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to JS says:

      Toxic masculinity is the cultural encouragement of “masculine” traits that harm men themselves.

      For what it’s worth, there are a lot of people out there who are using this term incorrectly. Like, a lot a lot. Like maybe even enough for other people to reasonably come to the conclusion that it’s referring to something else.Report

    • Chris in reply to JS says:

      Toxic masculinity is the cultural encouragement of “masculine” traits that harm men themselves.

      This is a pretty narrow definition, one which I’ve never seen before. Or do you mean it only as a part of the definition, one excluded from the OP?Report

      • InMD in reply to Chris says:

        I think the real issue is that the assertion that something called ‘toxic masculinity’ exists and is the cause of various ills is not actually an empirical claim, even if those who subscribe to it deduce it from things that are, like comparitive rates of spousal violence by sex.Report

        • Chris in reply to InMD says:

          There’s a bunch of empirical research that disagrees with you.

          And coincidentally, the concept and phrase originated in Jungian psychology, though most academic uses of it are no longer at all Jungian.Report

          • InMD in reply to Chris says:

            Empirical research proving the concept originated by a guy whose theories have (apparently) been abandoned in his own field, and conducted by people who can’t seem to even agree on what they’re measuring? I try to be an open minded person, but color me skeptical.

            At best it sounds to me like an interesting but unfalsifiable theory that may thrive in low rigor academic environments but falls far short of explaining the wide range of human behaviors, from violent crime, to office politics, to rudeness on the subway to which it at least popularly aspires.Report

            • Chris in reply to InMD says:

              I assume you mean Bliss, as the guy who originated it. If so, yeah, his ideas have been pretty much completely abandoned in academia, but I’m not sure what you think that says about the concept, which has been pretty clearly defined within the academic study of it (across multiple disciplines).Report

              • InMD in reply to Chris says:

                I won’t pretend to have read academic works on the subject, and am open to the possibility that there is more to it in that context.

                My exposure to the term is really social, where I hear it used as a shorthand explanation for everything from bar fights to bad manners. That is where I don’t find it useful or persuasive.Report

              • Chris in reply to InMD says:

                Like most academic concepts, its use in mainstream discourse should not be used to judge its scholarly import.

                I also don’t like how it’s used in mainstream discourse, though perhaps for different reasons.Report

  7. LeeEsq says:

    The early psychologists and psychiatrists like Freud and Jung should be seen as basically alchemists. They were moving in the right direction but because of the tools the had available at the time, didn’t really get great results.Report

  8. LeeEsq says:

    Toxic masculinity is really hard to define in practice and has something of I know it when I see it quality to it. A lot of it revolves around the fact that men are encouraged to hide their emotions by society and act with Stoic resolve. This is true but in real life many people who would like men to more open with their emotions in theory tend to get annoyed or even angry with it in practice.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Heterozygote advantage is that thing where if you have one gene, it’s really beneficial for you but if you have two genes, you get something like sickle cell anemia. (It’s not limited to sickle cell anemia, of course. But it’s an example of the phenomenon.)

      Toxic masculinity is when you’ve got two genes instead of the one.
      Same thing happens to toxic femininity.

      But there’s also a phenomenon where people smear the one-gene version as being just as toxic as the two-gene version and they’re wrong to do that.Report

      • Greg In Ak in reply to Jaybird says:

        What the hell are you talking about? Two genes???? So if a guy beats his wife to a pulp but only is XY it isnt’ toxic?Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Greg In Ak says:

          It’s a simile.

          “Masculinity” is, in itself, not necessarily bad. Indeed, there are situations where it is a good thing and we want more of it. There are, however, ways to turn this thing that is good (at a 3) but turn it up to 11 and make it “toxic”.

          Same for femininity.Report

  9. LeeEsq says:

    Wasn’t there a male British serial killer that got away with having a very high body count for a long time because he was a doctor? I think there were plenty of other male serial killers with similar health careers. When you get a psychopath in the health professions, they are going to have lots of opportunities to murder people and hide their tracks because of the nature of what they do. Male or female has nothing to do with it.Report

  10. I just want to thank the commenters in this post who hit various points thereby freeing me from having to write a rebuttal.Report

    • Em Carpenter in reply to Kristin Devine says:

      I actually have one started but not sure it’s going anywhere.Report

      • Chris in reply to Em Carpenter says:

        I don’t want to ask y’all to do work, but I saw that Becca was complaining on Twitter that no one is addressing her points here, so it might be cool for someone to write something up.

        Honestly, because it’s so poorly argued, I don’t think the post is worth engaging, except for the reasons Kristin notes in her longer comment above, namely, that the post repeats bad behaviors common out in the world, which is why I bring this up in this little subthread instead of merely tossing it to the general body.Report