I 100% believe there are behaviors attributed to masculinity that are toxic for the person embodying them, for the people around that person and for society as a whole. I have used the phrase “toxic masculinity” myself when doing violence prevention work in the past, and I don’t think it is any kind of problematic phrase in and of itself. At the same time, I have seen the proponents and media spokespeople for authoritarian, patriarchal misogyny (PM), relentlessly attack people for using “Toxic Masculinity” with some success at bringing that phrase into the collection of terms that the left has become afraid to talk about or be identified with, and I think there are some weaknesses to the term that made it so easy to attack.
1. PM has been successful in convincing the larger public that people who use the phrase “toxic masculinity” are using it to suggest that all masculinity is toxic. That is not how anyone I have ever listened to use it when talking sincerely about harmful behaviors connected to masculinity, but it is how I have heard a lot of people try to deride it and make it seem, and I think they have been fairly successful at it.
2. “Toxic masculinity” as a phrase doesn’t actually convey what is happening or why. It doesn’t speak to power or intention. It just kind of establishes that there are these unhealthy behaviors associated with some people’s ideas about masculinity, but it kind of just leaves the conversation there. Cleaning up toxic messes is difficult and usually people just ignore them or put up fences around them and say “never go here.” Also masculinity in this context just becomes this state of being, rather than a tangible set of definable behaviors that can be addressed or changed.
Patriarchal misogyny on the other hand describes a set of behaviors that reflect and foster a hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women for the sake of establishing a patriarchal power structure. For someone to embody patriarchal misogyny, they don’t just exhibit some attitudes that harmful to themselves and others, they are doing it for a purpose that is authoritarian and anti-women. This makes it a lot easier to talk about and counter without necessarily implying that people who might still be struggling with problematic behaviors are exclusively part of the problem, or something to fence off or ignore, but rather engaged with around a sincere dedication to counter Patriarchal misogyny, even if that means having to own up to and take accountability for potentially harmful actions we have done in the past. PM absolutely fosters ideas about masculinity that are harmful enough to everyone to call toxic, but it also fosters really bad ideas about femininity too, and even worse ideas about existing outside of either masculinity or femininity—ideas that fundamentally exist to create an unequal distribution of power around gender that has to be reinforced with a hatred and loathing for that which is denied access to power, because to do otherwise is to create space for empathy and understanding.
This is going to be a short one, because life, but I think I have covered the basics of why I generally try to avoid talking about toxic masculinity when I am talking about patriarchal misogyny, even though both ideas are closely linked.