Debating the existence of toxic masculinity/femininity

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5 years 2 months ago #333057 by

JamesSand wrote: That's not a logical conclusion, it's a straw man,



Yes exactly, Start with a Straw man, end with a strawman. Do you feel productive now oh "Smartest Man Alive"?

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5 years 2 months ago #333059 by
No, in this respect it isn't. Masculinity and Femininity come from the same source.. and are actually two forms of manifestation of the same light.. just like light both energizes(expansive) and enlightens(introspective) in the natural(below)..

As above, So below..

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5 years 2 months ago #333060 by
The rest of the world has NEVER been founded on anything close to the popular sovereignty that these united States were founded on..

Europe, along with the rest of the world, functions under various forms of serfdom. Some are just more privileged than others.. but don't bash Americans' love of their natural liberty..

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5 years 2 months ago #333061 by

Uzima Moto wrote: No, in this respect it isn't. Masculinity and Femininity come from the same source.. and are actually two forms of manifestation of the same light.. just like light both energizes(expansive) and enlightens(introspective) in the natural(below)..

As above, So below..


Actually in this respect it is. You are right though, masculine and feminine do come from the same source. That source is The Force. However how those are manifested is not how you say. The light is the nurturing, introspective, slow to move, deep lake of femininity. The dark is the aggressive, extroverted, quick to react, raging river of masculinity.

How you cant see this is beyond me. I encourage you to keep searching however!

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5 years 2 months ago #333066 by Manu

OB1Shinobi wrote:

Manu wrote: I suppose that is what many who dislike the “toxic masculinity” terminology fear... the rules being set not based on reason but based on what is fashionable, to calm the angry Facebook and Twitter mobs demanding their gender-neutral safe space.



I view the term “toxic masculinity” as a culture-weapon. It isnt as much a question of whether it ostensibly points to real phenomena, as much as what is the true intent behind coining the term and what will be the actual impact it has on our cultural cohesion- is toxic masculinity an idea that enhances understanding and promotes cooperation in an already fragmented and multi-faceted society or is it a gigantic god damn wrench in the works? Does it result in real insight into what it means to be human or does it just give us a new way to vent hostility towards one another?

The term may be accurate enough if you have the intellectual discipline to narrow it down to a very specific (and relatively miniscule) set of behaviors and motives, (even then i wonder if it is the most accurate possible term to describe those motive and behaviors) but the real-world impact of the idea is simply that men are assholes..... and i believe that was the point all along. Got to defeat that evil patriarchy, dontcha know.


In as much as “toxic masculinity” is used as a culture weapon to justify tribalism which is inherently violent towards any group of people, whether it be grouped by race, age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, political party, etc. I completely agree with you that it should be fully rejected.

The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
- William Arthur Ward
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5 years 2 months ago #333080 by JamesSand

What is actually creating problems in society is not too much masculinity it’s a lack of masculinity. Single parent families where the mother is the care giver is higher than it ever has been. Over 50 percent of black families and 30 percent of white families are this way. Over 75 percent of teachers are female. It seems more likely that incidents of abuse are the result of a lack of male guidance of these young boys by male examples. Boys without a strong male presence to teach them responsibility and decency are forced to figure it out for themselves during those formative years of dealing with hormones they can barely understand. That is the major problem in societies today.

When these SJWs merge masculinity with toxic masculinity it rips away the ability to maintain traditional roles of masculinity such as being a gentleman, taking responsibility, providing and containing emotions to the extent that those emotions don’t take control of them. It is a self-defeating idea and it’s just stupid. 70 percent of male prison inmates, gang members, high school dropouts, suicides and addicts grew up in a single parent home. These ideas are sobering and really speak to the fact that instead of demonizing men as toxic we should be crying out in anguish for these men who are being stripped of their ability to be men by these disgusting terms and situations.

If this continues these SJWs will eventually realize that have shot themselves in the foot because it is actually men that are the only wall of protection for them from the wolves and the cold.



Can I assume those stats are from the USA?

Thought it does get cold here, I've never seen a wolf.

Taken at face value, all that rhetoric leaves me feeling buoyed with confidence that this issue has nothing to do with my country or my people, which is nice (gives me more time to antagonise vegans)

(I don't mean to sound entirely flippant- I think it is a serious problem if schools, employers, local community leaders are generating their "content" based on information that might not be entirely relevant. I'd hate for Seamus O'Seamus (obviously an irish lad, growing up in Dublin, diddly-dee potatoes) to be given a lecture of what it is to be a man.....because his priest read up on USA prison statistics.....

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5 years 2 months ago - 5 years 2 months ago #333082 by OB1Shinobi

Loudzoo wrote: Gosh - plenty to unpick here!

Masculine and Feminine character traits are defined by society, but they are not arbitrary. Our biological sex is correlated to certain personality traits and from these - certain gender norms have emerged.



I wanted to emphasize that last point: gender norms EMERGED. They arent something the Patriarchy has imposed upon the masses. No one drafted or created them. They are just there. Its the cultural recognition of averages, not some tyrannical ploy to dominate or disenfranchise people.

Saying that norms exist is not to say that people who defy the norms are not natural or are less worthy or capable or deserving. The statistical mean (average) has statistical deviations built into its very structure, thats just how statistics work. Thats how averages work, its how norms work. Its always a spectrum and theres always people at the ends of the spectrum. Some people would like to use averages/norms as a club to beat other over the head for being different. That doesnt mean we should deny the existence or validity of averages/norms, it means we need to improve the general understanding what they really signify.


To a great extent the current 'culture wars' are about who has the power to define the gender norms.



Yes, thats exactly right. But this takes a new shade of meaning when you understand that averages (norms) are not something anyone has the right to define. Averages EMERGE when we review the data... no one has the right to say “i want the average (norm) to be such and such so thats what its going to be”. Its one thing to advocate on behalf of those who dont fit with the average, but an entity thats battling for the power to define the average is battling for the power to lie - and to have society accept the lie.


As a society freeing itself from the bondage of a dogmatic culture....



It would be useful if we had some scale by which to measure the dogmatism of all the worlds cultures, maybe from least to most, so that we could all compare our own to others. Id certainly not expect America to be at the very top of the list, but id bet we’d be in the top 15-20. I assume the UK would also score relatively high. With countries like Saudi Arabia (for example) being significantly lower.


it becomes possible to recognise more gender fluidity. Perhaps the gender stereotypes are not as fixed as they have been perceived to be in the past?



My opinion: the culture war is tearing us apart. In America we are fortunate to have the “melting pot” concept as part of our national identity, though we seem to be slipping away from it, lately. What we need are some genuinely uniting concepts to rally behind. Ideas that can unite people of all groups instead of pittig us against each other. Toxic masculinity isnt such an idea, lol, obviously.

I agree with OB1's additions to the definitions - but the key is here that they are average differences - they do not necessarily apply to a given individual. In a population of 7 billion + that means you end up with a small percentage, but large number, of people who do not fit gender norms. Also there is a massive overlap between the dominant character traits of people with differing biological sex.



Yes. Unfortnately, most people dont understand statistics and misinterpret the meaning and significance of averages. Averages arent rules, we dont have to obey them- they are observations... numerical values that indicate tendencies. The truth about “the average” is that its often a number that doesn't actually apply to anyone. In a real way, we not only dont have to be average, we CANT. If you measure the height of ten random people and calculate the average, its very likely that not one of those people is that exact height. And height is a simple thing to calculate. Of course, this changes with sample size. Ten people is a small sample size- ten thousand people will give a more accurate average and theres bound to be some who are that exact number. The irony is they would actually be a numeric minority for being exactly average, lol.


Having said all of that, its not clear that labeling certain character traits as masculine or feminine is particularly helpful anymore.



I wont presume to know what girls need but i very much believe that boys need a healthy masculine ideal to which they may aspire. A positive idea of what a good man is and how they can be or become one.

Perhaps it would be easier to say that men, women, and people who define themselves as something else, can all be assholes! No group has the monopoly on that . . .


Agreed!

People are complicated.
Last edit: 5 years 2 months ago by OB1Shinobi.
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5 years 2 months ago - 5 years 2 months ago #333084 by JamesSand
I had a bit of a thought here...

Call it a shower thought, 'cause I was in the shower.

so I'm going to try to play it out, while I have my coffee.


Now we know three things about me, I enjoy showers and coffee, and I have (through whatever means) access to hot running water, coffee, cups, and I guess the internet.


This is great data. 100% of the people writing this post are successful and resourceful individuals (and they smell nice)

How many of us deal with aggregate data on a day to day basis? as in actually as part of our primary occupation or as an unusually passionate hobby?

Aggregate data is shit. and, more often than not, leads to wild and useless conclusions. It's great for putting on presentations to convince bosses that your department needs more funding, or that a project is working (Mr Prime Minister, money raised from Speeding Tickets is up 6000% this year, we calculate this to mean that the roads are 6000% safer than last year! (huzzah, round of applause).

I deal with...30 or 40 people a week. And it is usually the same 30 or 40 people, and I could continue to function from now until retirement without knowing a damn thing about anyone outside those people.

I don't need to know what the other seven-something billion people in the world do or like or think. I don't need to know about their behaviours or beliefs or habits or anything. It's just not relevant to my daily function.

Maybe I've got a small world, maybe everyone else deals with one hundred people week. That still leaves....oh, seven-something billion people that realistically don't matter.


It seems it would be silly of me to have any thoughts, or make any decisions based on mish-mash data from those seven billion people that I can't really observe or verify in my (say) one hundred live humans that affect my life.


To butcher the point further -


I have dogs.

100% of dogs I know eat carrots.

I can read all the online articles I like, as far as my day-to-day decision making goes - Dogs like Carrots, and there is nothing particularly beneficial to me (or those dogs) for me to entertain other possibilities.

where were we? oh right, wild trans-nation trans-gender trans-generation spanning statements on this or that.

Go get a pen (or a pencil) and write down every A, B C thing you know (male, female, tall, left handed, smoker, I don't really care) and then write down what you know about them.

That's the useful data you should be using to inform your decisions and beliefs, not a news article from some place, some time, where some one did something because reasons.

You can't even begin to usefully apply that to your life.



(The extrapolation from this is that people who are heavily involved in some of these big ideas, are often missing the forest for the trees, and get so hung up on data they can't properly interrogate or understand, but feel a need to react to, eventually the idea gets a bit of momentum to it, and people jump on board....

I watch it happen weekly (if not daily) within my department, and it's distressing enough trying to untangle those messes and bring everyone down to a more practical reality. I can't imagine trying to talk down hundreds, thousands, possibly millions of people who have latched onto an idea without much consideration of what contributed to the conclusions....
Last edit: 5 years 2 months ago by JamesSand.
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5 years 2 months ago - 5 years 2 months ago #333085 by OB1Shinobi

Manu wrote: In as much as “toxic masculinity” is used as a culture weapon to justify tribalism......I completely agree with you that it should be fully rejected.



Consider the fact that the people who created the term have submitted no female equivalent into the discussion. “Toxic femininity” is a term which developed later, either by mens groups or just by general internet culture as a response to the use of the term “toxic masculinity”. According to the ideology, there can be no toxic femininity: its mens fault when men are abusive, but its also mens fault when women are abusive.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Toxic_femininity

Heres where things become tricky; there are any number of people (yourself included) who are willing to defend the idea of toxic masculinity on the grounds that the phrase points to something that is real. A few years of dialogue with you i feel pretty confident that youre not out there stirring up the hate cauldron like the witches in Macbeth, lol. And id say the same for most everyone else who i recall posting in this thread (though i admit that in 12 pages i may be missing someone lol) so what does that suggest? That even good people can accept an idea that was meant to cause trouble. The idea has to have a minimum degree of reasonableness or defensibility or else it wont ever become accepted enough to cause the trouble it was meant to cause.
We live in some weird times, man. Weird times.

People are complicated.
Last edit: 5 years 2 months ago by OB1Shinobi.
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5 years 2 months ago #333086 by JamesSand

The idea has to have a minimum degree of reasonableness or defensibility or else it wont ever become accepted enough to cause the trouble it was meant to cause.


No it doesn't, people are stupid, and bored, and like to cover those things by reacting to things in case it makes them look intelligent and active.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjQ-t7yITOo
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