Debating the existence of toxic masculinity/femininity

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. Unless we’re talking about the government, of course. In which case, the dumber the idea, the more theyll love it.

What do you think, fixed? Better, at least, lol.

I like picking on the government as much as (possibly more than) the next person, but it's a disease of any organisation.

As soon as you start having committees you stop doing deep assessment of the information, and start leaping to conclusions and policies and devising plans to enact......and often forget to go back and re-assess as you go along, or if you do "re-assess" (because "re-assess" is part of the six-step process on the PDF you downloaded on how to run an organisation) you re-assess against a point in the timeline that was already corrupted by earlier assumptions or acts and not the original datum.

Good news everyone: in light of recent insights gleaned about the nature of organizational structure, the committee has agreed to add a seventh point to our Corporate Leadership PDF. We will have another efficiency review in six weeks to reassess our methodlogies. Meeting adjourned.
If you need me, I’ll be at the bar.

So I did what I said and I said what I meant - I believe....useless traits that people in certain gender roles have picked up exist.

I said that, now I guess I have to try to back up why I said it, I sure as heck can't remember why I said it at the time.

First of all, of the people I could think of to write down, they all think they are smarter than me. Presumably at least a few of them are right, It is unlikely they all are. I don't think this is a gendered thing, this particular belief appears to be simply human in nature. I also can't really prove that it is unhelpful or detrimental to our activities and function as a group - other than internally, where everyone is telling themselves "if only everyone listened to me, everything would be better"

Across the board is that everyone believes their woes are caused by someone else. Again, I can't pin this to a gender, this is just a human bias methinks.

I've jotted down here that, among the males I know, big-noting their physical strength or speed and the "difficulty" of their job roles and family life, is pretty common.

I'm still not sure if this is damaging, but it seems to point to a trend that Men need to be Physically Good (and the ones that are clearly injured are sure to remind anyone who asks, or doesn't, that they "used to be an adventurer......" )
Maybe this is damaging? The heaviest thing I need to lift is a coffee cup, so why the hell do I work out 5 times a week? is this actually good for me? or do I get anxious if I'm not meeting an arbitrary physical standard for masculinity? why do all the others do it? (In all the names I wrote down - only 1 female had this trait. She's not the only one that was interested in being fit, but the only one that it seemed important that everyone else knew she was into it.... If it pleases the court, I can ask them directly why they think it is important to see if that sheds any light on the origin of the belief)

the other part is challenges - apparently it is important that Men have challenges - could be a hard job, a difficult boss, pets, family, debt - whatever it is, they are quick to let it be known they are Facing Challenges. Is this damaging? Are men hurting themselves or others to ensure that they are seen to be facing hardship? Is this a Masculine or a Culture thing? Maybe people just don't like people who have easy lives, so they all make up how hard it is for them. - Some of the females do have challenges listed against them, but they seem (to me) to be slightly different in nature, the emphasis is on People who are "Blocking" their success, the males seem to have vaguer challenges like "raising a family" or "paying off a home" rather than "Bruce got a promotion instead of me".

Status/Name dropping also seemed a pretty big deal - I've noted that many of the men I know want it to be known they are, or were important somewhere, and that they know important people. Now as far as I'm concerned, people are just sausages being kept warm until my dogs run out of kangaroo, but apparently some people are Premium sausages, and it is important to be one of those people, or be on first name terms with them. Is it damaging? Again, probably internally, everyone is trying to justify their existence, and if you've got nothing going for you personally, maybe you can scrape by on knowing someone who does, and telling everyone about it. I can't guess what the external dangers of this are. I guess if you have convinced yourself that you are Important, but no one else recognises this you might be more inclined to distress and acting out to remind them - whether this is through passive-agressive parking techniques in shopping centres (try opening your door NOW!) or outright violence to establish your dominance....I can't prove that. I don't have any of that written down here, so it's not data I can use.

There's a few other things I've noted down here, that I'm not sure help or hinder the specific discussion, but point to different attitudes (possibly) in how males and females interact with the world. How they ask for favours, how they pass on good/bad news.

And it's not exclusive....I've got at least one female (possibly two) that mostly have a similar story to majority of the males, and at least one male than writes up similar to the females.


How much of my notes are coloured by my own perceptions is likely impossible for me to determine myself, and how much of my notes are coloured by my ability to gather the information based on how all these individuals interact with me is again, probably impossible for me to determine myself.


I'm not really reaching a conclusion with any of this, I was trying to see if I could find an answer to the question looking at my own backyard.

Stereotypes can be really useful, especially to train and entrain, but in terms of self identity - not so much, IMO... as (used that way) they tend to be quite limiting, and make people inflexible when reality does not match the limited scope of a stereotype!

So I reckon the 'type' of behaviour exhibiting toxicity is less about the toxicity and more about whom or how the behaviour is manifesting.... and toxic masculinity for example is less about masculinity and more about toxicity that is generally (mis)associated as masculinity - therefore not really representative of masculinity more broadly, necessarily.

And so perhaps that toxicity tends to emerge when a stereotype is used for self identity and is being applied outside the effective use of that stereotype.... with toxicity being harm to person doing it, and those around them.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

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!

How? Because that's not what I see.. The Sun is the perfect representation of Masculine Light. Whereas a full moon is a reflection of the same light. However, it reflects a softer, feminine side to light. Everything in Life is manifestation of the same Energy/Light.. true darkness seems like a void of sorts.. not the source of anything's at all except maybe twisted reflections..

Have you ever told a woman that she is the pale reflection of a man?

As an anti-feminist, I:
-Know better than to make this sort of suggestion regarding feminine/masculine characteristics.
-Know that females in the sexed animal/plant world tend to be hardier than males.
-Refrain from attributing sexual characteristics to things like photons on the basis of their makeup/quantity.

following on with Ren's bit - does that mean the angry mobs have the power?

That's the thing isn't it. The angry mobs' victims don't have the power, yet could you honestly label you average angry mob member as powerful? They are pawns, a sociopath's pawns. And the thing is, sociopaths are very good at pretending to be pawns like the ones they surround themselves with.

Uzima Moto wrote: How? Because that's not what I see.. The Sun is the perfect representation of Masculine Light. Whereas a full moon is a reflection of the same light. However, it reflects a softer, feminine side to light. Everything in Life is manifestation of the same Energy/Light.. true darkness seems like a void of sorts.. not the source of anything's at all except maybe twisted reflections..

Did you read that in a llewellen book on wicca?  Because it goes so much deeper than that. What existed before everything else? The dark. So where did everything come from? The spark. The spark is the light, the mother, the goddess that exists within the dark. The literal womb of all creation that utilizes the raw material of the dark to create.

Modern paganism is just one of the latest interpretations of this concept. And they have it wrong because they don't tell the entire story. Many ancient peoples worshiped the sun as the source of feminine energy, especially northern cultures who saw the sun as the source of life, the mother and the moon as the father. It did not flip in many cultures until patriarchal driven religions invaded and forced conversion.

Look at the yin yang. Male is light and female is dark but contained within each is a component of the other. This is the balance of both the light and the dark, not the suppression of either. It represents the paradox of dual monism in reality. That the source of the force is from the combination of BOTH!

When the literal spark within the dark ignighted creation, life emerged, literally chi or the force, manifested as the opposite aspect of the creator component, the light, the female and the dark, the male. The dark is the fuel of creation and the light is the spark of ignition. Only together do they make up the engine that drives life forward.

The whole (no pun intended) yin yang feminine masculine thing is over hyped hoopla IMO. It's an example to demonstrate, not a model of a deeper structure. The difference between those things is real important in my experience.... and for example, feminine could be called yang if the attribute defining it was creativity, with the whole creating life, which itself creates so much. As such things like modern paganism and popular commentary on Taoism and TCM quite often just reiterate and rebrand misinterpretations, IMO.

Edit; that said, the 'blending' of sexual differentiated characteristics with the absence of it is a powerful tool in spiritual alchemy, and modelling characteristics of other people (and things) is another powerful tool in spiritual alchemy. These things exist in less dramatic and more historically rooted forms in Vayrayana for example, and other religions.

Taoism isn't dualist. The yin/yang is the idea that apparent opposites are in fact one with the whole.

It's all essentially advaita vendanta, under a different name.