Hi everyone, I hope you’re all well.
So, Tuesday November 19 th was International Men’s Day!
A day to celebrate the achievements and contributions of all the good blokes out there,
plus a day to raise awareness of issues disproportionately affecting
men, such as homelessness, workplace dangers, and worst-case
manifestations of poor mental health.
Now, if you didn’t know it was International men’s Day, or even that
it was a thing, don’t worry; most people don’t seem to.
While International Women’s Day is lavished with
mainstream attention, promoted weeks in advance, and recognised
by the UN, International Men’s Day gets no such accolades.
This is for the very obvious reason that it’s simply not trendy to care
about men.
The Western cultural zeitgeist is permeated by fourth
wave feminist rhetoric, which has designated men, specifically
straight white men, as a common enemy who oppresses everyone
around them.
This is based on the Apex fallacy; that is, the notion that the
experiences of an entire group are reflected by the experiences of
those at the top of the group.
Since a very small percentage of white men hold most of the top level, most lucrative
positions in society, feminists have decided that this means all
white men are inherently privileged, and oppress everyone who is not
them.
This is a juvenile hypothesis; anyone with a shred of critical thinking
skill would realise that basing the experiences of an entire group on
those at the top is half-baked at best.
And if you want to know how half-baked, feel free to watch my International
Men’s Day video from 2018 for the full details when you’ve finished
this one, I’ve linked it in the video description.
And while you’re at it; if you want to see more content debunking
these kinds of feminist narratives, pretty please subscribe to my
channel if you haven’t already!
I would really love to reach 150 thousand subscribers by the end of the year,
so it would make me really really happy if you hit that subscribe
button right now!
Anyway, speaking of feminist narratives, we’ve heard a lot about
toxic masculinity this year.
This is a term that’s been thrown around a bit for the last little while, but rose
to prominence with that infamous ad for Gillette
Now, this ad caused a furore, because it was the final straw in a long
line of anti-white-male commentary from the mainstream media,
Hollywood, academia, pop culture generally.
And for anyone who still, for some reason, doesn’t think this
anti-make narrative is a thing, ask yourself this.
Why is it that straight white men are the only identity group that is
socially acceptable to publicly denigrate on the basis of their race,
sexuality, and gender?
Surely, if white men were so oppressive and terrifying, criticising them would result
in severe repercussions, right?
I mean, you certainly wouldn’t be able to say this on live, state
funded TV
Certainly, men
did not appreciate being accused of having committed some terrible original sin of toxic
masculinity, which they had to spend their entire lives atoning for.
And while yes, feminists insist that they don’t mean masculinity
itself is toxic, just certain elements of it are “problematic”; get
real.
The term has been weaponised to guilt trip and emasculate men by
insisting something within their very core is toxic, and if they’re not
actively fighting against this evil within them, they are misogynists
who are letting the team down.
That’s why you’ll often hear feminists talking about “traditional
masculinity” in disparaging ways, not just “toxic”.
It’s an intimidating thing to have thrust in your face via popular
culture every day, especially for young men and boys who are
still coming to grips with who they are.
But here’s the thing; toxic masculinity isn’t real.
It’s a feminist conspiracy theory that, while it originated
with the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement as a way to encourage men
to open up about their emotions and discourage extreme self-reliance,
has been hijacked by resentful, misandrist extremists to slowly
chip away at men’s self- esteem until they lose all sense of self.
It’s a sick sort of revenge for a patriarchal past, which is characteristic
of the modern feminist movement generally.
So, what is toxic masculinity?
Well, according to feminist and academic Colleen Clemens:
“Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of
manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status
and aggression.
It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is
everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality
are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly
“feminine” traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to
simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status
as “man” can be taken away.”
Sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it?
Definitely like something men should strive avoid.
But the thing is, that’s actually not the cultural
idea of manliness; well, certainly not a normal person’s.
That’s a feminist perspective of what manliness is;
a projection of their internal resentment of and dislike for men,
or, in the case of male feminists who also promote this stuff, their
strange willingness to be subjugated by women.
There has been a lot of commentary and studies over the last few
years about the inherent dangers of toxic masculinity, or traditional
masculine traits.
Like this one, as outlined in Australian academic publication The Conversation.
Commissioned as part of the Jesuit Social Services’ Men’s Project, the
researchers surveyed 1,000 men between the ages of 18 and 30 on
their attitudes toward what they have called seven pillars of
traditional manhood; self-sufficiency, toughness, physical
attractiveness, rigid gender roles, heterosexuality and homophobia,
hypersexuality, and aggression and control over women.
Only, who in their right mind would think that things like rigid gender
roles, homophobia, and aggression and control over women are
associated with traditional manhood?
None of that sounds very masculine to me; it just sounds like bad behaviour.
But again, this is the fourth wave feminist perception of what
traditional manhood or masculinity is.
Other behaviours that feminists attribute to toxic masculinity are DV,
sexual assault, trash talking women, bullying, cat calling, misogyny,
etc etc.
But none of that is actually masculine behaviour.
Masculinity traditionally is associated with courage,
resilience, honesty and chivalry.
It involves protecting those less powerful that you are,
providing for your family, and being a rock in times of trouble.
So, beating your wife and kids isn't masculine, neither is sexual
assault, or bullying, or being hypersexual, or talking trash about
women.
All those behaviours involve taking on and abusing people
who are not going to be able to defend themselves, and are as such
some of the most cowardly things a person can do.
That is the binary opposite of masculine.
Misogyny itself is the opposite of masculinity, because it flies in the
face of the typically masculine drive to care and provide for women,
and the inherent respect for women that involves.
So, these negative behaviours feminists go on about are not in
any way associated with traditional masculinity.
It’s is simply male-typical jerk behaviour, just
as there's female typical jerk behaviour, which has nothing to do
with masculinity and everything to do with being, well, a jerk.
Both men and women can be jerks.
Interestingly enough, they tend to exercise their jerkdom in gender typical
ways.
Rather than this being solely the result of how we are socialised,
it is in very large part to do with our biology.
Now this is very very hard to accept for feminists who believe that all the differences
between men and women are socialised, but that thinking is
totally at odds with the science.
There is so much research to indicate that gender differences are the
result of hormones, physical makeup, etc, not social pressures.
To put it in a very rudimentary way, men produce
more testosterone than women and are physically stronger, so
of course they are more likely to act in a violent aggressive way
hen presented with certain stimuli.
Women produce more oxytocin and are have less physical prowess,
so are less inclined to belt people up and more inclined to use
relational aggression and social exclusion to intimidate people and
gain.
For more information, please see the video description, I have
included some sources.
So, the reason male-typical bad behaviour involves what I just
outlined is not the result of some cultural scourge of toxic
masculinity that socialises men to give in to their darker instincts.
It’s just their genetic makeup manifesting their
badness in a particular way.
It has nothing to do with trying live up to some standard of
masculinity, and everything to do with individual choices.
And while sure, it is true that men do feel societal
pressure to man up, and fight
back, and get lots of girls, this societal pressure is modelled out of
our genetic makeup.
It didn’t just come out of the blue, it’s a chicken
and egg scenario.
Aside from anything else, it seems that men generally don’t approve
of male typical jerk behaviours.
Back to the Jesuit study; it found that, only 34% of respondents thought a guy
who doesn’t fight back when pushed around is weak, 23% thought it’s
not good for a boy to be taught to do chores or take care of younger
children, and only 19% thought a man shouldn’t have to do household
chores.
On the subject of male virility, just 25% thought a ‘real man’ should
have as many sexual partners as possible, and 24% thought a real
man would never say no to sex.
In addition to that, only 20% thought men should use violence to get respect if
necessary, and also, 83% of them thought straight guys being friends with
gay guys is totally fine and normal.
Now, considering the apparently prolific abhorrent social messaging
young men are allegedly getting about being tough, and violent, and
exercising dominance over women, and having no respect for
anyone, those are pretty darn low numbers, I would have thought.
With the exception of gay guys being friend with straight guys, but
that’s a good thing.
The reality is that masculinity is good for society.
Calling a man traditionally masculine is a huge compliment
when masculinity is correctly defined.
The word “masculinity” came well before the
phrase toxic masculinity, the 1600’s to be precise, and was defined
as, according to Merriam Webster, “the quality or nature of the male
sex : the quality, state, or degree of being masculine or manly”
Synonyms for the word masculine, according to the Collins
Dictionary, are courage, bravery, vigour, heroism, mettle, boldness,
firmness, valour, fearlessness, intrepidity, hardihood.
Can someone tell me how any of those qualities are bad
things?
Were it not for those qualities in men, Western society as
we known it would not exist.
And while yes, of course, women have those qualities as well, and
yes you have some masculine women and some feminine men, those
qualities in women tend to manifest in different, less obvious or
physical ways than in the traditionally masculine fashion.
The only way you can say traditional masculinity is
a bad thing is if you wilfully falsely define it to support your narrative.
There is, however, one tenet of supposedly “toxic masculinity” that I
agree with, and that’s the pressure men feel to bottle up their
feelings, and act tough even when they feel like breaking down.
That’s a terrible burden to bear, and is borne of the inherently male
drive to protect and to provide.
It stems from a time when women really were dependent on men for
survival, so if men cared about their families, which they did, they
didn’t have the luxury of taking time out to address their mental
health.
They just had to soldier on.
That attitude still looms large today, even though society has
changed a lot, and there is less pressure on men to be sole providers.
It’s why men’s mental health is such a mess, and why they often
don’t seek help when they need it.
That is an attitude that is toxic, and should be constantly rallied against,
for the sake of all men.
But all in all, toxic masculinity is based on a wholly ideological,
inaccurate concept of what “manhood” really is.
So, in honour of International Men’s Day, we should thank
our lucky stars for traditional masculinity, and the good work
it influences the good men in our lives to do.
Men have always made enormous and often unspoken sacrifices for
their families; giving all of themselves and asking nothing in return.
Let’s try to honour that, because trust me; men go through more
than they let on.