Oh, hi babes. What's up? Welcome back.
Just a heads up. Today's video,
I am a little bit sick. There are things happening in here.
The holidays are here, of course.
I try to get into the Christmas spirit, but I live literally in a desert, and I feel like that just...
it makes it feel like it's just summer all the time. It's 80 degrees outside.
But despite all the sunshine and the warmth and the lights and the trees,
something still feels a little bit...
[Some notes of Toxic by Britney Spears play]
...toxic.
Toilet seats around the world being left up.
Filthy, disgusting men spreading their legs everywhere.
Video games. Those are happening.
This is toxic! [gunfire sounds from game, siren from megaphone]
I'm talking of course about Toxic Masculinity.
This used to be like an obscure term, I feel like. And now it's all over social media.
It's also all over not-social media.
You know you got Breitbart, Fox News constantly harping
on universities for their masculinity programs,
and there's the good old New York Times
which recently published a piece arguing that if left to their own devices
men would kill their dads and sleep with their moms.
So uh, maybe things have gotten a little outta hand
online with this stuff, which, you know, -never- happens.
Recently my very favorite Canadian Bundt cake stayed at my house.
So I asked him what he thinks about all this.
Ah, so toxic masculinity is
something that needs to be discussed,
but it isn't discussed the right way.
A lot of the people that use the term toxic masculinity
kind of throw it as a blanket statement that
kind of alienates people from the conversation
when it is actually representative of something that is
inherent in masculinity that may not necessarily be the best possible thing.
So I think that we should probably be talking
about toxic masculinity in a way that
doesn't call it toxic masculinity, maybe we should kind of
[airhorn blasts several times] Computer voice: Toxic.
Laci: What should we be talking about?
Bunty: We should be talking about the behavior
that men feel like they are forced to comply to
based on, on like what media perceptions would tell them to.
Being overly assertive.
You know, if you go on a date with a girl
expecting some form of like sexual compensation because you paid for a fucking bill.
And you know, I know a lot of guys are probably watching this and being like,
"I would never do that!" and that's great. You would never do that.
But it is a common thing. Being overly aggressive in a uh, in some form of argument.
And that would be a case of "toxic masculinity."
I was surprised to find, but also not, that I basically fully agreed with Bunty on this.
But I particularly agree in terms of what this term "toxic masculinity" sounds like.
It sounds like you're saying masculinity is toxic,
and I think that this is a bigger problem in social justice land.
A lot of the language that is used to communicate sounds kind of shaming.
Personally, I don't even care if we call it toxic masculinity or something else.
It's not the words that matter to me.
It is the underlying concept,
which has to do with violence.
First things first:
Masculinity isn't toxic and neither are men.
It's okay to be masculine. It's okay to be a man,
can't believe I have to say this, but here we are.
I first heard this term toxic masculinity when I was doing
training to become a domestic violence crisis counselor.
We were having a discussion about the relationship between gender and violence.
Big picture. You know masculinity refers to all the things that we think it means to be a man.
Here's a very non-exhaustive list.
You know if you look at these masculine roles,
these social expectations that we have of guys
nothing is super worrisome on its own,
but some of these traits might be worrisome in some situation.
Take aggression. You know generally an undesirable social behavior.
Please do not aggress people for no reason.
South Park characters: What's sup brah?! What brah?! 'Sup brah?!
Take a swing, brah! Right here, brah!
Laci: But aggression, when I'm defending myself... justified.
So this toxic bit really depends on the situation.
There are three masculine roles in particular that I think are worth,
you know, paying a little closer attention to.
The expectation that men express dominance all the time to be a real man is pretty much,
you know, completely at odds with non-violence. Violence is about dominance.
It can also be troubling when this expectation is turned against guys
who are perceived as not being dominant, or assertive, or aggressive enough.
You know guys who are maybe physically smaller, guys who are soft-spoken,
maybe a guy who's not a breadwinner, things like that.
They're shamed. They're seen as valueless, and I think that's bullshit.
Emotional repression. Okay, if you're expected to repress your emotions,
you know, from the time you're a little kid,
you know, don't cry, man up things like that. That's pretty obviously not healthy.
I think that most people can acknowledge
telling men that they can't feel things or that they always need to have,
you know, this strong stoic face on all the time,
no matter what, is pretty messed up. It's cruel.
Okay, three. The one that comes up the most in my world, sex as status.
The expectation that we have of young men is that they need to have a lot of sex, you know.
It's bad to be a virgin. What kind of behavior might that encourage in sexual situations?
And what is the belief that men should always, you know, want sex,
always be having sex, mean for men who are sexually assaulted?
Men who didn't want it. It is the same line of thinking that is used to dismiss the seriousness of male sexual assault.
Especially when the perpetrator is a woman. When it's a guy or even a little boy, you know, that's 11, 12 years old
that's violated people just don't take it as seriously. They might even congratulate him for it.
Now that's what I call toxic masculinity!
I'm calling the police right now...
[siren sound]
My eardrums are burst.
All right. That's enough megaphoning.
So that's basically how I see it. So I asked you guys for your thoughts on Twitter,
and some of you seem to be getting at basically the same thing that I'm saying.
Some of you said that toxic masculinity isn't real. That this is just sort of a
way to shame men for doing the same things that women are encouraged to do, which is interesting.
You know I'm open to hearing more on that.
Others of you asked well what about toxic femininity? What indeed?
Laci: Babe, what are my toxic feminity levels like right now?
Chris Ray Gun: Toxic? What are your toxic femininity levels?
Laci: Where are they at like, roughly? Chris: What kind of a--what scale are we using?
It this like a hot pepper scale? Laci: 1 to 10.
Chris: Okay. I dunno. I guess I'm just gonna guess like even... 5.
Laci: What?? I'm like halfway to all the way to toxic?
Chris: Yeah, halfway is default. Laci: Okay. So...
Chris: Halfway is really like the--the--where everybody starts.
If there is a toxic masculinity, then there must be a toxic femininity
because that--because I'm an egalitarian.
[Laci laughing]
Laci: Okay, so so what is it then?
Two... hours... later.
Chris: Anything that could be deemed toxic femininity, and I say that having a,
no love for the term, would would be in my opinion
something like I am to be protected at all costs so when I'm stopped by a police officer or
when I am busted in a, in a--at a traffic stop
I can just slap--fucking slap my arms at the cop, and it's totally fine cuz there
they're not gonna do anything.
Laci: So like the presumption of...
Chris: The presumption of innocence which isn't wrong, necessarily.
But it's the sense that like...
Laci: It's wrong when it comes at the expense of protecting other people.
Chris: Right.
Which of these traits could be a problem in some circumstances in the extreme?
The expectation to be self-critical, passive, weak, victim, afraid, irrational, pretty
I mean, damn.
I feel like a lot of these in the extreme could be, you know, not the greatest.
It could also be bad to be, you know, vagina-ing in the extreme...
Extreme Vagina! Dat's me.
Alright. I don't know. You guys tell me what you think.
Thanks for joining in the discussion guys. Love you all. Happy New Year.
I will be back next month. See you then. Muah!