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Toxicvanguard hat auf das Konzept der „toxischen Männlichkeit“ („Toxic masculinity“), also der vergiftenden Männlichkeit hingewiesen.
Toxic masculinity : Das primäre Konzept um den Schaden, den Männer in ihren Leben erfahren wieder auf das Patriarchat zurückzuführen. Vermutlich eingeführt worden um nicht über weibliche Täterschaft bzw. echte soziale Nachteile in der Gesellschaft diskutieren zu müssen, da sich diese nicht mit der Privilegientheorie vereinbaren lässt. Normalerweise wird “Toxic Masculinity” auch verwendet um typisch männliche Eigenschaften abzuwerten, ohne auf den Verletzungsaspekt weiter einzugehen.
Laut feministischer Argumentation gilt z.B auch folgendes. (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Toxic_masculinity) :
“A well-known masculinity movement that is not mostly anti-feminist has yet to appear.”
Was nichts anderes heisst, als dass alle nicht pro-feministischen Männlichkeitsformen toxisch sind. Daher benutzen wohl die meisten Radikalfeministinnen den Zusatz “toxisch” nicht, weil es aus ihrer Sicht schlicht deckungsgleich mit dem Wort Männlichkeit ist.
In dem oben genannten Link heißt es auch noch weiter:
Toxic masculinity is one of the ways in which Patriarchy is harmful to men. It is the socially-constructed attitudes that describe the masculine gender role as violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth.
A well-known masculinity movement that is not mostly anti-feminist has yet to appear.
- Men are just like that: the idea that a Real Man constantly thinks about sex.
- Emasculation: the idea that there is a finite range of political attitudes a Real Man can hold.
- The idea that Real Men should be prepared to be violent, even when it is not called for.
- For example, a common response to women’s tales of experiencing street harassment is for a man who’s listening to say, „If I was there, I would have punched [the harasser].“ This is problematic .
- Discussed at length in a Go Make Me A Sandwich blog entry Male Protagonist Bingo: A study in cliches
- The expectation that Real Men are strong, and that showing emotion is incompatible with being strong. Anger is either framed as the exception to the rule, or as not an emotion.
- Relatedly, the idea that a Real Man cannot be a victim of abuse, or that talking about it is shameful.
- Though not reinforced much in fictional media, in real life it is widely expected that a man would abandon his pregnant girlfriend, and is incapable and/or unwilling to take responsibility.
Also letztendlich die Beschreibung einengender Geschlechterollen für den Mann, wobei die Verantwortung hierfür allein dem Mann zugewiesen wird.
Das wird der Realität aus meiner Sicht nicht gerecht: Die Anforderungen werden eben nicht von Männern vorgegeben oder vom Patriarchat, sondern sie entstehen teilweise auch aus einer Interaktion von Männern und Frauen und sind Übertreibungen bestimmter tatsächlich bestehender Unterschiede.
In der Tat denken beispielsweise Männer sehr häufig an Sex und sind auch gerne bereit sexuelle Gelegenheiten zu nutzen oder Sex nur um des Sexes willen zu haben. Weil das so ist, sind Männer und Frauen verwundert, wenn Männer Sex ablehnen; Frauen sind, wenn Sex mit ihnen abgelehnt wird üblicherweise sogar beleidigt und gehen nicht selten dazu über den entsprechenden Mann zu beleidigen und herabzusetzen.
Und in der Tat ist eine Erwartung an Männer, dass sie stark sind. Auch weil sie tatsächlich häufig wesentlich abgebrühter und abgehärteter als viele Frauen sind, aber eben auch, weil Frauen starke Männer, die nicht auf die falsche Art Emotionen zeigen attraktiver finden und Männer, die weinerlich, heulend oder weich erscheinen eher abstrafen.
Männer sind das Produkt einer intrasexuellen Konkurrenz, die, da sie auch sehr körperlich ausgetragen wurde, eben eine Selektion zur Folge hatte, die nach Schwächen beim anderen sucht und sie nach Möglichkeit bei sich selbst verbirgt. Sie sind auch Produkt einer intersexuellen Selektion auf „Starke Männer“, die sich in einer Konkurrenz durchsetzen können und dort stark erscheinen. All dies prägt damit sowohl Mann als auch Frau.
Die Idee der rein sozialen Konstruktion der Geschlechter verbunden mit der Theorie, dass alles durch die Männer bzw. die mächtigen Männer konstruiert ist erlaubt eine differenziertere Betrachtung nicht und weißt die „Schuld“ dem Patriarchat zu. Folge ist, dass der Feminismus darauf verweisen kann, dass er ja auch nur die Männer von ihrer eigenen toxischen Maskulinität befreien möchte, sie ihn also unterstützen sollen, während es tatsächlich eine einseitige Schuldzuweisung und eine einseitige Beschreibung ins schlechte hinein ist, die als Rettung verkauft wird.
Petpanther hatte dazu in einem Kommentar noch eine Herleitung gepostet:
Der Psychologe Tom Golden (LSCW – Licensed Clinical Social Worker) hat den Urspung vom Konzept der “Toxic Masculinity” recherchiert. Hier ist unser australischer Spziologe Raewyn Connell aka Robert William Connell federführend. Meine Interpretation ist das er einfach seine Identitätsprobleme und die mit seiner Persönlichkeitsstörung verbundenen Selbsthass projeziert und “verwissenschaftlicht” hat. Viel in dem Bereich tun das leider.
” … Prior to the 1980?s the psychological community thought of sex roles in terms of traits. Men and women were seen as different but not seen in terms of one being better or worse then the other. The trait theory was in its heyday and different traits were assigned to each sex. Norms such as strong and aggressive went to the men’s column, norms such as nice and nurturing went into the women’s column. Very simple and obviously inadequate as a measure of both masculinity and femininity. After the 1980’s feminist writings started gaining influence in the academic study of men and masculinity. It’s not a big surprise that with this shift men/masculinity started being seen as “the problem.” Prior to this time men and masculinity had been seen as a group of traits, now this perception shifted and instead men and “masculinity” starts catching blame for the world’s ills. I know that is hard to believe but it is true. Feminism, which had found men to blame through “patriarchy” for many of women’s problems now was beginning to become dominant in the discourse about men and masculinity. One of the influential writers in the late 20th century was feminist R W Connell. It was in the mid 1980’s that Connell began writing about “hegemonic” masculinity. Connell’s book on Masculinities and specifically hegemonic masculinity came out in 1995 and was considered a top resource by academic psychologists on the study of masculinities. Since that time these ideas about hegemonic masculinity have become entrenched into academic psychology. But just what does Connell mean by hegemonic masculinity? According to an article in the Journal of Clinical Psychology in 2005 Connell defines hegemonic masculinity as “the dominant notion of masculinity in a particular context which serves as a standard upon which the “real man” is defined. Connell claims it is built on two legs, one being the domination of women and the other the hierarchy of intermale dominance. It is also shaped to a lesser extent by the stigmatization of homosexuality.”
Now in the academic psychology world masculinity through its perceived domination is seen as THE problem. We have gone from an overly simplistic trait view to an even more overly simplistic view of masculinity as being bad, as being responsible, as being the problem. It is amazing to me that so many educated people can take such a misandrist viewpoint. Masculinity is obviously very complex, there are multiple models pushing multiple norms, some violent, some peaceful, some yin and some yang. “Never hit a girl” or “girls first” were surely messages that most boys received loud and clear. But they were among many. It is very complex and to try and boil it down to men being bad seems incredibly simple minded. So many different voices it is preposterous to claim that only one very negative voice defines the masculinity that all other males will follow.
It is worthwhile noting that R W Connell changed sexes from male to female in 2006. He was Robert W Connell and then became Raewyn W Connell. I have heard that Connell went to a professional conference after this change and presented a paper as a woman, Raewyn Connell, without giving any sort of notification to many of his peers of his profound change. I understand there were more than a few dropped jaws at the professional meeting. Yes, what many academic psychologists believe about masculinity was drawn directly from the writing of someone who at best had an ambivalent perception of what it is to be a male. Someone who decided to cease being male. Hard to see this viewpoint as anything near fair and balanced.
Apparently academic psychologists in the U.S. have taken Connell’s theories of hegemonic masculinity and siphoned out the negative traits and distilled it down to what they now call “Toxic Masculinity” which is characterized by: ruthless competition, violent domination, inability to express emotions other than anger, unwillingness to admit weakness or dependency, devaluation of women and all feminine attributes in men, and homophobia.
It should be getting more clear about the origin of those four categories of the CMNI. (Violence, Power over women, Disdain for Homosexuality and Playboy) They are the basis to the ideas of hegemonic and/or toxic masculinity. It seems that Mahalik must have liked the idea of hegemonic masculinity and toxic masculinity and liked them so much that he just inserted those into his inventory as norms not because there was any research that backed up those choices, but because they were the foundation of the latest and hottest theory among his peers.
I can personally testify that the ideas of toxic masculinity are alive and well in the American Psychological Association’s one place to study men and masculinity, APA’s Division 51. It’s a hotbed of feminism and attachment to the ideas of toxic masculinity. I was on the mailing list for this group for some time (until I was unceremoniously tossed out) and was continually shocked at the adherence to these ideas. The basic unvarnished theory is that masculinity is the source of our problems and that men need to learn to be more mature which is “code” for men need to act more like women. One of the list members actually wrote a message where he stated just that. Men needed to be more mature like women and the world would immediately improve! This is the primitive feminist lens through which they see the world. They don’t even seem the least bit aware of the ideas and psychological theories around mature masculinity. Here is what the mission statement of the APA group that studies men and masculinity says:
“Acknowledges its historical debt to feminist-inspired scholarship on gender, and commits itself to the support of groups such as women, gays, lesbians and people of color that have been uniquely oppressed by the gender/class/race system.”
I don’t mind professionals being interested in this or that theory but what I do mind is when that theory becomes a sacred cow which limits open discussion. On the mailing list of Division 51 feminism was that sacred cow. It was highly discouraged to question anything about feminism. It was also not a good idea to make any references to possible biological factors in masculinity, or to consider men worthy of choice and compassion. None of those flew very well. Actually a man, a PhD, was banned from the list for bringing up male victims of domestic violence too many times. Hard to believe but in the wackie wonderland of the feminist Division 51 it is totally true …”
Eine etwas andere Sicht gibt es noch hier:
„Toxic masculinity“ is often tossed around as an example of harmful or misguided feminist theory (commonly in a distorted, misinterpreted form) by MRAs. I was recently even told that the term is an insidious propaganda technique attempting to falsely associate men with negativity. In debating the issue I’ve started to research the term’s history, with rather interesting results.
Most surprisingly, the phrase doesn’t appear to have been developed as feminist theory. Rather, early sources that I’ve found using it (dating from the early to mid 90s) are all associated with men’s movements and literature attempting to help men and boys overcome negative cultural issues. For example, Social Psychologist Frank S. Pittsman’s book Man Enough: Fathers, Sons, and the Search for Masculinity (1993) suggests that toxic masculinity may be the result of an absent father (107). This isn’t part of a feminist critique of patriarchy or anything of the sort; it’s a male-centered exploration of how our culture is failing boys and what we might do to improve upon it.
A good deal of the early discussion of toxic masculinity comes from the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement. The MMM wasn’t explicitly anti-feminist, but it was reacting against what it saw as negative consequences of (among other things) second-wave feminism (or at least negative issues brought to light by it). Fearing that feminist emphasis on women’s voices and problems was muting the voices of men and that men were without a positive, ritual way of developing and celebrating masculinity, the MMM saw men as emasculated and in crisis.
To the MMM, the current state of Western culture was preventing men from realizing a positive masculinity. This resulted in a harmful, distorted, competitive, and aggressive hyper-masculinity. Shepherd Bliss, who invented the term Mythopoetic Men’s Movement, also seems responsible for the term „toxic masculinity.“ Shepherd contrasts this toxic masculinity to what he calls „deep masculinity,“ a more cooperative, positive form of masculinity which he seeks to recover. He lays this out at some length in response to pro-feminist criticisms of the MMM in the edited volume The Politics of Manhood: Pro-Feminist Men Respond to the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement (1995) (301-302).
So there’s my contribution to Men’s Mondays. Toxic masculinity was a term invented by men’s activists (but not MRAs) to help address problems facing men that weren’t explicitly being tackled by feminists. Obviously the term has been appropriated by feminists and is often employed within feminist theoretical frameworks, but let’s maybe at least stop saying that it was created as feminist propaganda to denigrate men.
Und auch den Kommentar dahinter fand ich noch interessant:
I still dislike the term, and probably even more after this post. Toxic masculinity, as a topic, effectively divides masculinity into good parts and bad parts. I don’t think Robert Bly and the like are bad guys, but to me, the Mythopoetic men’s movement represents a progressive dead end. It did not work to end the restrictive way that masculinity mechanically functions. Instead, it aspires to establish a kinder, more gentle gender system. In effect, this makes the „man box“ even smaller, by scrubbing out the bad parts (with „bad“, I am guessing, being established based on a western judeo-christian value system). I don’t see how it liberates men from gender roles in any social way; it just reshuffles the cards.
Plus, I just don’t really believe in „good masculinity“ to begin with. Performative gender roles have the nasty habit of setting a barometer by which we judge individuals. Courage, for example, is a generally valued masculine, and probably „good“ attribute. However,judging mens worth based on their courage can have detrimental effects on those that don’t hold up (ie. „not a real man“), is based on a standard to which we do not hold women, and efforts to demonstrate this „good“ quality can have still disastrous results (for example, a man dying bungee jumping while trying to demonstrate said courage).
As to whether or not this term can be reclaimed, I don’t know. I don’t think its necessarily „feminist propaganda“. There are certainly aspects of masculinity that are toxic. Understanding those things has value (although I would argue it is all toxic, based on its enforcement, without even necessarily looking at specific attributes)). The term gets confused a lot (masculinity is toxic vs. some attributes of masculinity are toxic). How do we feel about the term toxic femininity? There are certainly aspects of feminine gender roles that are toxic, based on the same usage (submissiveness, etc), however you will find at least as much resistance to that term as you would toxic masculinity (it doesn’t even exist, as best I can tell, except in MRM blogs). If we can’t use the same language to describe each of these things (which ARE both toxic), then I don’t see how it can be done.
ich halte die Idee, dass man bestimmte Eigenschaften als „männlich“ oder „weiblich“ bezeichnet eh für falsch. Tatsächlich sind es eben eher bestimmte Eigenschaftsausprägungen, die im Schnitt abweichen. „Mut“ ist also nicht männlich. Allenfalls ist die Eigenschaft Mut bei Männern im Schnitt ausgeprägter (um das Beispiel aus dem Text zu übernehmen).
Alles Evolution 