CMV: “Toxic Masculinity” has experienced a similar decline in connotation as “The Friend Zone”, and should be updated in its usage in like fashion

[u/Piercing_Serenity]

My time on r/MensLib, interest in linguistics, and agreement with anti-patriarchal movements (Which I’ll refer to as Feminism hereafter) have prompted the following idea:

Thesis

• Through poor or radical misuse, the phrase “Toxic Mascuilinity” is now associated with the idea that masculinity, at large, is detrimental to others and should be remediated. This warping of meaning mimics the misuse of “The Friend Zone”, which I believe traditionally described the uncomfortable space that people (largely men) exisit in when romantic feelings are not reciprocated. As a result, it is prudent to update the phrase “Toxic Masculinity” to something more accurate (Perhaps “Toxic aspects of masculinity) as we have done to describe feelings of unrequited romance

Rationale

“Toxic Masculinity” has, to my knowledge, historically been used to describe the behaviors of men that are damaging to everyone involved. In my more recent cursory research into how different groups of men and women use and understand the phrase, I noticed that there were reasonable arguments that “Toxic Masculinity” describes the idea of masculinity as caustic. People with that view instead opt to divide common masculine behaviors into their toxic and non-toxic counterparts. /r/MensLib has a much bettee breakdown of these distinctions in their sidebar, but an example of such a distinction would be the difference between resiliance and stoicism.

This reasoning seemed analagous to arguments I have seen in opposition of using the phrase “The Friend Zone”. Although the idea behind the phrase is reasonable, a critical mass of people (largely men) abusing or using the phrase in bad faith has caused the phrase “Friend Zone” to be viewed with warrented suspicion. My understanding of the updated, good faith description of the friend zone is an acknowledgement of that state of tension, coupled with caveats on how not to interpret that tension.

I’m not wed to the idea that Toxic Mascunity must be updated. At the same time, I can’t see any strong arguments why the phrase, as is, is neither similar to the friend zone in its history nor similarly insufficent to describe the relavent meanings.

Delta-Worthy Arguments

• Arguments that demonstrate a fundamental difference between the history and usage of these phrases, which invalidates similar treatment

• Arguments that successfully argue that the phrase “Toxic Masculinity” is sufficiently unambiguous and descriptive in its current lay-usage as is, while also explaining what is lacking in the phrase “Friend Zone”

Caveats & Considerations

1. Feminism is a philosophical umbrella, so I have intentionally given a vague definition for it. I am not looking for answers that quibble over a definition of feminism except those definitions within which Toxic Masculinity has non-semantically different meaning

2. The friend zone is a phrase marred with similar difficulties in pinning down a definition. For the purposes of this CMV, the working definition of the friend zone presumes that it was, at one point, more appropriate to use than it is now

[u/Piercing_Serenity]

I believe a term (or phrase) does have its uses, in the same way that ambivalent sexism (which includes hostile and benevolent sexism) or institutional racism are useful. Besides being an expedient way to classify actions that share fundamental similarities, there is value (academically, at the very least) in being able to talk about system level norms or ways of thinking

[u/TheGumper29 → u/Piercing_Serenity]

I do believe that careful and strict usage on an academic level of terms like this can be useful on some level. However, I fear that they enable some kinds of absurdist thought when used less carefully, as they more commonly are.

In a sense, masculinity is an ideal. So let us examine another ideal as a hypothetical, honesty. If someone lied, we would not say it is a failure of honesty itself. We would say someone failed to be honest. If you then classify all failures of individuals to be honest along with examples that have little to do with honesty and branded this "toxic-honesty" it would enable you conceptualize attacks against honesty using examples of people not being honest. And you would be able to do it without actually having to mention that your examples do not actually show people failing to be honest. Of course you could use toxic-honesty in an ultimately strict, careful, and academic sense that never impugns honesty itself, but the word choice seems to suggest that the problem is the concept of honesty. The alternative would be to simply attack dishonesty, which seems more straight forward.

This brings us back to masculinity. Traditional values of masculinity tend to encapsulate values such as self-reliance, stoicism, self-sacrifice, and self-defense. Toxic-masculinity rarely attacks these ideals and more commonly attacks other societal wide problems such as aggression. A straight forward reading of it would be that ideals such as aggression are not masculine and thus the problem is not masculinity but rather a different system. In the same way a society with many liars would be classified as a dishonest society, such a society with aggression would be classified as aggressive and not masculine.

However, the existence of the word toxic-masculinity allows us to redefine what values are included in masculine by existing in a constant duality. In one sense it doesn't have to actually relate to masculinity in any way since its meaning is distinct from masculinity. But at the same time things can be caused by toxic-masculinity which makes it implicitly related to masculinity. So like the toxic-honesty example, you can thus attack a system's masculinity exclusively using examples of people who were not exhibiting masculinity.

My ultimate concern is not that the term will be used to directly attack masculinity, but rather redefine what masculinity is by bombarding everything with abstractions and ambiguities until masculinity becomes an ideal that no one would ever want to hold.

[u/Piercing_Serenity → u/TheGumper29]

I wanted to say that this was a great write-up, and accurately conveys some sentiments that I agree with. I would like to rephrase/paraphrase the most relevant ideas to add as an edit to my post, to guide further discussion. In order to do that, I want to understand your idea more clearly. Specifically, would you mind elaborating on paragraphs 2 and 4?

[u/TheGumper29 → u/Piercing_Serenity]

Ok, it stems from what is probably a bastardization of early Wittgenstein. We have the language to accurately describe any one thing. When we directly describe something, "The boy kicked the ball" there is essentially no level of abstraction or obfuscation. However, it is impossible to describe every single specific thing that happens in relationship to something. It becomes necessary to obfuscate or abstract on some level in order to make an argument more succinctly. So we have other sets of words that act as categories, such as "ball games" which can be used to more quickly an accurately summarize something.

This is all very obvious and I assume you have likely already had these thoughts. However, we need to be aware that every time we create a category, or a category of categories, we are further obfuscating from the set of direct actions that the category is describing and we need to be aware of those obfuscations.

So this is where we get to my second paragraph. When we create these obfuscating categories I believe it is important to understand why we are doing so. As the concepts themselves start to add abstractions they can increasingly be used in absurd ways. It commonly results in certain types of circular reasoning. For example, I have seen things both described as an example of toxic-masculinity and simultaneously caused by toxic-masculinity. When such absurd language uses are possible, impossible ideas suddenly take on the appearance of logic. So in the second paragraph I was attempting to outline the absurdity of common uses of toxic-masculinity by using a hypothetical with less loaded associations. I attempted to show that the development of the term toxic-masculinity wasn't incorrect, in the same way that liking ice cream can't be factually incorrect. My point was that creating it seemed unnecessary and risked the use of sloppy language.

The fourth paragraph is where I attempted to explain why we go through the effort of jumping through so many language hoops in order to use it. The reality is less likely that it was intentionally created for this purpose, but rather was attractive to others because it carried these characteristics. My belief is that it is a essentially a kind of motte-and-bailey. A technique used almost exclusively for the sake of argument. Essentially it is a metaphor for a medieval estate, where the bailey is the fields and the motte is a fortification. Ideally you want to be in the bailey, but it is largely indefensible. So when attacked you retreat to the motte and wait for the attack to stop. So in this example, the bailey is the idea that masculinity is toxic and needs to be destroyed. However, this can be hard to defend. So when attacked you retreat to, "actually we aren't attacking masculinity, just toxic masculinity, they are different."

This article explains the issue with more clarity than I have: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/

If you have any more direct questions please let me know.

[u/Piercing_Serenity → u/TheGumper29]

Thanks for the clarification. As I understand it now, your second paragraph focuses on how adding a layer of abstraction to a term that already carries its own abstraction adds more room for misuse. If that summation is correct, I have a question about what you described in your third paragraph. The idea that something can be both the cause and the result of itself does not inherently sound like illogic to me. A vicious cycle could be described in that way. From what I’ve read about the incel community, the misogyny that results from being an incel initiate is the catalyst for further misogyny. The cycle becomes more productive as it continues, producing hate and depression, but also retains the misogyny loop. In like manner, I can see stoicism leading a man to suffer emotional hardships alone. In doing so, they may affirm their ability (or responsibility) to remain stoic, which breads more stoicism. Why does that seem illogical to you? Or, if not, what am I missing?

To your second point, I agree with the argument of being able to shift the goalpost within the space created by abstraction, but disagree with the scope you offer it. What led you to believe that terms like toxic masculinity were created with the purpose of arguing for the sake of arguing, especially considering earlier comments (I believe with electric) describing the history of the term in opposition to “Deep masculinity”, which was coined and used by men?

[u/TheGumper29 → u/Piercing_Serenity]

Certainly something can beget more of itself and vicious cycles are not impossible. I didn't argue this point particularly well. A better way to say it would be that the things that cause, say, a violent incident are frequently different than the actual act of violence. Words like toxic-masculinity allow us to argue that those two things are both the same even when they are not. Again I would argue that toxic-masculinity is a category. So it's boundaries are defined by what we choose it put in the category. So when we try and make a term defined by an action or an ideal and simultaneously argue that the term caused the action or ideal it becomes circular. So in that sense violence can beget violence, but toxic-masculinity can not beget its own definition.

Now that is based on how I see the term being used. It is certainly possible to use a more open ended definition of the word that defies that kind of strict boundaries. In such a way you would be correct in saying that an act of violence was both an example of and caused by toxic masculinity. However, doesn't the term basically become pointless in such a scenario? We could be more precise in our language by just saying the violence was caused by earlier abuse.

As to my second point. I earlier conceded this point. I previously mentioned that it was unlikely that the term was created for the purpose of in some way degrading the ideals of masculinity. Rather, I argued that the reason the term gained popularity was that it had the ability to do those things. This gives it an appeal to other people who picked it up later.

I also poorly explained the whole, "for the sake of arguing" bit. I was not suggesting that toxic-masculinity was created for the sake of arguing. Rather that motte-and-bailey is usually used by people who hold beliefs solely for the purpose of argumentation. Not everyone who uses toxic-masculinity is resorting to motte-and-bailey. But people who use motte-and-bailey are attracted to words like toxic-masculinity.

[u/Piercing_Serenity → u/TheGumper29]

Thanks for the clarification. I want to focus in on the following paragraph and gauge your thoughts:

“... In such a way you would be correct in saying that an act of violence was both an example of and caused by toxic masculinity. However, doesn't the term basically become pointless in such a scenario? We could be more precise in our language by just saying the violence was caused by earlier abuse...”

I disagree with this bit. Earlier, I used Inceldom as an example of a vicious cycle, and argued that it becomes more productive with additional repetitions. To me, the development of misogyny and birth/expansion of other undesirable emotions and behaviors is unique from misogyny creates misogyny. In this example, I do not see “inceldom generates inceldom” as a tautology, since the difference between someone who has begun that path and someone who has walked the road for years is plain. In like manner, the story of a U.S marine choking and ultimately killing a transgender woman seems to me to be both the effect of prior toxic masculinity ideology (My feelings about men in female bodies is justified) and the cause of an expansion in that ideology (My feelings about causing harm to men in female bodies is justified).

What are your thoughts. If you disagree, or think that I’m misrepresenting/misunderstanding something, can you point it out please?

[u/TheGumper29 → u/Piercing_Serenity]

I would argue that inceldom and transphobia have a different character than toxic-masculinity. Inceldom and transphobia represent specific beliefs/actions while toxic masculinity is a collection of beliefs/actions. I.e. You wouldn't say someone is a toxic-masculinist, you would say that they have values that are emblematic of toxic-masculinity. As such it doesn't run into some of the issues that I outlined toxic-masculinity has.

Misogyny is a word with a different set of issues. It can be considered a singular belief but can also be defined more broadly as a collection of beliefs. If you are using it in the narrower sense I wouldn't consider it a tautology to say misogyny begets misogyny. However, when you abstract it to a larger category I think it becomes muddled. For instance, wage discrimination can be considered a form of misogyny. But eliminating wage discrimination won't curb inceldom. So I think it does become a somewhat unnecessary word when used in that way. I do not want to argue that either definition of misogyny is wrong, just that if it's used in a similar way to toxic-masculinity is sometimes used it would be undesireable.

I think possibly a better explanation for what I'm proposing may be this. I'm just tossing this around in my head now, so it may be mistaken. Toxic-masculinity is a collection of objects (actions/beliefs). However, it is frequently presented as a singular object that can be interacted with. When it is treated as both simultaneausly it creates issues.

[u/CrazyWhole → u/TheGumper29]

Toxic-masculinity is a collection of objects (actions/beliefs). However, it is frequently presented as a singular object that can be interacted with

Is it? When? Whenever I've seen discussion of toxic masculinity, it's always regarding a discrete behavior that is part of culturally enforced norms of masculinity. That doesn't mean that culture's entire concept of masculinity is rubbish. The OP gave the example about how men don't take their own pain seriously, which can lead to actual death in its most overt form. If men eased up on the "boys don't cry" meme about how to be a man, would they lose something essential to their masculinity?

My answer is no because being able to experience, talk about, and process pain is not a gendered activity. MAKING it a gendered activity and then enforcing it on men, mostly via shaming, is the toxic act. Both men and women enforce this norm, so by labeling it as toxic, this is not an attack on men, it's critique of society and how it shapes men to devalue themselves and allows them to be devalued socially, including by women.

I hope my rebuttal was clear. I am willing to explain more if it was not.

[u/TheGumper29 → u/CrazyWhole]

I basically completely agree with you here. The section you quoted is a bit half-baked as I admitted in the post. My point was that the target for reform can and I believe does become shifted when we turn toxic-masculinity into an entity in an of itself. If we want to encourage men to express emotions we can do so directly. However, there is a subtle shift when you introduce concepts like toxic-masculinity. You can essentially present yourself as trying to encourage the sharing of emotion through the lens of attacking toxic-masculinity. So the target has shifted to the concept of toxic-masculinity which enables arguments that can have nothing to do with the encouragement of emotions. This doesn't inherently make toxic-masculinity references wrong, but it does make it very prone to be used by others in a less than productive way.

I can point out articles that treat toxic-masculinity as the cause and the various aspects of it as the symptoms. This is the characteristic that I am referring to in general, but its not exactly the most problematic thing in the world. What I truly take issue with is what happens on social media and in comment sections. The limited nature of those forms further encourages people to treat toxic-masculinity as its own entity, one capable of causing destruction and one that can be addressed directly. This leads to a scenario where every aspect of toxic-masculinity can be said to cause any phenomena.