By KAILEE ZHOU
In 2020, the pressing issue of toxic masculinity has become familiar to many. Recent surges in news coverage on issues such as gun violence, bullying, and domestic abuse have evoked a sense of urgency to solve the problem. But if male gender roles turn masculinity toxic, do traditional female roles also prompt a culture of toxicity amongst women, and if so, to what extent?
The concept of toxic masculinity stems from the central idea that men must conform to a restricting set of societal standards in order to be deemed manly; these expectations include displaying “masculine” traits like aggression and assertiveness while rejecting “feminine” characteristics such as sensitivity, as they are considered to be weak traits. Toxic femininity follows the same shaming ideology, shunning women who do not comply with conventionally feminine qualities such as gentleness, helplessness, and sensitivity.
Despite this similarity, critical differences divide the two concepts. In a world dominated by male leaders and authorities, conventional masculinity is considered “stronger” than traditional femininity. As a result, masculinity is seen by society as more desirable whereas femininity is at best seen simply as “harmless”. But how “harmless” is toxic femininity, really?
Toxic masculinity corrupts men by pressuring them to adhere to a confined set of characteristics in order to be deemed “manly”; these behaviours primarily involve asserting dominance through violence and aggression. Even from an early age, behaviours such as bullying and physical assaults are more common amongst boys than girls. In adulthood, nine out of ten of perpetrators of sexual violence and almost all mass shooters are men. Toxic femininity, however, does not promote violence and aggression to the same extent that toxic masculinity does as a means to achieve power. Statistics from the Bureau of Justice revealed that out of all who were arrested for violent crimes, 73% were men; this means that women are nearly three times less likely to cause death or serious deliberation. Instead, toxic femininity encourages women to accept a sexist society in order to survive. In this sense, perhaps womanhood is toxic.
The danger of toxic femininity is often overlooked in society. On a day-to-day basis, women blame bad behaviour on periods and cry to win arguments. Common examples of toxic feminism can even be seen on popular television—I can’t believe how many times I’ve seen a female protagonist slapping her love interest or another male character in the face simply because they wanted to take their emotions out on them. It is this kind of behaviour that encourages a culture of toxicity in society. On popular social media apps, such as Instagram, women police each other’s femininity through slut-shaming and body-shaming. When women use stereotypically feminine characteristics such as being emotionally turbulent and “catty” as excuses to achieve power over men and other women, this is toxic femininity.
However, I would argue that toxic femininity, although indeed toxic, should not be seen as the female counterpart to toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity is the driving catalyst that prompts people to resort to mass murder, abuse, and violence to hold power, whereas toxic femininity is more of a backhanded, passive aggressive way to conform to outdated societal standards. Because the scale of influence between the two issues is so wide, toxic femininity is considered by some to not exist at all. Whatever the case may be, both problems arise as consequences of a patriarchal society, and both are examples of internalized misogyny. If men and women continue to display toxic masculine and feminine traits, they are only encouraging toxicity amongst themselves and towards one another. In the end, men and women both adopt toxic behaviours—whether masculine or feminine—in order to survive in an oppressive society. Because of this, we should be more conscious of the behaviours we choose to practice and the influence patriarchy has had on our behaviour. We must put an end to these harmful patterns and think before we act.