Toxic masculinity as I define it would be an overt drive to dominate others by verbal abuse or physical force, combined with a devaluation of human traits considered 'female' such as sesitivity, empathy, compassion, hence the use of pejorative gender based terms such as 'pussy' to denote cowardice and weakness. An added third part of my definition would be a celebration of men, male brotherhood, and the segregation of the sexes.
The denigration of women and female culture and characteristics, is apparent throughout our culture. As with the subjugation of other races, the subjugation women has always depended on economic dependence as well as uncontrolled pregnancy and motherhood.
Throughout history, economic depravation has forced women into sexual subservience. Starving, hopeless women, often with suffering children to care for, have been forced to allow the brutalization of their bodies for money to survive. Likewise, women in abusive marital circumstances have often been forced to accept the violence in order to stay alive and to keep the children alive.
Each day, I await the arrival of the newly released book by Mary Trump, a doctor of psychiatry who has written about the poisonous family dynamics that have erupted in the disaster of Donald Trump.
Wikipedia defines toxic masculinity, which is a term that originated in the 'men's movement as:
The concept of toxic masculinity is used in academic and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and to men themselves. Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominant, along with related traits such as misogyny and homophobia, can be considered "toxic" due in part to their promotion of violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence. The socialization of boys in patriarchal societies often normalizes violence, such as in the saying "boys will be boys" with regard to bullying and aggression.
Self-reliance and emotional repression are correlated with increased psychological problems in men such as depression, increased stress, and substance abuse. Toxic masculine traits are characteristic of the unspoken code of behavior among men in American prisons, where they exist in part as a response to the harsh conditions of prison life.
Other traditionally masculine traits such as devotion to work, pride in excelling at sports, and providing for one's family, are not considered to be "toxic". The concept was originally used by authors associated with the mythopoetic men's movement such as Shepherd Bliss to contrast stereotypical notions of masculinity with a "real" or "deep" masculinity that they say men have lost touch with in modern society.
I am familiar enough with toxic masculinity in my own life which, no doubt, has caused me to have a lifelong interest in gender politics. My father was a complex and confusing person. His own father was somewhat of an absentee dad being a Merchant Marine who was mostly away at sea until he was killed in Baltimore in an alleged hit and run incident. The death of his father plunged my dad into a mostly male world at a vulnerable age. After his father died, my grandmother and her mother kept the family together with work as seamstresses and money from boarding roomers. When his grandmother suffered a catastrophic stroke, living at the seashore with her son, my grandmother was forced to leave her youngest, Joe (my father) on his own at age 16 in order to care for her totally paralyzed mother. I don't know why she didn't take my father with her, maybe it was too much to take care of a 16 year old boy and a paralyzed mother, while trying to work and make enough money to stay alive, but at any rate, my father ended up joining the Civilian Conservation Corps and working on Skyline Drive.
That work experience set him up for his next, predictable, career choice, to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Merchant Marines. Both of these experiences put my father squarely into gender serrated circumstances for the next 10 years of his life since the Merchant Marines led into the United State Navy in time for World War II.
When my father came out of this period of his life into marriage and fatherhood and a job in the civilian sector, he was still in a gender segregated career in Ironwork and Structural Steel. A young man surrounded by hardened older men on whom he must depend for his safety and survival under the most dangerous of circumstances, will learn and adapt to their cultural expectations. My father became a hard-working, hard-drinking 'man's man.'
He was complex however, because he was also affectionate, devoted to family, I would even go so far as to say enamored of family life. He reveled in it. His fatherhood began with me, his first born daughter, when he and my mother were only in their twenties.
My father was never abusive towards my mother and I think it was because of his relationship with his mother, but he was abusive towards his first two children, me and my brother Joe, and particularly abusive towards my brother, a small, pale, sensitive boy who my father seemed to feel he had to "toughen up" in order for my brother to survive in the man's world. When I say 'abusive' I mean he hit us and he beat us with a belt, not frequently, but often enough to terrorize us. My father was in many ways like the fairy and folk tale characters I read about. He was the giant ogre at the top of the bean stalk that Jack climbs, and he was the sad beast in Beauty and the Beast.
One of the movies that I felt reflected his personality changes when he got drunk was Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. My brother wasn't the only one who got a view of my father's outlook on what you need to survive. Once after a particularly angry quarrel in the kitchen of our row home in Phila., dressed in a little white petticoat, I stomped my foot and declared I was going to run away. I headed upstairs to pack a little suitcase and my father said "Don't bother. Nothing belongs to you. I worked for it, paid for it, and it all belongs to me but you can keep your petticoat." I never forgot that lesson and it was a base for the many additional lessons I learned about independence and money. I always worked and I always paid my own way. I never wanted to be vulnerable to any man.
But it happened anyone when I got married to a man who was drafter and I became an army wife living in a foreign country. My husband's mood swings weren't caused by alcohol but by mental illness. He was later diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.
Throughout my marriage, I was 'groomed' to perceive myself as lesser, as less intelligent, less competent, less capable, inferior. These lessons were subtle and often disguised as affection as in his nicknames for me which were like the names you give a dog "Sport" and "Ace." Having learned to live with my father's personality changes when he got drunk, I soon adapted to my husband's personality changes when he became enraged. Again, I protected myself as well as I could by placating, avoiding, ignoring and after a dozen years, escaping.
Both in childhood and later life, I did meet men who were gentle and kind, non-threatening and reliable in the sense that their personalities stayed stable. My godfather was one. He was the most sensitive, kind, attentive man I ever met. He had no hidden agenda. I never had to fear him or be wary with him. My maternal grandfather was similar. He was kind, patient, paid attention to me, a child, never threatened or frightened me. Both of these men had also been in the military during war, my grandfather in WWI and my godfather in WWII, but somehow they had evaded the indoctrination into the kind of masculine behavior I later came to call 'Toxic."
They never used genderized terms to insult people such as "sissy" or "pussy" and neither of them drank to intoxication. My godfather worked in an ice cream factory and my grandfather was a postal carrier in Philadelphia. Frankly I don't believe I ever heard either of them raise their voices. They could be shelter in the storm, though neither would ever intervene when my father was on a rampage, no one did. No one protected us, not my mother nor any other relative ever said that beating us was wrong. In our South Philadelphia working class culture, it was a norm, so was weekend drunkenness and so was physical violence both in the family and in the community, in public and in private.
This seeping poison of toxic masculinity has been bubbling up again as a reaction to the rise of feminism and gender equality. I feel such empathy for the fear that African Americans must overcome in the face of the proven danger of racism, because I have lived with the fear of sudden unbounded violence all my life. It wasn't the police who harassed or beat me, it was closer to home and more complicated because my father was also devoted, loyal, and supportive in surprising ways. When the last of us was born; there are five of us, we could all say with certainty that our father and mother loved us totally and would do anything for us. We didn't suffer what children of absentee fathers suffered. My father was a good provider; my mother didn't want to work and she didn't have to, although she WORKED, in fact, about 15 hours a day cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, sewing, raising children, making a beautiful home for my father to come back to. And he appreciated it! He always told my mother what a wonderful meal she had provided, and they were affectionate and playful with one another. She always reminded us if we dared to complain, "You father works his fingers to the bone to provide everything for us. Be grateful!"
From the interviews I have heard with Mary Trump so far, it appears the patriarch, Fred Trump, was an intimidating, abusive, and cruel man who destabilized his eldest, sensitive son, to such an extent that he was dead at 41 from alcoholism. I have seen this father to son emotional abuse at close hand, the father is always more competent, the son is always incompetent, father holds all the cards. Father sets the standards to which the son must conform, regardless of his own traits or desires.
My favorite educational philosopher, Gardner, said "Don't ask how smart a child is, ask how is that child smart."
No one was asking any such thing of Trump's sons. They had to follow the path to get the money and any variation to the plan brought painful repercussions. Frightened children, will, of course, lie and dissemble to save themselves from pain and punishment, so did enslaved people, so do women. Donald Trump's constant shifting of responsibility and blame is to save himself from the humiliation he always feels coming.
Does it make any difference to know these things about him? I think we should all be more aware of psychology as well as the way it informs and propagates feelings and attitudes in our society. We need to think about the things we say, the words we use and their impact on impressionable children. We need to protect vulnerable boys from bullies in the playground and in the gym, and the kitchen. Our culture has to shift and we need to open the windows and doors and allow the sunshine in to dispel the long built up mustiness of restrictive and punishing racial and gender behaviors.
Happy Trails!
Jo Ann
ps. When I bought my house, myself, with my own money, my father said he had never been more proud of me. He bought me a sander, a skill saw and an electric drill/screwdriver. He also helped me finish the attic over a long grueling hot summer. He taught me how to drive a car, and when I didn't have a car of my own, he drove me to all the places I needed to go for documents to buy my house. My mother gave me her car! Today would have been my mother's birthday. I am the age she was when she died. My father lived on 14 years after my mother died, but the light had gone out of his life. My brother went to live with him.
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