The ‘toxic masculinity’ blame game

The spark for this article came from my 14-year-old son’s outrage while watching the current series of Doctor Who. When Stephen Fry’s character told Jodie Whittaker he’d read the files and concluded that the Doctor was a man, she replied: “I’ve had an upgrade.” Cue a tirade about the new series falling over itself to prove its “wokeness” and having become a lecture on social-justice issues rather than about time travel and aliens. Admittedly, as a fan of “classic Who”, he was always going to be a tough audience, but he did start me thinking about the messages our young men get about what it means to be a man in today’s world, and about how schools might contribute to their experience.

In what follows, I do not seek to deny the reality that for hundreds of years women, members of minoritised ethnic groups, those with disabilities and those with other “protected characteristics” have been systematically disadvantaged. I do not challenge the position that, at the same time, white, straight, able-bodied, gender-conforming men have occupied the other end of the power hierarchy; these are indisputable facts. What I aim to do is to provoke reflection upon what it might be like to be a young man growing up in a culture in which your privilege is now widely accepted, and in which you are held to be complicit because of it.

Let’s look at the evidence. Not of the ways in which men are advantaged, but of how it is now commonplace to hear this being commented on. Over recent years, derogatory words and phrases have entered the popular lexicon, and are now pervasive in news items, popular culture and social media: “mansplaining”, “manspreading”, “manterrupting”, “toxic masculinity”, “your privilege is showing” and “he’s reaping the patriarchal dividend”. OK, maybe that last one is a bit niche (it comes from the Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell), but it has a lovely ring to it and can be used to undermine pretty much anything any man does, lending the accuser not only rights to the moral high ground but also an air of academic legitimacy. And yes, I have used it.

Before thinking about how it feels to be a young man in the new “woke” world and how this might play out in schools, let’s look at two of the above phrases in more detail. First up is “mansplaining”, the most commonly heard of the triad of new derogatory “man” words, which made it into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018 (incidentally, at the same time as the newer meaning of “snowflake” ). It is a verb, used only of a man, meaning “to explain something needlessly, overbearingly, or condescendingly, especially to a woman, in a manner thought to reveal a patronising or chauvinistic attitude”. The key element of mansplaining is the assumption by the speaker that he knows more than the woman to whom he is talking, simply because she is female and he is male.

However, language evolves and the use of the word has expanded to cover a much wider range of utterances by men.

First, “mansplaining” shifted to cover men offering an opinion (rather than explanation) on any issue on which women, often with justification, feel they have particular insight. Men enter discussions on topics such as feminism, femininity, reproductive ethics and the gender pay gap at their own risk. Anything that touches on the “lived experience” of women is dangerous territory for a man.

This mirrors a trend in public debate that is increasingly structured by identity politics. We organise ourselves into groups according to our identities, prioritise the needs of that group and deny those who do not share our identity the right to speak. Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be the same objection when women discuss masculinity.

The meaning of the word has now shifted even further and it seems that, for some people, “mansplaining” is now a legitimate accusation to level at any man offering their opinion on anything. A quick search for #mansplaining on Twitter shows it being used to try to shut down men offering views on topics not usually thought of as just women’s issues. At the time of writing, the top four are: climate change, presidential candidates, cyber security and how to correctly operate a barbecue.

What does this look like in the classroom? Are young men’s views on all topics valued in the same way that young women’s views are? If we’re teaching on women’s suffrage, is there a tendency towards giving the girls in the class more “air time” than the boys? Do the young men in our classrooms feel that their views on topics associated with the experiences of women are welcome and treated as a valid contribution?

Of course, it is important to recognise that their views come from an outsider perspective, but that doesn’t devalue them - it just means they’re different. As we know from research, outsiders have some advantages, not least that they may see things rendered invisible to the insider because they have become part of the wallpaper. Laying these issues out for the whole class, acknowledging the value of different viewpoints, might help everyone feel their contribution is welcome. That’s not to say we ought to give licence to those who might want to deny the reality of the structural disadvantage experienced by women, but by inviting opinions from all we open up the opportunity for factual inaccuracies to be corrected with evidence.

The second term I want to explore is “toxic masculinity”. Before we get into what it means, it is worth pausing and reflecting on whether using the term “toxic femininity” would be accepted so readily. As an experiment, you could try it out in the next staff meeting and see how it goes down. I’ll admit I have not yet been brave enough to attempt this.

There’s not one answer to what “toxic masculinity” is. However, in none of its original uses was it intended to demonise men. The “toxic” acted as a qualifier, suggesting other forms of masculinity that were non-toxic, but this nuance seems to be disappearing. The term originated in mythopoetic men’s groups in the 1980s and 1990s, in which a fundamental belief was that men had been forced to repress their deep masculinity to “get in touch with their feminine side”, and that this denial of their true nature was causing them harm. The poet Robert Bly’s 1990 book Iron John gives a flavour of what this movement was all about: these supposedly essential characteristics of masculinity that men were being forced to hide were, they argued, treated as if they were “toxic”. The movement organised group sessions, usually outdoors, in which men could recover their essential maleness and “the warrior within”. The mythopoetic men’s movement seems to be enjoying something of a resurgence at the moment, on both sides of the Atlantic.

In academic writing, the term has a different meaning. The key difference is that masculinity is understood as socially constructed (created by society) rather than as essential (or fixed). Most writers agree on the characteristics that can be thought of as “toxic”, and that these are harmful to men, as well as to society generally. They include that men should be socially dominant, physically powerful, daring and not express their emotions. For Connell (Masculinities, 1995), it is more complicated: she argues that the problem arises when some men can’t live up to the dominant stereotype of masculinity in any society, and so resort to using force to appear to be in control. However, whether the problem is men acting out approved gender roles or responding to being unable to, the end result is the same.

This raises issues for schools. One is that our young men may be hearing things that make them think there’s something wrong with being a man, that there are aspects of their identity that are “toxic” : problematic, unwanted and potentially dangerous. Then there’s the question about what expectations we place on them in school because they’re male. What are we asking of young men? What competing versions of what it means to be male are they negotiating?

We have come a long way from the days of boys and girls being asked to line up separately, but our gender-based expectations run deep and can be hard to shake. How many of us have been guilty of asking for “two strong boys” to help move the desks? At one time both my son and daughter were at nursery. Collecting them one day, I was greeted by the nursery teacher with a smiling “boys will be boys” because my son was covered in dirt from gardening (I use the term loosely) and - from the same teacher, in the same sentence - apologies that my daughter had got her clothes dirty (yes, same soil).

More recently, the now teenage boy has talked about how when girls are upset by teasing at school they’re consoled by teachers, but he and his male friends have got the message that they should rise above teasing from the girls and not let it bother them. It seems that boys are expected to be more sensitive and open about their feelings, except when they aren’t. A good first step would be for us all to become a little bit more aware of the ways in which our own gender expectations shape how we engage with all young people in schools.

A final concern I have is the way that, in relation to all kinds of protected characteristics, we can fall into the trap of holding individuals responsible for the actions of others who share those characteristics. While many of the wrongs of history have undoubtedly been committed by white men, we need to find ways of talking about this that don’t make young white men feel that they are somehow guilty by association.

One way to do this is to highlight that not all white men throughout history have been privileged. This goes back to the power hierarchy I mentioned earlier. Yes, the vast majority of those at the top are white, straight, able-bodied men, but not all white, straight, able-bodied men are at the top. In the same way, although most violent assaults are committed by men, most men don’t commit violent assaults.

When talking about inequality and privilege with young people, we need to find ways of talking about how structural inequality operates; how advantage on the basis of identity is intersectional, and an important part of this intersectionality is poverty. Recognising that straight, white, able-bodied men can also be disadvantaged and marginalised will help us to make sure that young men don’t feel blamed.

Another strategy is to highlight how those who do occupy relatively (rather than absolutely) privileged positions can use their power to help those lower down the pecking order. This way we position them as people who have the opportunity to help others, but not because as individuals they owe women something, or because they share a collective guilt and it is payback time, or because we think they all have absolute privilege. We need to have confidence in our ability to help boys to see that it is simply the right thing to do.

Gale Macleod is a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education and Sport

This article originally appeared in the 28 February 2020 issue under the headline “Toxic masculinity: what does it mean to be a man?”