NORMA

International Journal for Masculinity Studies

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Editorial: is masculinity toxic?

Sam de Boise

To cite this article: Sam de Boise (2019) Editorial: is masculinity toxic?, NORMA, 14:3, 147-151,
DOI: 10.1080/18902138.2019.1654742
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2019.1654742

Published online: 30 Aug 2019.

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NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES
2019, VOL. 14, NO. 3, 147–151
https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2019.1654742

EDITORIAL

Editorial: is masculinity toxic?

In January of this year, the American Psychological Association (APA), released guidelines on
working with men and boys, and specifically how to deal with those who adhere to notions of
‘traditional masculinity’. The APA defined traditional masculinity as ‘marked by stoicism,
competitiveness, dominance and aggression [which] is, on the whole, harmful’ (Pappas,
2019), characterising it as adherence to a series of gendered attitudes, manifest more frequently
in behaviours by men. This, they suggested, was actively damaging to both others (violence,
transphobic, misogynistic, homophobic or racist bullying, sexual assault or harassment) and
the people themselves who subscribe to such gendered constructs (excessive drinking, physical
injuries from fighting, steroids, body dysmorphia, drug-taking, inability to express emotions).
These recommendations were subsequently branded as guidelines on ‘toxic masculinity’ by
various media outlets,1 a term commonly associated with the #Metoo Movement, though one
that has been in circulation since at least the late 1980s. The term’s current popularity is easy to
understand. Recent mass shootings, white nationalist terrorism in New Zealand, the US, the
UK, Europe and Scandinavia, as well as Islamist terrorism, have been committed in the over-
whelming majority by men. Media outlets tend to attribute these acts of violence to racism,
radicalism, mental health or access to guns. However, gender is the most common, but one
of the least discussed, denominators and it is tempting to suggest that some kind of toxic mas-
culinity is possibly the main cause behind such horrific, seemingly unconnected acts.
The etymology and uses of the concept ‘toxic masculinity’ have a mixed history. On the one
hand, it was used as an analytical concept to critique strict adherence to masculinised gender
norms with the goal of overturning those very same gender norms (Karner, 1996). On the
other, it was employed by groups like the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement and the Promise
Keepers during the 1980s and 1990s (Messner, 1998) in appeals to reject ‘hypermasculine’
and ‘warrior’ masculinity, which was seen as detrimental to the spiritual life of the family
(Ferber, 2000, p. 36). These groups instead advocated a return to some a priori ‘eternal mascu-
line’, founded on care and compassion, as well as ‘strength’ (both of character and in terms of
physicality). Yet, rather than seeking transformation, they adopted strongly antifeminist poli-
tics and overtly reactionary notions of a return gender roles through promoting a vision of the
‘benevolent patriarch’ as the (nuclear) family’s economic and spiritual provider.
Whilst the ‘costs of masculinity’ have long been noted (Dell, 1914; Messner, 1997), toxic
masculinity seems to suggest that it is certain gendered constructs which are a problem
rather than men in general. Indeed, this was the initial promise of separating ‘masculinity’,
conceptually, from ‘men’. However, this current discursive framing of toxic behaviours,
rather than masculinity itself as toxic is important for two main reasons: first it anticipates
the standard critique from figures within the so-called alt-right and masculinist/antifeminist
movements, who use the claim that feminism devalues men and masculinity, as an effective
means for recruitment (Nagle, 2017). In this way, the focus on behaviours, rather men as a
social category, seems to sidestep what has become an easy caricature of feminist approaches
to masculinity studies and a common refrain amongst antifeminist movements across the
globe (‘NOT ALL MEN’).

© 2019 The Nordic Association for Research on Men and Masculinities

148 EDITORIAL

At the same time, the APA’s advocacy lends institutional legitimacy to the notion that
certain gendered behaviours are socially constructed and can, therefore, be deconstructed.
These claims, advocated by psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, cultural studies and
gender studies scholars for decades, extends the reach of such ideas to those who are most
likely to drawn to idealising such behaviours. Thus the term ‘toxic masculinity’ potentially
increases receptivity to the notion that there are harmful and non-harmful forms of masculi-
nity, as well as operating as an analytic tool allowing masculinity scholars to talk in normative
terms of what masculinity should be rather than simply describing what it appears to be.
The predictable backlash against the APA guidelines on ‘traditional’ masculinity and the
term ‘toxic masculinity’ more generally, has focused largely on the terms’ very existence as evi-
dence that men are being victimised and masculinity devalued.2 Antifeminist critics commonly
conflate ‘toxic masculinity’ with some historically immutable sense of ‘being male’ or name
‘feminism’ as a singular, active subject (‘feminism does this or that’) which instinctively
hates men. Yet the most common is to point to statistics around incarceration rates,
wartime, drug or alcohol-related deaths and suicide statistics as evidence that men are now
‘second class citizens’. Popular and academic books have made these claims since the 1980s,
mixing data of various degrees of reliability with barefaced speculation (Benatar, 2012;
Farrell, 1993; Rosin, 2012; Thomas, 1993; Venker, 2013). Though, paradoxically, some also
use these statistics to suggest that masculinity is both under attack and not a cause of such
problems.
As with most antifeminist backlashes (Faludi, 1992) the idea that men are facing some kind
of existential threat is not a novel one, but it has a renewed importance given the current global
populist moment we are facing. Recent scholarship has increasingly shown how a discourse of
the ‘men under threat’, circulates within the ‘Manosphere’ online as well as in popular polem-
ical texts as effective recruiting tools (White, 2019; Wilson, 2018). Such discourses have been
mobilised effectively by masculinist groups, which subsequently operate as a gateway to other
right-wing politics (Kelly, 2017; Mellström, 2016). How to deal with the resurgently popular
discourse of the ‘war on men/masculinity’ across the globe (Chowdhury, 2014; García-
Favaro & Gill, 2016; Johansson & Lilja, 2013; Wojnicka, 2016), is a pressing challenge for fem-
inist scholars and particularly those engaged in studies on men and masculinities. In this way,
thinking about how the concepts we use are potentially coopted for antifeminist ends is
important.
Yet, in couching their critique in terms of men as victims, antifeminist and right-wing acti-
vists often conveniently ignore the fact that men are often the ones who send other men to war,
kill and imprison other men, are quantitatively more likely to be embroiled in both the drug
trade as well as the ‘war’ against it at all levels and are overrepresented as executives in the very
industries which fuel drug addiction. Here, there is a deliberate unwillingness to reconcile the
equally true notions that some groups of men could be both more likely to be perpetrators of
structural and interpersonal violence whilst others are more likely to be affected by that same
violence.
The notion that men are now victims has been dubbed (with no hint of irony as to the mili-
taristic language), ‘the war on men’. Yet sticking with this metaphor, it is clear that militarism
itself is inextricably bound to notions of masculinity at all levels (Christensen & Rasmussen,
2015). Crucially, understanding the intersections of militarism and masculinity clearly demon-
strates how particular groups of men are often physically and economically exploited by the
very systems from which other men benefit. In fact, Karner’s (1996) use of the term ‘toxic mas-
culinity’ was in direct response to returning Vietnam war veterans, suffering from PTSD, who
felt betrayed by the very government officials who sent them to war. As Stoltz demonstrates in
this issue, understanding militarism as a gendered force, necessitates thinking about complex
 NORMA 149

intersections of geopolitical privilege rather than understanding the actions of soldiers as the
actions of inherently good or bad people. Taking a different approach, Lin, also in this issue,
demonstrates that migrant rural men in China are economically marginalised by, but aspire to,
the same neoliberal logics which are so firmly gendered (Cornwall, Karioris, & Lindisfarne,
2016). They experience fatherhood and familial responsibility as the key to their identities
and in so doing are economically constrained by ‘traditional’ gendered expectations. In this
sense adherence to ‘traditional’ masculinity is perhaps more harmful than helpful.
Much like ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell, 1995) before, ‘toxic’ and ‘traditional mascu-
linity’ attempt to name problems of behaviours rather than intrinsic identities; to place empha-
sis on acts rather than individuals. Yet unlike structural concepts like hegemonic masculinity,
they instead pathologise a cluster of behaviours under a decontextualised, ahistorical label. In
this way, they individualise social problems and tend to ignore the contextual nature of various
performances, presuming a certain essence to these constructs. Gun violence and terrorism are
overwhelmingly the preserves of men and boys but perpetrators are celebrated as heroes
openly on ‘libertarian’ web forums by other men. The majority of these men may never be per-
petrators themselves. Nevertheless this ‘hero-worship’ legitimises militaristic ideals and
notions of violence against others as desirable which are instilled in many boys from an
early age and provide the foundation for such acts.
At worst, however, much like the concept of ‘hypermasculinity’, toxic masculinity risks
racialising a concept with its roots already deeply founded in colonialism. Evaluative accusa-
tions of being ‘too’ masculine are more commonly directed toward men of colour, resting as
they do on assumptions that the ‘ideal’ is the attributes most commonly discursively linked to
white, cisgendered, heterosexual, bourgeois and able-bodied men in the West. Men of colour,
by contrast, are frequently judged as ‘too masculine’ or ‘not masculine enough’ (Kalra, 2009;
Segal, 1990). As Maloul notes in this issue, in the US the ‘myth of the Arab Muslim masculine
evil’, applied frequently to young men of Palestinian heritage, becomes something against
which many US men define ‘virtuous’ masculinities. Traditional masculinity similarly
evokes ageist and racist spectres of ‘tradition’, despite the fact that young, white men are
often more likely to be involved in extremist acts.
Furthermore, whilst certain expressions are of course obvious manifestations of personally
or interpersonally destructive behaviours, the line becomes increasingly blurred when see-
mingly non-toxic sources of pride are toxic in their consequences. For instance, as Hultman
and Pule (2018) have demonstrated, notions of masculinity are firmly tied to climate change
and behaviours which men take pride in, ranging from a fierce commitment to meat-eating,
gendered forms of mechanophilia (Balkmar & Mellström, 2018) which in turn impact on
climate change. Increased carbon emissions through international business travel are gendered
in many ways. ‘International business masculinities’ (Connell & Wood, 2005) or even ‘good
fathers’ who work internationally, including us as academics whose identities may be
founded on feminist principles, contribute disproportionately to climate change. The global
military-industrial complex, too, potentially one of the most ‘masculine’ industries in the
world, is one of the world’s largest carbon emitters.
The geopolitically uneven effects of climate change are already being felt in those countries
with the fewest economic resources to mitigate its worst effects (Sealey-Huggins, 2018). Whilst
climate changes affect all of us, its effects are acutely felt by those in the global South. This is an
issue which is fundamentally gendered and racialised in terms of who has the biggest impact-
ing on contributing to climate change, who has the power to affect change, and who is most
affected by it. When these existential problems are so fundamentally gendered, it makes less
sense to discuss whether men practice ‘good’ or ‘bad’ masculinity as individuals without
also paying attention to systemic inequalities.
150 EDITORIAL

As others have argued, instead of toxic masculinity maybe the idea of masculinity itself is
toxic. In this way, as Allan (2018) has suggested, the concept of masculinity itself might be a
form of ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant, 2011) whereby the very promise of an attainable masculinity
becomes an obstacle to its own fulfilment. Yet, here again, the focus is often self-directed at the
individual’s psychological wellbeing which ignores the consequences of those decisions which
give one pleasure. What happens when belief in the types of behaviours associated with mul-
tiple cultural constructs of Western masculinity, despite being virtuous in terms of their inter-
personal characteristics, become barriers to ecological and existential survival? Perhaps
instead, as others have suggested, this conceptual confusion perhaps means abandoning the
concept of masculinity altogether in favour of a focus on what men do rather than what mas-
culinity is (Hearn, 2004). However, this entails the same strategic problem, in that such nar-
ratives are easily coopted by those with distinctly antifeminist motives.
In part, the debate over toxic masculinity mirrors the longstanding conceptual debate in
critical studies on men and masculinities; is masculinity a series of traits, a psychological cor-
relate, a specific historical construct with little basis in lived experience or all of the above? Are
masculinities plural or is it singular? If the former, which are the good ones and which are the
bad ones? Are they ‘bad’ in all contexts or just some? Who gets to decide? On the one hand, the
question of whether masculinity is itself toxic is a strategic question of naming. The cooptation
of the narrative that masculinity is inherently toxic is remarkably effective precisely because of
its affective value for those who are already invested in masculinity as a character attribute.
Toxic masculinity, however, too, feeds into this narrative whilst reducing systemic problems
to decontextualised, interpersonal acts.
For those of us working in critical studies on men and masculinities, it is important to con-
tinue to account for the evidence that certain groups of men are likely to be exposed to certain
types of risk, whilst on the other, acknowledging the gendered dynamics which lead to men
being more likely to be perpetrators of interpersonal and structural violences. Taking seriously
issues facing men, in feminist research, is needed to combat masculinist extremism. Yet rather
than separating toxic from non-toxic masculinities, this requires a sensitivity to the potential
implications of how the interplay of history, biography, discourse and geopolitics might be
better integrated into our own conceptual frameworks rather than falling too easily into
ready-made typologies which provide reductive answers to wider problems.

Notes
1. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/metoo-age-apa-guidelines-psychologists-talking-masculinity/
story?id=60453218
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/1/22/18188776/toxic-masculinity-gillette-ad-apa-
guidelines
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/toxic-masculinity.html
2. https://www.rt.com/usa/448410-apa-masculinity-bad-psychology/
https://spectator.us/war-masculinity-men/
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-its-ideology-vs-science-in-psychologys-
war-on-boys-and-men
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/jordan-petersons-broadside-against-the-war-on-
men/

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Sam de Boise
School of Music, Theatre and Art, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden
sam.deboise@oru.se http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9067-9496