Campus leftists have created a vocabulary of their own in recent years with the emergence of terms like trigger warning, white privilege and microaggression. One of their favorite terms right now seems to be “toxic masculinity.”
Nicole Russell writes at The Federalist that the term “is en vogue now, from college campuses to Playboy.” But for her, the notion that masculinity is “toxic” is a major problem. She argues society needs “more men embracing their natural masculinity.”
From the article:
The latest in the explorations and denigrations of toxic masculinity is the University of Regina, a school in Canada. They’re hosting a program called “Man Up Against Violence,” which asks male students to sit in a Catholic-style confessional booth and confess their sin of “hypermasculinity.”
What’s that? You weren’t aware masculinity, hyper or otherwise, was a problem? Well, universities want guys to own it and apologize for it—not just inwardly, but outwardly too. After a female colleague wrote about toxic masculinity, New Zealand’s Martin Van Beynen observed, “Toxic masculinity is the new male burden.” He is also trying to figure out what it means.
Russell, a mother of two boys, writes even those who promote “toxic masculinity” aren’t able to truly define what exactly it entails. She says surely “rape, misogyny, and abuse are toxic,” but suggests it’s clear the term, as used by others, clearly expands past those things:
But if the “We-hate-toxic-masculinity” crowd were just referring to this, they wouldn’t have a confessional booth set up on a college campus for the average male student, and abuse is more serious than that. Criminalizing manhood is a sure way to trivialize actual crimes by comparison by lumping two completely unlike things under the same heading.
Suggesting men confess a crime they didn’t commit, or confess to a crime that’s not even a crime (being a man) is progressive virtue-signaling in overdrive. Such a scheme is framed in such a way to deliberately hurt young men and thus our society at large, which benefits most from men meeting their masculine potential.
For Russell, society doesn’t need to explore “toxic masculinity.” Instead, it needs to promote healthy, natural masculinity:
Masculine men are as much the bedrock of society as strong, nurturing women. Don’t think so? Read a bit of history about the men and women who traversed this country’s wilderness and winters with minimal belongings on horseback and in carriages during the pioneer era. Talk about the sexes working together. Without each other, they likely may not have survived. Even though survival is easier today, men and women still need each other. We both have unique and complimentary things to offer each other and society.
Because feminists are so clueless and careless about the differences between men and women they seek to emasculate even an “average” guy as opposed to calling out men who are actual misogynists.
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