Toxic Masculinity
you’re never going to believe this
but i’m in love with
an online forum devoted
to facial hair it’s called beardboard
and my brother and i stumbled upon it
this past spring when we were attempting
to grow our own quarantine beards
and if you know either of us you know
that this is ridiculous because neither
of us could grow a beard
in a full year much less just a couple
months
but what hooked me on beardboard wasn’t
the beards
but it was rather the community that i
had found it’s a place where generosity
is encouraged and cruelty is forbidden
where men can throw away the machismo
often accompanied
with with positive feedback and just be
themselves
as vox magazine put it beard board is
where toxic masculinity
goes to die but unfortunately in our
everyday
lives we’re shockingly different than
beardboard
we’re instead what other beard
communities are telling men look to the
beard club they
they tell men that they’re where real
men
beard the most out of their beards
and we don’t even know what this means
what we see
is that we typically reward the alpha
male that the ideal image of an american
man
is a six foot four macho stud resembling
rob gronkowski
he’s strong he’s assertive dominant
almost unfeeling never showing sadness
but you know if you look at me up on
this stage or many other men around the
world
you see that this doesn’t work for
everyone and personally
man-to-man bro to bro with the boys
i just want to cry loudly
softly alone with
others unadulterated weeping
but the expectations placed on men by
toxic masculinity
say no that men like me are pansies and
instead we should grow some chest air
man up a bit you see toxic masculinity
isn’t meant to demonize
men or male attributes but is rather
meant to point out the issues that come
from conforming to a traditional male
model
where did this model come from where did
it originate
uh in reader’s digest magazine rebecca
newman examines this and found
finds that pre-industrialization men who
cried
were leaders men who showed emotions and
broke the expectations of what we now
see as toxic masculinity were seen as
people with integrity
people to be looked up to but
industrialization shockingly changed
this somehow
as when men stopped working in their
homes on their own farms
and began working in factories that
relied on efficiency and quick tasks to
maximize profits
showing emotions was seen as a waste of
time
it would disrupt the natural flow of
things and managers saw it
as a loss of profit and this is where we
start to see
the traditional male models start to
originate
as men who work in factories teach their
sons that they should not cry because
it’s a waste of time
and these sons teach their sons that
they should not express their emotions
because it would disrupt the natural
flow of things even
post-industrialization
toxic masculinity evolved as when men
stopped working in factories
and began working in offices with their
brains
sitting down journalists warned that
they would begin to decay
become weak or god forbid
effeminate the solution
was sports baseball basketball football
all begin to arise in this area
in this era rather and it’s not that
these sports are uniquely bad i know i
love them myself
but it’s rather that they continued the
model of the traditional male image
the sort of rob gronkowski type beat and
this is where we arrive at
2021 as over generations this idea was
continued
and the expectations placed on men by
toxic masculinity are still here
but something that shocks me is how
toxic masculinity impacts our everyday
lives
and it goes far much further than anyone
would think
something as simple as wearing a mask or
washing one’s hands are impacted by this
idea
of the traditional man even pre-covered
19
researchers at ucla found that men are
50 percent less likely
to engage in safe virus practices i.e
wearing a mask washing hands staying at
home
the reason lies in the traditional male
model as it dictates that men cannot be
vulnerable
they cannot show weakness and the
researchers argued
that wearing a mask would show that they
were
submissive to the virus it would show
their weakness it would show that they
were even
ostensibly scared and as a result men
don’t do it or men committed to
masculinity don’t do these things which
is why we see
thousands of men walking around i don’t
need to i don’t need to go distance
there’s a 97 point whatever survival
rate or
the classic my personal favorite
hey bro can you put that up for me yeah
my bad mother it’s
it’s absolutely ridiculous men committed
to this act of masculinity
would much rather catch the virus spread
it to others and put themselves at risk
than they would
put a piece of fabric over their mouth
and if you’re thinking anything like me
you’ve already found the flaw in this
argument just using
a toxicly masculine ideal you can’t wear
a mask
what are you some type of beta male
let’s go man up
but even beyond kovid in the 20 in the
year 2020 toxic masculinity impacted our
everyday lives
in june of last year i marched in salt
lake city to protest the killing of
george floyd
and i found that i was one of few men
there
toxic masculinity dictates that men
cannot do things that are seen as
effeminate and math and activism or
standing up against social justice is
exactly this
protesting is seen as something for
women or
something that’s gay and last i checked
i was
a man and straight so something is
obviously going on here
in 2018 the razer company gillette
which i personally use as i know i’m
never trying to grow a beard again
issued an advertisement in support of me
too activists and their ideals
their advertisement strategy relies
revolves around
the best a man can get and they argued
that the best a man could get
was not the idea of masculinity that
allows sexual assault to occur
and even though this message is pretty
widely agreed upon
men saw it as an attack on themselves it
faced massive backlash
simply because it was activism the idea
is so
demonizing the idea of toxically
masculine men that
simply because it’s activism it’s not
supported
and it’s not as if a world without toxic
masculinity has every man being an
activist
it’s rather that masculinity won’t be
the sole factor stopping someone
well how do we stop toxic masculinity
how do we
change the societal expectations
currently placed on men
it starts with everyone watching this
right here by simply
encouraging men to take a step away from
this model and embrace traits that might
be traditionally seen as not masculine
you know crying when needed showing
emotions not needing to be dominant
or the alpha and over time just
on a more individual level on a more
relational level
men seeing other men doing this
ultimately results in a ripple effect
as the university of st louis found that
men who see other men
engaging in healthy habits feel
justified in doing the same
and as men see other men engaging in
these healthy things and
embracing not traditionally masculine
traits
the role the traditional role of
masculinity
just simply dissipates
at the end of the day i’m just a 17 year
old guy who can’t grow a beard but
i was hooked on this website devoted
solely to it
and it wasn’t because of the beards but
it was rather because of what i saw in
it
i saw a social change that i feel would
have incredibly positive impacts
on the world around us once again
the issue is not men but it’s rather
just men committed to this
act of masculinity the boys of today
will be the men of tomorrow and i hope
that they do not have to hide behind the
same beard of masculinity that many men
do today
thank you