Toxic Feminism Trumps Toxic Masculinity

by Kenneth Francis (February 2019)

Two Men by the Window, Edvard Munch, 1887

I’m sure readers will be familiar by now with the recent bizarre Gillette shaving advert, with the widely perceived message aimed at white men to be less toxic, thus less masculine. And although this naval-gazing publicity stunt is about generalising white men’s negative attitude toward women, it seems the message has nonetheless come across as feminist propaganda, according to many viewers’ comments on YouTube videos.

There’s also scenes of gangs of white bullies chasing a frightened boy, and two white boys engaging in wrestling rough play on the garden lawn, while relaxed black boys sitting down behaving themselves look on. Such slick, anti-White men semiotics are not uncommon in contemporary culture. But what is more disturbing (which I’ll come to later) is the recent considered opinion of the American Psychological Association (APA), which found that teaching a boy to be a man is now deemed harmful for the boy.

On a more serious note and to return to the APA’s findings: It said it could be damaging to teach boys about “traditional masculinity.” In its recently released report titled, “APA Guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Boys and Men,” the APA said the “traditional masculinity philosophy not only is ‘harmful’ but also could lead to homophobia and sexual harassment.”

What seems to be cited here as problematic are some traits of traditional masculinity, including elements of “anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk and violence.”

According to an APA article, the main thrust of the APA’s research is that “traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.”

These findings must be music to the ears of prison officers, CEO fat cats, and politicians. But surely common-sense logic tells us we probably need more young males to be independent risk-takers, who are both stoical and tougher? Softening up and getting in touch with your feelings have no place in a world hell-bent on denying reality and subjugating workers’ rights, and those overburdened with high taxation and low wages, as well as the fear of being physically attacked.

Let’s face it, there is nothing sweeter for the ruling class and corporate fat cats than docile, obedient, passive, cowardly men who remain silent. The Bible tells males, “Act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16: 13-14), while Joshua 1:9 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed.”

Rabbi Aryeh Spero wrote in American Thinker: “The vast majority of men have not used their physical power or their energy and testosterone to savage women. Those wishing, from the get-go, to degrade historic masculinity will enlarge, expand, and redefine the definition of sexual harassment so that many men not really guilty of harassment will be charged as harassers.”

In his Townhall column, Kurt Schlichter writes:

In his forthcoming book, Epiphanies: How We Got Wise to the Doublethink of Feminism, the Irish author John Waters writes about relationships between the sexes in Ireland:

I don’t think I really ever bought into the feminist version of reality, although for a time well into my 30s, I have to admit, I may have given the impression that I was on board. The idea of male oppression of women—in Ireland, where I had lived all my life, or any other Western country—was so far removed from the reality of my experience and my observations, that it was never really possible for me to see all this feminist agitation and complaining as anything other than a faintly amusing game. But there is a difference between reality and culture, and sometimes only great pain or difficulty enables one to bridge the gap.

He said he had grown up surrounded by women, his mother, aunts, three sisters, neighbours, teachers, nuns, nurses—all of them fully formed individuals who had made a go of their own lives and borne witness to their own outlooks on society.

Any of them would have been contemptuous of the idea that they were somehow under the heel of men. Sure, many of them had tough lives, rearing their families and struggling to get by in hard times. But their husbands had tough lives also, and these women knew it better than anyone. In no sense whatever did my father or any other man I ever came across as a child look down upon women or treat them as in any respect inferior. Such men regarded women differently to the way they regarded other men—which is to say that they treated them with an exalted respect.

Forget “jobs for the boys,” Women bosses are significantly more likely than men to discriminate against female employees, research has suggested. The study found that when presented with applications for promotion, women were more likely than men to assess the female candidate as less qualified than the male one. They were also prone to mark down women’s prospects for promotion and to assess them as more controlling than men in their management style.

As for toxic masculinity, there is a name for any man who unjustly demeans or sexually harasses a good woman: A creep. And what is really toxic in today’s culture are the godless social engineers who shake their fists at a divine entity they don’t believe in, while proclaiming: “We will make man in our image and our image only!”

I’ll leave the last words on the Gillette advert to writer/podcaster Stefan Molyneux, who says: “Like all good propaganda . . . The ethnic demographics spell a very, very clear story. It’s horrible, it’s horrendous and it implies of course that white Christian Europeans are the ones who have the most to learn from blacks and Middle-Eastern cultures about how best to treat their women.”

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The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd (with Theodore Dalrymple).

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