We Need More ‘Toxic Masculinity’

by Armando Simón (first published in Issues & Insights January 7, 2022)

“Nature doesn’t ask your permission; it doesn’t care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not. You’re obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky,

One has to be deaf, dumb and blind not to realize that for years masculinity, and men in general, have been under (propagandistic) attacks. There has been a systematic campaign to convince men to scale back their masculine qualities and become manginas. Some of the accusations have been so outlandish that they have occasionally inspired humor.

Towards this end, four different approaches have been evident.

The first has been to overemphasize the criminal behavior of deviant men and attribute them to the whole male gender, making men feel guilty for the deviant actions of a tiny few. The absurdity of attributing the actions of a tiny portion of the male gender to all men should be self-evident to all but feminists, who have been the ones promoting this viewpoint. A common variant of this approach in movies is to portray fathers as either evil or callous or uncaring (the recent film, Red Notice, is typical; the fathers of all three major characters are described by their offsprings as being terrible human beings; many cartoons like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Chicken Little, The Mitchells vs the Machines and others also portray fathers in a bad light, such as uncaring and unsupportive of their children).

The second has been one also invented and propagated by feminists — though feminists support all modes of attack aimed at men — and it is to create paranoid fantasies, such as “the patriarchy” and “a rape culture” and shrieking against these phantasms. Reality, facts, and logic make no impression on the adherents, and here it must be remembered that paranoia is the only mental illness that is contagious.

The third approach is more grotesque and is independent of feminists: transgenders. There is no more decisive approach to destroying one’s masculinity than to be castrated and wearing women’s clothing. The transgender movement can be looked simply at as a variant of those castration cults that have historically cropped up from time to time. This particular transgender mania began with the sudden obsession and mass glorification of a minor celebrity who decided to switch genders. You may remember the orgiastic reaction by the leftist media: “Bruce Jenner is courageous! He’s very courageous! She’s so courageous! Oh, so courageous! So very courageous! Is courageous! An inspiration for being so courageous! Oh, so very, very courageous! Let’s give her the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Why not also give him the Social Media Queen award for being courageous! For that matter, let’s name her one of Glamour’s 25 Glamour Women of the Year! And while we’re at it, also one of 2015 Entertainers of the Year! And Barbara Walter’s Most Fascinating Person of 2015! And here’s an idea: let’s put ‘her’ on the covers of both Vanity Fair and Sports Illustrated (after we photoshop the bejeezus out of the covers)! For being courageous! So very courageous! I’m so inspired by how courageous he/she/it is! Aren’t you?”

I’m sorry if this offends anyone (actually, I’m not), but any man who assents to be castrated, wears women’s clothing, and gets hopped up on estrogen is not admirable, is not courageous, it is repulsive and the end result is invariably grotesque. Nonetheless, leftists in society are encouraging men, especially children, to become transgender.

The fourth approach is not so obviously offensive or grotesque as the above three and is, therefore, the more insidious: feminizing men. This is done by constantly ridiculing or criticizing through the propaganda outlets of television, radio, and movies those specific behaviors which are characteristic of men, rendering them as caricatures, insulting men while urging them to behave more lady-like.

It used to be that women liked “the strong, silent type” of man. Perhaps they still do, but we often hear the opposite through social media and mainstream media, complaining that men don’t cry, or men don’t talk about their feelings, as if either one was a sin. It is true, though. Most men do not like to cry, much less blubber in public; if they feel they have to do so, for personal reasons, rather than cry publicly to gain sympathy from spectators they do it in private. As to “not talking about their feelings,” our feelings are no one else’s business, thank you very much. We will never know how many American men, nagged by their wives or girlfriends to talk about their feelings, have kept quiet to avoid fireworks, but secretly wanted to shout, “I’m a guy! I don’t even care about my own feelings! What is so important to you is inconsequential to me!”

This includes physical pain; many men, when in pain, just grit their teeth rather than cry out, whereas women insist on informing the entire world about their discomfort. Unlike women, men can spend long periods in each other’s company in silence; if there is nothing important to say, why talk? Across many cultures, old and new, such as Japan, Native Americans, Spartans, the gauchos, and others, the men were known for being laconic.

(Apropos of this, since men are subjected to so much criticism and derogatory remarks, I hope that I may be forgiven for making one about women: some women are emotional vampires. They seem to feed on others’ emotions. They are forever seeking drama, either as participants or as spectators, and if there is no interpersonal drama occurring, and no gossip to hear, they watch films and television series where emotional sparks fly and the characters cry at the drop of a hat.)

Men compete with one another for pre-eminence in a particular field. In organizations, men tend to claw their way to the top, elbowing each other out of the way. When women participate in these rugby-like professions and they get elbowed out of the way, they whine that it is because of sexism. And since society has been saturated with the message that since women have supposedly been repressed, oppressed, and suppressed, amends must take place. Towards this end, men in organizations should humbly, quietly, step aside and allow a woman to be in charge in positions of power and authority for which she is eminently qualified simply by virtue of having a vagina. Mind you, a specific woman who is truly qualified is never singled out. Rather, any woman must be selected as CEO, or president, simply for possessing a vagina.

“Violence never solved anything,” is another of the mantras. “If something bad is going on, notify someone.” These insidious messages are inculcated particularly, but not solely, in male children brought up by single mothers. It is a variation of the feminine mindset of “somebody will rescue me.” This is something that has been going on for decades. So pervasive has been this indoctrination that thieves have engaged in open acts of theft and have not been physically attacked by male bystanders. Acts of bullying have likewise not been reacted against.

Back in my day, if teachers or librarians attempted to convince children to become transgenders or homosexuals, or, teachers openly indoctrinated students to become Marxists, as is now frequently the case for all three, a father — or fathers — would not have hesitated two seconds to confront the perpetrator with a baseball bat and pulverize that “activist” to the point of being hospitalized for weeks — regardless of any legal consequences.

I am sorry if the following statement makes the reader have the vapors, but there are many times when violence is definitely called for. The alternative is to be a victim.

Lastly, there is the problem of courtship. It is true that some men don’t get the hint when they are trying to flirt with a woman who is not interested in their attention. Part of the problem is that women are often not direct, but instead rely on hints (whereas men tend to be direct when communicating), or it could be that the man is too dense to pick up on the hints. Yet, another aspect is the fact that some women have stated that they prefer if a man is persistent, that she is worth the effort of persisting. Now, how is a man to know? The same applies if a couple has an argument and the woman leaves, crying or in a huff. Some women expect the men to go after her and show they care. But, other women will interpret that action as being callous, or stalking. Again, how is a man to know? These days, a man has to walk a tightrope to start a relationship with a woman. Even simple, innocent, interest can be interpreted as “stalking.”

All that aside, I will now engage in self-praise for men.

Men take risks for others. We sacrifice ourselves for others. We save other people’s lives. Saving people is what men do — and I am not referring to those men whose job is to save others, as is the case with firemen, policemen, etc.

That men rescue women in peril is something that is taken for granted to the point that one could call it a norm. For example, a man died shielding his wife from a hit-and-run vehicle. In a car immobilized by flooding waters another man pushed his wife out of a broken windshield before he himself died. Several men have protected their wives from criminals, one of the husbands dying while shielding his wife, while other men saved other women from criminals.

Wild animals can be a hazard. A bobcat appeared out of nowhere and attacked a woman outside her home, whereupon her husband attacked the bobcat (men not only fight off bad felines but also bad canines). In water sports, a man punched a shark to save his wife, while a bystander jumped in to help a woman in the jaws of an alligator. Animals aside, men have rescued women who were drowning, even when the man doing the rescuing was paralyzed, some men even dying in the attempt.

Men have risked their lives going into burning buildings to save women, whether it is strangers — saving a 97 y/o woman — or a husband rescuing his wife and daughter from their burning home. Or a delivery man that just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Nor is risking one’s life to save another is reserved to just saving women. Men also rescue other men who are in peril. This brings me to subways. In New York City, people seem to be falling or pushed into the tracks and men rescue them. It seems to be a local custom in that city (to be fair, it also happens in Boston). Aside from subways, though, there are also burning cars where male rescuers help save lives.

And just as men rescue drowning women, men rescue drowning men.

Men also rescue children. Just as is the case with adults, children also come close to drowning. And men are there to save their lives (interestingly, drowning children is one scenario where quite a few nonuniformed women rescue others).

Catching falling children from buildings or other high places to certain death seems to be another common worldwide occurrence: in Vietnam, in China, in France, in South Africa, and in Turkey. Perhaps all those years catching balls come into play at the right time.

And then there are those infernal alligators.

Men even rescue animals that are in grave peril, at times putting their own lives on the line. Men have been known to go out of their way and risk their lives to rescue suffering animals, whether it is raccoons, otters, elk, seals, bears, foxes, cats, bobcats, horses, leopards, manatees, even whale sharks and, of course, many dogs.

And, yet again, there are the rescues of animals from those damn alligators.

This male quality is rarely acknowledged, much less widely praised, as a quality of men. Nonetheless, it is a masculine quality.

Yes. Bravely saving lives — it’s what men do.

“Toxic masculinity.” We need more of it.