Could you expand on this idea of toxic masculinity? I never really thought about it, have only a vague idea in my mind and I am genuinely curious to learn.
It basically comes to the way we've constructed masculinity as a form of power, over women, over children and over other men, especially. Feminists call traditional gender structures "patriarchy" for a reason, because it's a system of power-relations. The feminist argument is that gendered violence expresses the true nature of these relations, which are usually presented to us as beneficial and harmonious, or more recently simply denied to exist.
These power relations express themselves as physical violence for a great variety of reasons, but I think one recurring factor is a sense of frustration which develops when men associate masculinity with power, but do not actually possess substantial power of their own. This leads them to assert power through physical, sexual or psychological violence against those who are perceived to be less powerful than them, whether this is women, children, or "lesser" men, particularly sexual and ethnic minorities. (There's an analogy that can be drawn between the symbolic content of rape and far-right street violence.)
This, obviously enough, isn't any good for anyone. So what's the escape? We can't reestablish the traditional patriarchal household, which is neither plausible nor desirable, and which the historical record suggests wouldn't necessarily improve things all that much anyway. So the only alternative is to start redefining masculinity. That's the only thing which is going to save men from themselves.
That doesn't make sense to me. The answer to society harming women for being women is feminism. The answer to society harming men for being men would be a counterpoint to feminism, most of the terms for which are objects of scorn on this forum. And I'm concerned I might be starting to flirt with being "chauvinist" if I'm not very careful in advocating that we really need to be every bit as concerned about fashioning this world for our boys as we are our girls. The issues vary some, due to the past, the present, and the biology. But stating the fact that "college age women get sexually assaulted at massive unacceptable rates" is no answer to the fact that "far too many young men are perpetrators and victims of violence." That works in reverse too, and with more statements than just those two.
If we accept the premise(which we should) that we need feminism to drum and drum on women's rights in order to empower and advance the well-being of females while rejoicing in everything that makes them females we desperately need to develop an effective counterpoint for our males that is every bit as joyful. And no, merely stating that the powerful elite are overwhelmingly dudes does not undo the culture of violence, failed education, and incarceration anymore than do supermodels being actualized individuals undo the diminishing nature of the objectification of women.
The thing is, how you address men's issues is not just a matter of who you're advocating for, but what you're advocating against, and in both cases, that is what can at least be broadly be called "patriarchy". Feminists have already developed a critical analysis of patriarchy, so any progressive men's movement is going to start from that point. Anti-feminism doesn't offer men anything, because all it can do is reaffirm tradition, and tradition has failed us.
This is something that I think we already see in scholarship. Occasionally some bozo will pipe up saying that universities need to offer "men's studies" classes, and it will be explained to them that most gender studies departments already offer classes examining men and masculinity. These aren't presented as equal and opposite to women's studies because they grew out of it, taking the insights and tools developed by feminist scholars and turning them towards a discussion of men and masculinity. If a serious anti-feminist scholarship of masculinity was possible, we'd have seen at least some sign of it, but as it stands? Not a peep.
The trick, I suppose, is encouraging something similar to develop outside of academia, at the level of everyday life, and I'd optimistically suggest that we can find the first shoots of it already springing up.
The thing I want to drive home, in regards to both of the above replies, is that I am quite definitely not "anti-male". I am on the contrary very deeply
pro-male. Any serious humanism demands that we must be. I just don't think that men are, or have to be, what the reactionaries think we are. I think we can be better than that.
