Toxic? You can't 'cure' a tendency towards stoicism, aggression and competition. Elif Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty
Gender studies courses should only be open to people who either have children, or have spent time working with farmyard animals. What else am I to conclude after learning that academics in this field (especially childless ones) think all sex-based traits are down to “nurture” rather than “nature”, even when it comes to the difference between hens and roosters?
They’d be less confident if they’d watched a clutch of chicks grow up, as we did over lockdown last year. Our little flock of backyard chickens now includes four hens and one rooster. He’s insufferable. I’ve watched his obnoxious personality blossom, in stark contrast to the docile hens, and I can only describe him as an absolute cock — both literally and figuratively. He is aggressive, domineering, territorial, horny, and very, very loud.
It would be difficult to find a creature who more completely epitomises all the traits we’re encouraged to condemn these days, under the catch-all term “toxic masculinity” But as well as being amused by his problematic machismo (and ridiculous hat), I’ve developed a grudging respect for his attitude. He takes his duties as chicken patriarch seriously, and is insufferable mostly because he pursues these duties with bird-brained single-mindedness.
He’s protective of the hens, stands guard while they eat and will fight anything he considers a threat to them – including us. Full-blown military assault by him is a mixture of comical and genuinely unnerving, as now he’s an adult he has spurs. He wields these sharp protrusions from the backs of his legs like a pair of sabres, fluffing up his neck feathers and flying at you spurs first, whereupon you have to win or he’ll attack you every time you go near him.
In humans, this kind of belligerence is the male-coded trait quickest to be filed under “toxic masculinity”. Regardless of how things are for chickens, though, we’re told that aggression in human males has nothing to do with biology. Instead, the explanations for phenomena such as males’ measurably greater propensity to commit violent crime are explained by theories such as bad role models, economic stress or gender role identification.
Having watched the rooster and the hens develop so differently, I find this less than convincing. It seems far-fetched that humans should be the only sexually dimorphic species on the planet in which sex has absolutely zero impact on attitude or behaviour.
“So what?” you might say. We may have some evolved instincts, but unlike chickens, humans can modulate these according to different social and cultural norms. Certainly, in many historic contexts, social pressure has leaned toward punishing not aggressive males but those who weren’t aggressive enough. This was the case until very recently: 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers in World War 1 were shot for cowardice.
And further back in time, some societies took these traits to extremes. The 13th-century Old Norse Saga of the Jomsvikings recounts exploits of such cheerfully macho ultra-violence they make my rooster look chicken. In one such episode, Svein Buason, a Jomsviking due to be executed, asks his enemies to hold his hair away from his neck so it won’t be bloodied as the blade falls. He then jerks his head, causing the blade to fall and cut off his enemy’s hands. It doesn’t get much more macho than using your own inevitable death to troll the enemy.
Contemporary culture, though, has swung the other way, and would rather deprecate than celebrate anything with a whiff of old-school masculinity. This is perhaps understandable: we live in a peaceful and high-tech society, and once-adaptive male-coded traits such as violence and physical risk-taking just aren’t useful like they were to the Jomsvikings. Indeed, in a society where employers prioritise soft skills, collaborative working and low levels of overt conflict, such traits are actively undesirable.
This is all fine, provided you believe human nature to be completely malleable. We just need to train boys out of being cock-ish. But the signs are not especially promising. In 2017-18, there were 7,905 permanent exclusions from schools (mostly for violence), of which only 1,787 (23%) were girls.
Some argue that the cure for this is working harder at teaching boys to eschew toxic masculinity. But what if a baseline of aggression is baked into human males, as it is in cockerels? Even if such tendencies are somewhat responsive to cultural cues, they may not be absolutely so. And if this is the case, efforts to eradicate “toxic masculinity” may be futile or even counter-productive.
Certainly, many of the young men on the receiving end of such social-constructionist efforts are responding by rejecting not stoicism, aggression and competition but the mainstream preference for cooperation, empathy, and non-violent negotiation. You can find some of these men in internet subcultures that revere traditionally cock-ish traits and cultures such as the Vikings and Spartans, while chafing at what Bronze Age Pervert, one of the more prominent voices in these realms, calls “matriarchy”.
In such groups, Jomsviking-style machismo, or even the World War 1 sort, is far from nearing extinction through social engineering. On the contrary: it’s increasingly self-aware and mutinous, and views the war on “toxic masculinity” as a conspiracy to subordinate the natural vigour of males. And men who have adopted a version of this worldview are increasingly opting out of the moral mainstream in more concrete ways too.
It was relatively easy to pretend the 20,000-odd Western fighters who joined Isis were motivated mainly by religious fervour. But this is less persuasive in the case of the hundreds of right-wingers who flocked to the recent conflict in the Ukraine, choosing their “side” seemingly at random and on occasions even shooting at each other.
What do they want, though? Consider the Viking raiders so idolised by such subcultures. These, reports the 17th-century historian William Camden, were drawn by lot from communities with too many spare males, and encouraged to go raiding in no small part because they were a nuisance at home. And they didn’t just want gold and women; they wanted glory. It’s not inconceivable that people such as Craig Lang, wanted for murder in the USA but feted as a hero in Ukraine for his role in the conflict there, went in search of something similar.
This is not to condone such actions, but to wonder: what are the alternatives? In On Combat, Lt Col David Grossman compares peaceful, productive, empathic citizens (sheep), sociopathic aggressors (wolves) and those with “a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens” which he calls “sheepdogs”: those who fight to protect their own.
For Grossman, there’s honour in being a “sheepdog”. But well-meaning blank-slatist efforts to re-code all combative traits as “toxic masculinity” are now having the side-effect of rendering the “sheepdog” type suspect as well. Today, male-coded belligerence and stoicism are under fire even in quintessential “sheepdog” institutions such as the military and police.
But if, as I suspect, a measure of cockerel-like attitude is ineradicable in at least some human males, this may well backfire. If such men are now unwelcome even in the mainstream military and pseudo-military institutions that previously valued their personalities, we may find ourselves not in a safer and gentler world after all. We might just discover we have more Craig Langs on the loose.
Lang is relatively unusual in seeking out combat. But the underbelly of the internet is full of men violently hostile to the norms of a “feminist” mainstream that deplores the things they value, and who daydream increasingly vividly about the search for glory. Perhaps they will confine this to the realm of fantasy forever. But perhaps they won’t.
None of this is to offer an unqualified endorsement of these traits, which have many downsides. But wouldn’t we be better-advised to seek constructive roles for the men who possess them, rather than trying to “educate” (in other words shame) “toxic masculinity” out of existence. Especially if the alternative is a growing subculture of men who have gone beyond daydreaming online about “Vikings”, to actively seeking to recreate their violent, restless and hypermasculine world in the 21st century.
Our rooster has a job to do, and we value him for it – even though he is a cock. But for men whose personalities tend toward aggression, protectiveness, competition and stoicism, what honourable roles are left? We’d be foolish to shrug our shoulders as such men lose hope of being valued as protectors, and start looking for glory as wolves.
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SubscribeSometimes there’s an aspect of unreality to all the talk on here and elsewhere on the internet, particularly where s e x characteristics are concerned. Up and down Britain and beyond, big strong men continue to exist, working at whatever – farming, manufacturing, labouring, engineering, plumbing etc.
There have always been other men sitting in offices working away with words and information for hundreds of years. We all rely on both types to order our world.
There’s a vast disconnect between the official (but superficial) feminist orthodoxy and what is real and happening in peoples lives.
Most people recognise “gender studies” are a joke I think.
I love Mary’s articles but, like almost all female writers on this subject she omits a discussion of the vital ingredient that drives such male behaviour, namely testosterone. Just as no man can know the feeling of that primeval need to have a baby that a childless woman in her thirties might experience, no pre-menopausal woman can ever know the power of testosterone on the male of the species.
It follows from this that rather than such “Viking” like behaviour being restricted to only “toxic” males, most men will react violently when provoked sufficiently such as in the case of The Fishmongers’ Hall reaction of bystanders to the extremist’s actions.
If anyone really wants to understand the differences between men and women please read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” by John Gray, the all-time best-selling book on relationships. I believe it should be required reading for sixth formers of both sexes as there remains a chasm of understanding of the opposite s e x which is being exacerbated by the direction of debate that insists that making our young men more feminine will eradicate violence once and for all.
Unfortunately any teacher recommending such a book today would almost certainly be sanctioned or sacked for doing so (see the case of Will Knowland at Eton). The answers to this debate have been freely available for decades but young people are not allowed to read about them.
“like almost all female writers on this subject she omits a discussion of the vital ingredient that drives such male behaviour, namely testosterone. “
Well it seemed to me like the entire article was about that. She used an animal model of sex differences to make the point.
Which would you recommend to a young man or woman to read in order to understand more fully the opposite s e x, a classic, well-researched and engagingly written book about actual human relationships or for them to research chickens and ancient Viking history? The problem is that the former is prohibited in schools under the current climate of intellectual groupthink to the detriment of both s e x e s. In the meantime female writers will continue to debate masculinity without the visceral knowledge of what it means to be a man and remain completely puzzled by the subject. If they are truly interested in understanding male behaviour, it already exists in print form.
No chickens required.
Books are at least one remove from reality, any book can be countered by another, and there would be plenty doing so.
Looking at what actually happens may give more insight.
I was down with the chickens actually. I never read men are from Mars women are from venus. I’m sure that’s fine too.
…..
A couple of points.
The opening line of my original post namely “I love Mary’s articles…” was genuine. She is easily the best female writer whose articles on a wide variety of subjects I look forward to with eager anticipation.
Secondly, although the ability to read contributors’ previous posts seems to have disappeared in the current incarnation of Unherd I can assure you that my views on most subjects (including this one) are firmly to the right of centre.
Lastly my comments were not intended to attack Mary but rather an exhortation to engage with the vast body of literature that already exists on this subject but is deemed a no-go area in modern Britain and particularly within the education sector.
Thank you for clarifying that. Just a healthy intellectual disagreement with the author then over valid points on a subject you’ve given a lot of thought to, and not what I suggested may have been the case. I stand corrected.
No worries John. I appreciate your taking the time to read my reply.
Briliantly put, Stephen. But consider that the true intention of way too many of the present “researchers” is to gain power. Actual understanding on men does not serve this purpose, which explains the choice of failed tools and biased methodologies. Not to mention the disregard for the input of the research subject…
We also must recognise the ambivalence in women about what they want in men.
Decades ago, in the Presidential contest between George Bush (sr) and Gary Hart, a Texan woman described her feelings as: In my heart I prefer Bush. But in my bush, I prefer Hart.
Indeed, and that ambivalence is very much caused by feminist indoctrination. Girls and young women are constantly bombarded by feminist propaganda, ‘equality’, ‘toxic masculinity’, the dreaded ‘patriarchy’, denigrating motherhood and homemaking, raising them to have a ‘career’, and all the time this is at odds with their feelings and instincts. No wonder they are ambivalent, they don’t know whether they’re coming or going.
I don’t mean women should not have careers by the way, just that there should be more recognition that they fit comfortably with the priority of having a family.
Not that long ago, there were articles about professional women who were complaining about the lack of financially attractive male partners. Never mind how the part of finances flies in the face of decades of feminist dogma, these women were noticing the results of years of what you describe while presumably being ignorant of its cause.
Much truth in this. I would guess, though, that if anything there is currently even more discussion on the topic that you have identified.
Yes. Jordan Peterson observed that successful, professional women, who’ve followed the feminist doctrine of having a career and independence etc. get into their thirties and start feeling broody and looking around for a suitable man to be their husband and father of their children.
Trouble is all the men of a similar status and age as them are by now already hitched, or if they’re not, may not be looking for a woman like them but rather one who’s ten years younger.
Young people of both sexes aren
t being told the truth by their elders, and havent been for a long time. If I had been told the truth, I would not have stubbornlyfriend zoned(we didnt call it that then, but thats what it was) the awesome young man who fell in love with me at university when I was 21 because I didnt feel he was exciting orbadenough and figured I was entitled to at least a decade of fun and freedom and at the end of it when I started feeling like marrying and settling down and having kids there would still be plenty of nice, dull men like him fawning over me and begging me to marry them. Nobody told me - I guess because they didnt have the heart – that at 21 I was as attractive to men (of all ages) as I was EVER GOING TO BE (regardless of what a hopeless mess I thought i was) and had more choice than I ever would again, no matter what I did. Nobody told me that by the time I was in my early 30s, men like him – the ones you could imagine spending the rest of your life with – would be long since taken by other women, and men ten years younger would not be giving women my age a second glance because there were plenty of women their own age to pick from.Thanks Claire. Boys/men are much more unified in what their inner-instinct tells them and what their conscious mind tells them. They are fully aware of their inner-urges.
I don’t know whether ancient women were similarly unified, but so many modern women I have encountered say one thing: ‘I want someone funny, in touch with his feelings, willing to share childcare/housework.’, but are unaware of their inner-girl who wants the tall, strong, famous, wealthy male to create a sense of security.
The very characteristics her inner-girl craves are the ones her conscious mind rejects.
Reminds me of Bonnie Tyler’s Holding out for a hero – quite some truth in that song!
I’m sorry. This begs for a response. She sexually preferred a man (1) trained as a minister and lawyer with no combat experience at all, over (2) a man who joined the Navy after high school, became a carrier pilot before he was 20, flew 58 combat missions in WW II and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for a mission where most of his fellow flyers died? Maybe she did, but she wasn’t hot for the stud. She was hot for the wimp.
You are taking it too literally. It was a comic remark to illustrate differing and conflicting desires that torment both men and women.
It’s the human condition isn’t it? In a spouse, a lover, a job, or lunch – not only do you often want what isn’t going to make you happy in the long term, you want things, right now, that are mutually exclusive.
Meghan, you brushed on the biggest risk of the current wave of feminist stupidity – the actual split between what men want and what is socially acceptable.
One of the traits of masculinity is decisiveness. Men don’t brood over a problem indefinitely, they move on to whatever solution is available, even when it is imperfect.
It is plain to see that men can only thrive in modern society by taming their natural behaviour to fit modern societal norms. That stands at odds with what they want in their private/intimate/sexual life, which testosterone impedes them to relinquish. So there is a real risk of detachment of intimate aspirations from real world women. It is no wonder porn use has skyrocketed, AI development is being pushed in that direction and loads of disconnective platforms such as MGTOW thrive.
With no one is doing anything to foster honest dialogue, gender politics may drive us to extinction.
“gender politics may drive us to extinction”
I think it’s more likely that the current “gender politics” we are having to endure is one of natures ways of controlling the population.
We are overcrowded as a country, men and women are having to compete for jobs because of capitalism and the market (which caused the rise of Marxism, then Feminism).
The more aggressive, competitive feminists are less likely to reproduce, as are the men who remain isolated without girlfriends or wives.
There are still enough pleasant, more easy going women having babies with their men busy putting food on the table and getting by.
Is nature that purposeful?
Evolution seems to suggest it is.
That’s interesting because evolution is chance.
No. Evolution is natural selection over a period of time. Over thousands of years of human development, humans have made choices in their pairing, disease has killed off the weak and not all humans have been fertile. Babies and children that were cared for the most (not just emotionally but in practical ways) gave them advantage over those who were not cared for, the more advantage they had in terms of psychological and physical wellbeing, as a result of both nature and nurture, the more likely they were to survive war, famine and disease, and so the stronger healthier humans thrived. That is not chance.
Yes, I should have written ‘largely chance.’ There is a reason why it is a theory rather than a law but we are all entitiled to our view of it!
Yes I acknowledge that. It is also possible God’s will comes into it, for me it definitely does, but I tend to argue on the basis that it only might. May God forgive me.
That’s fair! Francis Collins is a very strong Christian! Many who take the Bible literally (of course I don’t mean anyone who believes that the ‘trees of the field will clap their hands’ as a poem in the psalms says!) believe the period of evolution was the period before the 7 day creation and alternatively, if the sun and moon were created on the fourth day, the preceding days could have been any length!
You do not understand what a “theory” is. It is not the same as a hypothesis. It is an explanation for a phenomenon based on laws. It is not a “law” in that sense, and never could be. It is just the explanation for how nature shapes change through random mutation sorted by nature, which produces the appearance of purposeful design.
Evolution is not forward looking. It does not cause mutations as a means of driving evolution in a particular direction. It has no purpose.
I did not say evolution has a purpose, in my original comment I said “nature’s way of controlling the population”, then in response to Judy’s opposition I said that evolution seems to suggest (as evidence) Nature does have a purpose.
Evolution is neither random nor teleolgical. It’s quite like a river. The course of a particular river isn’t entirely predictable, but it’s not random either. It doesn’t have a purpose, but it does have a direction. In natural science, only living, or perhaps even only thinking things appear to have “purposes”, which they define for themselves. But, non-purposeful systems can be very intricate and might indeed be said to “control populations” and stuff like that. I don’t mean to lecture, but I am qualified to lecture on that. You don’t need God to explain any of it, but at least as I understand it as a non-religious person, that is not really the point of God anyway.
Thank you so much for your beautiful explanation, I really appreciate it.
Vikram yeah, but the literal sense still matters. Granted the main point is the existence of a conflict and one sex’s generational denial of it; it does still matter that this Texas woman’s feelings are the inverse of what most on this thread suppose is natural.
None of this makes any difference, just saying roosters are different from hens is apostasy. It means there is a genetic base which carries propensities for behaviors. AND this means if we look at statistics of Whom fills the prisons, who fills the PhD chairs, who is CEO, and who won the Nobel prizes, who is wealthy and who is poor, well then you must be a Toxic Male White Supremacist to even think of peeking at those statistics as they may indicate things which may not be said, or even thought.
Good anecdote, but Bush Sr. never ran against Gary Hart. Hart ran against Walter Mondale in 1984 for the chance to go against Ronald Reagan as the Democratic nominee for POTUS. Mondale won the nomination, then lost heavily to Reagan. In 1988 Hart and Bush were their parties’ respective favorites to win their nominations, but while GHWB won his party’s bid, Hart squandered his chance by inviting reporters to follow him. When they took him up on the offer, they found some personal scandals on his part. Perhaps he didn’t really want to be the POTUS after all.
“Most people recognise “gender studies” are a joke I think.” – but when men start to realise that the ideologues control the media, academia and the legal system then it suddenly becomes a lot less funny as the swathes of men who’ve been shafted and lost their kids post divorce can testify.
I understand the point you are making and sympathise but I don’t think “gender studies” as an academic subject is to blame, more of another regrettable outcome.
It is Marxism and Feminism and the men and women who espouse those ideologies, and the politicians, civil servants and the legal profession who give them credence and promote them who are to blame.
. . .it could just be selfishness! We are all guilty of that!
The proportion between jobs needing physical prowess and those sitting in an office has changed immensely in the last 70 years let alone 250 years.
And yet we still need those essential jobs that require strength and courage just to keep society functioning, as the pandemic demonstrated.
“Most people recognise “gender studies” are a joke I think.”
I don’t think it’s so simple. As far as universities go, I think a large contingent of people know it, but don’t recognise it. It really is an Orwellian doublethink mechanism. The cognitive dissonance makes people very fragile, unreasonable and intransigent about these things. They shore it all up with social groups in which certain thoughts are deemed unsayable and ostracism results from saying them.
It does matter what people in Universities think because students graduate and we are seing these ideas enter society via the vector of the young, who are receptive to them and arguably benefit from them in economic terms.
However universities aren’t completely full of weird gender studies people, they are also full of scientists, all of whom are aware of what does and does not make sense. The liklihood is that reason will prevail, eventually. Or at least prevail more than at the moment.
Good point.
It was a bit of a throw away line on my part.
At what costs- the title asks. Let’s start with just one example, the impact of an absent father in a system that is rigged to give absolute control to the woman in case a relationship breaks.
Scientific evidence of the impact on child development of not having a father at home includes
If absence of father was like a drug, we would ban it immediately. But thanks to the demonisation of men, we damage and destroy our children’s lives just because a few dissatisfied women (I am looking at you, radical feminists) have control over social policy. Such feminism has also damaged women. But that’s for another time.
Aristotle said; what society values become the value of society. By devaluing men, we have devalued humanity
Yes. I would also like to add: A society that turns on its men will eventually turn on its women. We’re actually witnessing this stage in the transgender conversion movement.
I am sure lack of a secure loving home deprives children in many ways. Where did you get your list?
Go to Pubmed, the database of all scientific papers. You can search and find evidence by single studies, reviews, meta-analyses, year of publication etc.
mmm so no actual source? Sounds like you just listed every negative effect you could think of that suits your argument, and then just said ‘oh, you can find it in the files over there’. Not good enough
This was really a wonderful read. I can only thank the author for her thoughtful writing. This is exactly the reason Unherd is the first website I read in the morning.
I used to be a bit of a left person, but I came to pretty much the same conclusions about the dangers of social constructivism around the age of 25, quit my ivory tower PhD, enlisted in the army and went on to become an officer. I realized that I wanted to be a sheepdog ^^
What worries me is that many men are choosing retreat, isolation, resentment and group rights as answers. I personally found that stoicism, conscientiousness and a bit of old-school gentlemanly behaviour usually do the trick, whilst also politely refuting the toxic accusations of toxic masculinity.
Bravo.
Bravo from me too and a big thank you to Mary for her very thoughtful and enjoyable article. One point she did not touch on, but @mcmaha1 did, is the concept of “gentlemanly behaviour” – the chivalric code as a means of containing or channelling men’s natural aggression without turning them into women. Central to the chivalric code was the notion of honour, which these days is sneered at, although JP – thank goodness – is doing a good job of reviving it in the guise of “personal responsibility.”
Congratulations, and thank you. Sheepdogs are great (both the people and the Border Collies!)
Congratulations!
I remember thinking at the time of the London Bridge terror attack that it was an interesting display of these exact problems. A terrorist is invited to an event organised by one of these pacified institutions which he uses to launch an attack killing two of his hosts. He is eventually persued and brought down by a trio of “toxic” men, one an actual murderer on day release, who were memed as “Captain Narwhal, Xtinguisher and The Pedestrian”, ordinary super heroes. The father of one of the victims went on to write a piece for the Guardian suggesting that his son would “be seething at his death” being used to “perpetuate an agenda of hate”. He made no comment on the bravery of the strangers who tried to bring down an armed killer. Even one of the superheroes “Narwhal” wrote a letter to the dead terrorist ending it “I will show you, and hopefully the world, the power of love” seemingly worried people thought he’d been a bit hard on the bloke the police eventually had to shoot and keen to avoid a referal to the Prevent Scheme.
I read that Guardian article too. What an absolute m0ron that guy is.
I hope the loss of his son can be assuaged by the awarding of the posthumous Darwin Award he so richly deserves.
I don’t care what his dad said. It’s a straight choice : kill or be killed. His son, unfortunately, has abnegated the right to choose.
Who benefits when there are no sheepdogs, wolves obviously, who then is likely behind the funding of woke? of critical theory? of 4th wave feminism etc? the wolves, the billionaire wolves.
Interesting article. I used to think gender differences were more about nuture than nature – but then I had kids – a girl and a boy. They are like chalk and cheese, despite giving them similar toys to play with etc. etc. My four year old boy basically just wants to go around roaring all the time and fighting and flinging himself about. When my daughter would go to the playground at age 3 or 4 she would go up to other kids and say ‘what’s your name, would you like to play?’ and proceed nicely to play and converse. He basically goes up to other kids, roars at them and probably gets into a fight and I end up having to do the whole ‘go and say you’re sorry’ thing. I can only put it down to testosterone. I agree the idea of ‘toxic masculinity’ is not helpful. We have to find ways for boys to manage and have an outlet for it through sports etc. But it’s who they are. We can’t force them to sit and do colouring and be quiet and tell them off all the time for being themselves. Like the cockeral, they can be annoying at times but we have to find space for their masculinity, not tell them they are ‘toxic’ so they just end up feeling bad about themselves.
And more often than not those same boys will be the men who people look to for help.
I agree. I have 2 boys and 2 girls. The key – is to find focus for the boys to use that energy in a positive way. Fighting daddy the blanket monster and rescuing their sisters from his evil grasp. Lots of exercise and physical activities.
Iow, tire them out each day (like puppies).
I’d recommend you read more of her articles. She is not the droid you are looking for.
As it said in fight club,
We are a generation of men raised by women.
Just to exist as a man seems to be toxic now but at the same time your supposed to look like Brad Pitt, have a six pack, dress like James bond, have money, a fantastic high powered abc1 job and treat women like the Goddess they so obviously deserve to be.
Who apart from the 1%enters can do all that?
Impossible
So if men are primarily influenced by women, if the men turn out to be problematic whose fault would that be? Especially for those who think nurture trumps nature.
Treat them like goddesses and buy them once things. This ain’t Woolworths and equality ain’t pick ‘n’ mix
Just like Justin Webb’s piece on America from yesterday’s UnHerd, I think you should read the other articles written by Mary Harrington. I think she is a thoughtful and nuanced writer, which is one on the reasons I come to UnHerd, to get away from the endlessly one sided op-eds that push narratives and reject objectivity.
Am I the only man who is fed up with women telling me what I am and how I am? I have a better, first hand understanding on the strengths and weaknesses of men than most women do and very strong opinions about the state of womankind. In my view feminists have overshot the target and are inflicting friendly fire on everyone. There is no toxic masculinity and more than there hysterical women. Insulting.
OK, we will absolv you of Toxic Masculinity, but you being the White Supremacist, well that one you will not escape in this new world. (According to Critical Race Theory within 3 days of being born you were already a White Supremacist, and it does not matter who raised you, you just are).
I was mortified and chilled-to-the-bone the first time I encounted types who think gender studies is credible subject, and not the most transparent, diabolical working of group of men-hating, far-left nutters seeking to invert reality and society so it’s perfectly customized and tailored to their weird insecurities, neurosis, trauma and mental disorders.
Particularly when I realized there was more than just one or two of these nuts sprinkled here and there. There was an army of them infact, and they weren’t being obliterated in argument and given the same treatment as other equally demented whacked-out groups like UFO abductees or flat-earthers were.
Somehow they’d gained some kind of purchase where they were taken seriously in some very important areas of society.
That’s because they use excessive blackmail; false accusations; emotional manipulation; playing the oppressed victims; and hijacking real civil rights movements of real merit to use them as a trojan horse for their most excruciating obnoxious, narcissistic, self-absorbed/important belief system.
Impervious to reality, facts, truth and utterly ruthless in spreading their ideology at all costs, I’ve watched and studied the psychological spread of this disease just like an alarmed virologist would a devestating, killer virus that has the potential to really do serious, irreparable damage to humanity, so I could learn as much as I could about it and and play my part in opposing it, if at all possible.
But it’s spread too far, and destoyed generations of young minds. Social media was like pouring gas on an already raging inferno in a bone dry forest. There’s no eradicating it. We can only try to manage it and contain it, and learn to live along side unfanthomably deplorable cnuts & cretins who bring their children up ‘gender neutral’, dressing boys in girls clothes and vice versa while convincing themselves the kid has chosen that themselves and isn’t the victim of his or her mentally ill parents and their sicko, thick a pig shit brainwashing.
“most excruciating obnoxious, narcissistic, self-absorbed/important belief system.” sums up the neo-Marxist postmodernist claptrap underpinning the Social Justice movement really rather well.
All your points about this branch of it are well made, however it is the branch I fear least. The others self-servingly seek to pervert History, which is not that hard. It is possible to challenge credibly what happened in a number of events, largely dependent on how long ago it was and how extensively it was reported and recorded at the time. Why things happened, in particular the true motivations of those who appear to have made them happen can be debated endlessly. However this branch seeks to pervert Biology. Whilst Biology is not an exact science – just look at epidemiology as an in vogue example, it is a real science, unlike the pseudo-science underpinning the SJ Theories, where hypothesises can be empirically tested and proved wrong.
If you have not already read it, may I commend “Cynical Theories” by Helen Pluckrose and James Lyndsay to you.
I second “Cynical Theories”, and also advocate Douglas Murray’s “The Madness of Crowds”.
Thanks for the recommendation. Looks a very interesting book indeed. We need enough of unified opposition, with enough grown up, assertive people to come together and say, no, we are not having this, stop being so f*****g stupid and grow up. The sad thing is the opposition to these horrifically destructive people is nowhere near as unified as they are themselves, and most just cower to these absolute freaks. I’ll give an example of that I just got on Amazon when I was looking into the book you recommended in a moment.
But I want to touch on the point about that branch not being the worse. I don’t think it make sense to compare which branch is worse when it’s all the same tree. They all think identically. It’s the complete opposite of how any smart, logical, decent, empirically-minded, objective, intellectual honest person would and does act.
Debate with one and you’re debating with all, because there is no independence of thought with these people, and I mean that sincerely (I’ve debated with hundreds, and I could write out exactly how they’ll respond and what they’d say in advance, you would think you were dealing with the same person. What is scary for me is you could put the most cast-iron, credible, well-researched, factual argument to them, spend weeks building your case with perfect examples and proof and evidence they demand, and it doesn’t matter what subject it is, they will brazenly come up with some personal, relativistic argument or simply a trite little sentence and ignore and dismiss anything you say without even taking it onboard.
That’s if they don’t just completely ignore it like it’s not there because it’s not what they want to hear They are programmed to think a certain way and that is it. Facts and reality don’t matter. My point is that whatever branch we are talking about, whether it’s their views on gender or rewriting history like the 1619 project or something, they’ll all do the same thing.
That example I mentioned. There’s a ‘video review’ to this book that wa in the related books to the one you mentioned, from Rob ith ventana media. It’ a cowardly, submissive response designed to placate Antifa, who were hounding a bookstore, telling them they’d turn up everyday shouting outside because the book shop stocked a book criticising the group.
These people are sick, not matter hat ay you look at it, and all have the infantile, emotive personality that demands everyone do what they say. It might not get expressed as extremely as Antifa, but it’s there, their belief that they are allowed to act and be disgusting to others and get taken seriouly because they are the ‘good guys’.
I agree with you that it is all the same fundamental perversion of reality to achieve a malign goal, which the proponents dress up as utopia when it is so obviously dystopia. It is unclear how many of them know their methods are wrong but think it is for the greater good and how many of them know it is wrong and that is why they want to do it. No branch is better or worse than the other. My point when I said “fear the least” was based on this being the point that the vast majority of both men and women can see through it – Mary’s article can be summed up as yes you are all cocks because you are born with them, but that does not necessarily make you bad people, indeed you have many uses and can be most entertaining. It is therefore the most likely to crumble first, hopefully bringing the rest of the rotten tree down with it. We must still attack on all fronts, but effort here will likely yield the best effect for the least personal risk.
The book is well worth getting and reading – I actually got it for my daughter who is energised about trans rights, fortunately in a sensible way as there is nothing bad about trans rights, just the way the Social Justice fanatics are promoting them. I read it myself first. The last section – which I bookmarked for my daughter, explains the best way to fight the SJ movement. It is through using real science properly and through applying genuine liberal thinking and principles.
Judge people by the content of their character not the colour of their skin – An adaptation of Martin Luther King. All the white privilege crap instantly falls foul of that. Matter + anti-matter = annihilation; racism + anti-racism = annihilation. Don’t be racist, don’t be anti=racist. Insert similar into all the other “social constructs” and they crumble, especially when they run contrary to what is scientifically established.
Excellent post. We are very similar on this topic in outlook. We both recognize that it is a deep, complex problem that is of great importance to oppose and defeat. Both for the same reason of being genuinely liberals who see beyond race and identity factors, who wouldn’t want to see anyone oppressed, so we both know full well this SJ, cultural marxist version of liberalism is not the real deal at all. It’s very commendable, pointing your daughter in the right-way without forcing your views on her. That is the hallmark of a real liberalism in my eyes, in the true sense of the word, and it is what is at stake here: future generations being so fully indoctrinated into intellectual totalitarianism it becomes the absolute norm and real liberalism, that of the Enlightenment, a relic of the past.
I fully agree that promoting the real version of it as an alternative view point whenever it is taught, discussed or debated would utterly trounce cultural marxism. That is the very reason that they indoctrinate, brainwash, propagandize and deliberately hide certain things, deny or ignoring them when confronted, use the Kathy Newman demonsiation approach when interviewing or referring to someone outside the woke cult, and present only what they want. Their MO is always the same. It’s only when something is genuinely morally deplorable and indefensible from their opponents will they be normal and just present the facts objectively and without all that deceit.
That book is definitely on the reading list, up next. We need books that have put alot of thought into and offer prescription and solutions, rather than just analysing and preaching to the choir who already know these things about these people.
I have known for years it’s the biggest sociological threat to face humanity. Many people ho haven’t tudied the ubject indepth for over a decade to try to ork out its roots, its premises, and how to defeat it have thought that extreme. Imagine a society ran along those real peaceful, tolerant, liberal lines you touched on, ho much more happier and ho much more energy to focus on eradicating real problems. Where free-speech, so as to foster free thinking and the free exhange of ideas, was no longer under attack and the violence of the foul, mentally ill, heinously stupid loony left on campus who shut down people with opposing views no longer even a thing.
Contrast that to the current reality, the BLM/Antifa riots and their hatred and division and those loons on the opposite end who stormed Congress and ran over that person in Carolina.
That is cultural marxism and what happens when you carve society up into bitter, warring factions, and it’s only going to get worse.
The thing about the solution proposed is that it’s only going to work if you’re dealing with people who are reasonable, open to debate, fair, have the emotional capacity to tolerate things that go against what they believe, value the truth and facts, and are genuinely decent, liberal people.
We are not dealing with those people, but those who look at infants school/kindergarten as the ripest for indoctrination. And who exhibit the characteristics of narcissists, pychopaths, sociopaths who just act in anyway they want to achieve their aims, and go and actually carry out this indoctrination and social engineering. Other people’s children are just pawns to them, to be used to create a society that conforms to their desires.
A very, very warped, demented, hateful, irrational group.
Unless the solutions are carried out by a movement as cohesive as them, as willing to take the gloves off as them in many areas, as passionate as them and as willing to stand their ground as them, then I can’t see it being overcome anytime soon and without great cost. Opposition to it is too disparate, whereas they operate like a tight-knit cult. Perhaps Cynical Theories will make me more optimistic on the subject.
…appreciate the thoughtful contributions of yourself, Mr. Gleeson and others on the descent into chaos which is all around us, and the associated book references, I would also recommend the works of Peter Turchin, especially his 2010 book, Ages of Discord”. This is a mathematical analysis which points to structural demographics being at the heart of what has been a distinctive cycle of social order/chaos across the ages.(Elite overproduction is a significant factor). An even more illuminating work also from a decade ago is Richard Landes’ book, Heaven on Earth, The Varieties of the Millennial Experience. This also traces the periodic moral panics across cultures and history, which often follow external or internal disruptive events. (Interestingly, a reoccurring meme in these scenarios is the sudden prominence of a young female figure with a vision of avoiding apocalypse.) Finally, there is Richard Wrangham’s work The Goodness Paradox which suggests that on anthropological grounds we are a self- domesticating species, with a trend line against dominance by individual Alpha males. (The meek inheriting the earth perhaps.)
That was an excellent article. In particular I hadn’t previously considered the role of what might be called social inequality. I’m an ambitious man, and quite agressive in my way. I do like a serious conflict, I won’t lie. Especially if I’m winning. It is exciting. But I’m also very middle class indeed.
Now, I can easily lead a satisfying life because I use my mind for a living. In fact, since I’m only five foot seven and I’ve spent my life on University campuses, I’m much better off in a world without physical violence. I can hold my own in a shouting match, but I definitely don’t want it to get physical. I’ll probably lose. However, a fight is a fight, whether it’s physical or more strategic and cerebral. So extreme feminism, while annoying, doesn’t really affect my ability to fight, or try (and largely fail) to impress women. It doesn’t really matter what one says, it matters what one does and those are very different things. We can all distinguish success and failure, or indeed courage and cowardice without much discussion.
So things are not that bad for me, a diminutive, ornery university researcher bickering with his colleagues. But I am guessing things are not so great for the builders who plague my life with the horrible racket they make all the time in this real-estate obsessed economy. Unless they are running their company, what outlet do most of them have for their desire to compete and succeed? It’s not that it’s bad work. I like working with my hands. I’d happily do their job for a short while. That’s not the point, the point is that it’s not easy to become a dominant male doing it. Meanwhile they are being told how worthless and “toxic” they are by posh women on the internet. I don’t have to take those women entirely seriously. They are just something else to compete with for me. It’s some women asserting their interests over me. Big deal. The majority of those same women still prefer men who do well. But for the guy outside my window right now with a drill it’s all got to look very different. Like me, he wants a fight. Where is that energy going to go?
I am a tradesman, and the ones I work with are hard nuts indeed (USA South). They do not have to compete in dominance, they just have to always have the attitude ‘F** k with me and I’ll F*** you up’, I do not see them trying to intimidate each other or cause fights as this is just not part of the scene. They are just hard men, they really are.
A small and skinny Red Neck on the sheet rock crew (sheet rock hangers/finishers and roofers are the real psychos) has as much respect as the big and powerful one, he has the same macho attitude.
I led a very dysfunctional life because for some reason, in school, I just had to be hard – not in the way of fighting as that never was my thing at all, but just in being able to deal with pain, discomfort, hardship, and not letting anyone tell me what to do. This was a very unhelpful attitude in school, and ended up with me dropping out, dropping out of society too, and hitting the road to live as a drifter, I just was going to do what I was going to do and so I did, and wasted decades just going to hard places and being hard, it just was what I was for some reason. The other men in my extended family never felt this hyper rebelliousness, but I just was that way, and I know it is a male type, archetype even, , the one which has had some men striking off into the world instead of settling, since humans have existed.
A key point, a major point is missed in the article. What the author calls “contemporary culture” is not culture at all. It is part of the Cultural Marxist assault on Western culture. An attack on the family unit Specifically to destroy the male as father figure, provider, and protector.
Cultural Marxism is part of our culture, just like the thinking of the Enlightenment, or the Christian worldview. It didn’t spring out of nowhere.
You really think ‘Cultural Marxism’, the carving society up into narrow, dogmatically asserted victim and oppressor groups, where victim group can blame every ill and minor irritation with life on the ‘oppressor’ group and seek to impose totalitarian thought and behavior codes on them is culture? And on a par with the very different kind of culture that grew out of the Enlightenment, or with the that of Chrisitianity, with it’s great churches, cathedrals, its holidays, its ethics, and all the rest?
Do you know what the word cultural marxism denotes? Its the antithesis of those things. It doen’t build anything. It tears things down. Rips down statues, cancels people, deplatforms, seeks to defund. Breaks people into opposing, warring factions. And so on.
I think that. You might hate it, and I might regret it, but it’s unquestionably a part of our culture. Culture doesn’t only mean good things.
It’s part of our culture in the same way crime, child abuse, murder, corruption and terrorism is part of our culture. Not in any way the same category of the Enlightenment or Christianity. It people truly what it was and where it came from, and about the long march through the intitutions plan that came to fruition, they’d feel ridiculously comparing it to and putting on that level.
I’m not certain that murder and child abuse are predominantly cultural, since we see them in other primates which don’t have culture. The cultural attitudes of the modern left do have some historical roots and moral motivations that are commendible and valuable. I don’t think it’s helpful to hate or dehumanize them. They are mistaken and it’s become a pernicious ideology, but there are good and bad individuals on both sides. Although progressive politics is obviously a feature of our culture and fruitfully understood as such, I think good and evil probably aren’t. You never know who’ll be good and who’ll be bad, I don’t think that’s cultural or political.
Murder and child abuse, corruption, and terror, along with the deliberate hijacking and brainwashing; the public shaming; no-platforming; the growing street violence; the demands for the desecration of a country’s most treasured public monuments (Nelson’s Column); the indoctrination of white kids and adults to believe they are inherently racist and need training not to be; the replacing of real subjects of education with politicised ones that aim to have everyone thinking ”correctly”; speech codes, targeting the youngest of children to learn to think properly around gender; they are not all on the same level of severity.
But they are all about the enrichement of one group to the detriment of others.
Cultural Marxism in not simply being Left-wing or progressive, although they are often tied together today.
It’s a partisan, fundamentalist, radicalist ideology that seeks to assert itself as the dominant way of thinking, acting, and the eradication of everything else that opposes it.
You don’t fully undertand hat it i, or how harmful it is to the values of the Enlightenment, or the best teachings of Christianity we managed to retain as a society.
I agree it’s a problem. I think it’s a cultural and political problem. It’s most troubling properties, the emerging totalitarian stuff, seem related to the psychology of group behaviour and maybe that’s not exactly cultural. But it certainly intersects with culture. The groupthink has culturally determined content. It’s an interesting question how to think of it.
My initial point was it’s not culture in the same way that the Enlightment or Christianity was, and is certainly not on a par with them. Some people see terms bandied about and don’t really give them much thought or attach some superficial definition to them without knowing what they truly are.
For me, when I came online I encountered a new breed of people. The modern Leftist ideologue, with their thought and speech codes. Their identical way of thinking. The black and white, superficial tenor of their tight, narrow little world-view. The narcisstic, delusional arrogance and air of all-round superiority. The ad hom, mocking, childish swarming attacks.to any criticism. The inablity to correctly undertand opposing viewspoint, and the need to strawman and caricature opposing views and attribute to them the most extreme and ludicrous premises. The double-standards of their moral relativism. The debate stopping linguistic tools like the contant accusations of racist, homophobe, transphobe, islamophobe.
Culture my arse. It’s a detructive mental viru that diabolical, manipulative pychopath types deliberately created as a thought -control device, using the same tactics as all religions and cults.
It took me a few months of encountering leftists on a forum where they were in a majority to discern these patterns, realize they all exhibit them identically, and have no mind of their own, have been completely and utterly brainwahed and told how and what to think and what not to think.To this day the horror of those experiences, these utterly obnoxious, condecending, smug, self-righteous idiots completely convinced of their on rightness and in most dogmatic, fundamentalist way has stuck with me.
To encounter human beings in such number that weren’t even human-like, but were like programmed robots, it shocked me to the core. I’d never met anyone like that in real life. I came from a working class area, was pleased when New Labour got in as all I knew of the left at that point as a teen was they stood for the working class againt the upper classes who have always exploited them.
So it baffled me and I knew there must some ‘holy book’ to them that was the progenitor of this cult ideology. Because it is a cult.
It’s on a par with Nazism and Fascism. It’s only because of the bedrock of that of the freedom and rights of the individual laid down in the Magna Carta, continued in the Enlightenment, enshrined in the US constitution, and in other things, that this country and the US hasn’t become a place like China or Soviet Russia. These people are Marxists. And Cultural Marxism a very deliberate strategy that sprung out of Marxism since the hoped for Marxist uprising of the poor againt the rich did not happen as expected. So new groups, new victim groups could be dragged into the fight, and indoctrinated, radicalized, mobilized to ring about the revolution through ocial means rather than through armed struggle.
Marxists at the Frankfurt school, knowing they needed a different approach, sought to infiltrate the institutions – the schools and unis, the legal system, social services, the media and get into the mind of the public with their ideology and spread it.
It’s been a massive, overwhelming success. The MSM today i overwhelmingly partisan and pure propaganda and see their jobs as to influence the public to think properly. Same with the education system.
It’s not a naturally forming set of idea based on the natural progression and evolution of humanity, like normal cultures are. It was created as a cynical, ruthless, cold-hearted strategy to inculcate those in the West by playing on real oppression certain groups faced, and the desire of those who empathised to help them, radicalizing them by playing on their greivances.
This is getting too long. The way they have done that, if your not someone indoctrinated into that cult, will be obvious anyway, so I’m not going to go into them.
It was and is a cult ideology, a mental virus that has been carefully contructed with certain end-goals in mind and inflicted on society by radical ideologues adept in the dark arts of propaganda and mind-control, hell-bent on creating society as they think it should be, regardless of the horrific cost involved to do that. Jut like every Marxit country on the planet, here absolutism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism and mind-control are the very bedrock of those societies.
I think of culture in the sense of “cultural anthropology”, i.e. something like
“Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
which I got from wikipedia and is apparenly the definition of Edward Tyler. So wokism is certainly cultural. It’s just not a very pleasant or intellectually sophisticated culture. I agree with much of what you say, although I’m not as certain they are really Marxist, or that it’s due to deliberate, top down action. It seems to me more complex and impersonal, and a matter indeed of cultural and economic forces broadly construed. I certainly agree that many in the media, and also within other organizations “see their jobs as to influence the public to think properly.” I agree also that the psychology of cults is relevant. People are being pressured into saying things that they don’t really believe.
That’s bad. That is what happenned under both fascism and communism. It has hapenned a lot through history.
It may well be, however, that Liberal democracy turns out to be a system that can correct this apparently perennial tendency human societies have towards authoritarianism, without a collapse into violence. Violence is usually the outcome when human societies change. Let’s see what happens this time.
I need to turn of the internet for a while right now, I’m procrastinating.
Culture in the way it’s being used to say, ideas that a particular culture develops and espouses at some level? Of course it is. You can trace the development of the ideas of people like Hegel and Marx, the various scientific materialists, the rejection of the possibility of metaphysics, and then the taking up by some of certain Marxist ideas about the material dialectic into Critical Theory, along with postmodern ideas that no Marxists would ever touch. You can see the development of these ideas in certain areas in the university, how activists have taken them up, how they are being disseminated through various institutions and cultural vectors to the population at large.
That’s all culture. Just like any number of other ideas a culture might embrace that you don’t like, be it human sacrifice, exposure of infants with birth defects, race essentialism, female genital mutilation, whatever.
They aren’t alien ideas introduced from nowhere and if you treat them as if they are you are going to be at a real disadvantage trying to oppose them.
This is the exact thought I had a couple of days ago.
Anyone who has both male and female children knows that the idea that male and female personality traits are purely the result of cultural indoctrination is complete BS.
Don’t think science, data or logic will overcome the “arguments” of the grievance-merchants when they are in full flood of indignation.
I think you have misunderstood the article.
A very good article which encapsulates that which so many of us think and know. Just look at the numbers of people who pay $20 or more to watch a boxing match on TV that might only last for 30 seconds. Or the popularity of Fortnite etc.
There will always be a demand for violence and a certain proportion of young men (and some women) will always want or need to get it out of their system. (There was a marvellous fight featured in the Daily Mail yesterday between two girls outside a pub, one of them wearing bright orange slippers such as those once worn by older women).
Society should do more to enable this. Instead, we have more or less killed off fighting around football and now we are reducing the army to a few drones operated by nerds. Meanwhile, all the boxing clubs etc are closed due to Covid. Thus the only outlet for this need becomes the drugs gangs, and this leads to deaths instead of a few black eyes and broken noses.
Other than the need for action, the other great need that young men have is to find their place in society, and take pride in their role.
My own transition in adulthood was certainly helped by a year of National Service (we officially had 2 years in the services but 2nd year was a waste of time), even though I’m the soft, office-bound type.
Whether or not it’s National Service (and by this I mean high-pressure training followed by some kind of deployment) it benefits everyone if masculinity can be shaped and given a positive outlet, especially when emotional maturity has not yet been reached.
the other great need that young men have is to find their place in society
There’s a psych professor in Canada who’s written a couple of books that largely focus on that, but he comes under attack for something wholly unrelated. There is a huge cohort of young men who have no direction, and one has to wonder how much of that stems from endless chatter of toxicity, patriarchy, and all the rest of the anti-male blather.
Jordan Peterson is his name. A hero of sanity to many of us.
rugby union as it was played in 1970s was a good litmus test !
“…academics in this field (especially childless ones) think all sex-based traits are down to “nurture” rather than “nature”…”
If they really think that, they are fools who have no place in a university. That said, their “work” mostly comprises quoted sentences from other people, strung together in semi-coherent paragraphs.
Sequences of quotes from Freud (always there), Marcuse, Foucault and the clueless Butler do not constitute research output. A machine could do it – and probably better.
If nurture trumps nature, let’s acknowledge that these problematic men have almost all been raised by women. Will they accept responsibility?
In a military context cowardice is not understood as not being ‘aggressive enough’, but rather putting oneself above the group. Everyone experiences fear, the core military ethos is the requirement for the individual to overcome their intrinsic, overwhelming, and natural fear and act in an unnatural manner for the good of the many.
I comment only on the concept that the author seems to misunderstand, and not on the execution of commonwealth soldiers during WWI.
Boys will be boys and men will be men. Women and soft men will not change that and thank,God for it. Humans, by our nature, are not peaceful. Humans have fought with animals, the environment and each other since humans began. We need men who are not afraid to use violence and aggression when the situation calls for it. If someone is trying to break into your home, you want a policeman who will stop him, not shame him. If a country invades your country, you need men (yes, I said men because the vast majority of soldiers are still men) who will pick up a weapon and fight them, not go all Neville Chamberlain on them. Masculinity evolved because it was needed – and it still is and always will be. I can promise you this, China is not having the same discussion.
All of the comments in this debate remind me of a gem from Douglas Adams.
” In those days men were real men, women were real women, small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before.”
That quote keeps coming back to me …
Why do people always pick on wolves as symbols of violence? Is it because they have traditionally attacked their sheep and goat flocks? They are no more aggressive and violent than many other carnivores, probably less so. If you want a good example of toxic masculinity in the animal world, then the beloved dolphin is probably a good example as any.
Years ago I read a novel where a scientist figured out how to talk to whales and dolphins. All the dolphins wanted to do was talk about sex.
Having run out of first-world problems, the same people who find “only women have periods” to be radical thought now turn their attention to trying to reshape human behavior. I must credit the author for wading into this particular pool and doing what those she describes are unwilling or unable to do – put behavior into context.
Society does need sheepdogs for there are always horrible people out there who are willing to harm others for their own gain or amusement. And what a lovely idea to teach young boys that they are “toxic;” I’m sure that’s going to end well. I wonder if it factors into a host of negative behaviors that overwhelmingly skew toward men.
Maybe we need to just accept that different biology and culture makes people different. Different people need to be treated differently to get the best out of them, as failing to treat them appropriately gets the worst out of them.
The real irony is that the very male qualities that misandrist feminists decry are those traits that were selected for by several thousand generation of females, who molded men into what they needed to protect and provide for them.
The “patriarchy” may be a conspiracy theory as loony as flat-earthworm, but if it actually exists, it exists because females created it for their own benefit.
Yes, young males need an outlet for their natural adventurous nature and a release for all that testosterone: but this can be channelled into such activities as competitive (and also non-competitive) sports and non-combat adventure: climbing, cycling caving, surfing, even dance. All it takes is decent parenting and mentoring, and safe outlets.
The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme , Outward Bound, the Scouts: martial arts like boxing: these are all worthy ideas and merit support.
Harrington isn’t a feminist.
I believe she considers herself to be a feminist, quite rightly, I’d say.
Here’s the droid
She is a feminist, Joe. That shows through in the implication that the rooster is a pitifully annoying simpleton, compared to the noble wisdom of the hens. The c**k is a problem, and the hens are the ones bestowed with the wisdom to understand and guide the c**k’s pitiful instincts towards benefit to the hens.
Respect and true admiration for the other gender does not really match that aspect of her article, does it?
“Gender studies courses should only be open to people who either have children, or have spent time working with farmyard animals.”
That is simply brilliant, thanks!
Sadly my uncle passed some years back, but I remember being 10 and chased by the farm cockerel which was virtually the size of me at the time, I swerved out of my uncle’s way, Cuthbert got his beak armed by his neck like a coiled spring and tore a half inch deep gash on my uncle’s palm. Cuthbert had issues being sociable and horny at the same time. I really wanted to explain to Cuthbert his chick harem were safe as my heart wants what it wants, and my tummy got one of his birds instead as the Sunday Roast. It was all very bl*ody and macabre playing with a duck’s foot sinew which flapped it up and down. It’s a boy thing, like madeleines(cakes) and seeing a scene of grave diggers sowing Charles I head back on in the London Dungeons.
Fast forward 2004, in remote jungle of Northern Thailand between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, I am on an elephant rescue sanctuary camp, driving past a male elephant who is chained in the open, a long chain I add, but still just about to express my concern when I’m told the male is in musth. As we go past, this male is absolutely incandescent and charges with ears extended belting out a battle cry as it charges to within 8 feet and then is yanked back on one foot, where he is chained. There are secretions of oily hormonal gunk coming out of glands either side of his trunk. I honestly thought he would rip the tree, the size of an oak, uproot it . and I’d be tusked. Amazing. Bloke.
I have experienced the hell of a narcissistic personality disordered father and ex partner, and my concern is that narcissism is created when mainly boys are made to create a false face, to be accepted by the parents. I hear of boys in primary schools being chastised for being boys. I had one girl/ friend, a big lass and we’d rugby tackle each other much to the concern of the head. She admired my robust playing but asked me to calm it down just a little. She didn’t say I was bad or part of a patriarchy, but I was growing a lot faster and soon it would hurt.
If you supress the playing and I have to do more activities traditionally suited to girls instead of a mix, then we hammer that boys are toxic, bad, etc., sounds like an experiment in personality disorders. You are constantly clipping their wings, undermining, so they fake it. Enter potential narcissist down the line, although there’s more to it. To those experimenting with children’s personality traits, narcissistic personality disorder is one of the less treatable disorders, even if you admit the problem as narcissistic people cannot handle anything other than they are perfect. Not my kids, not my problem, don’t have them, but these teachers in schools and feminist parents … I was a shell of a person after 35 years of x2 narcissists. I hope they’re going to be around if the experiment goes wrong. I hope they never get enmeshed with one: it was hellish and if the devil was thinking of updating the outmoded psychopath to NPD, it’s all going on a lot behind closed doors, and they get away with it.
My father/NPD died two weeks ago but I was estranged after saying no contact/my ground rules. I left the door ajar. I was a chink in perfection and I never heard off him again. I did not love him nor shed a tear. It’s serious emotional abuse and who knows how many we’re creating in homes all over the UK.
I would not agree that evil, narcissistic personalities are primarily male. Either gender can have that particular problem. I also think calling it a “disorder” is inappropriate. It’s a psycholgical problem. Calling it a disorder absolves them of responsibility. They do know what they are doing.
You are right that personality disorders are not only a male preserve. You only have to look at the Guardian to see that.
That’s as may be, but I’m not discussing that. I suspect James and I have some quite serious and specfic experiences in common.
Hi, I think, stats wise more men tend to have diagnosed Narcissistic personality disorder….just found this: “….Although this disorder is estimated to affect 7.7% of males and 4.8% of females in the general population (Stinson et al., 2008)”
Yeah but I don’t take those diagnoses seriously. The narcissist parent who most affected my life was a psychiatrist by trade, and I became a neuroscientist at NIMH as a result. There is not a lot of actual evidence in psychiatry. Marcia Angell, erstwhile editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine which is the world’s most prestigious medical journal had this to say:
“George Vaillant, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, wrote that the DSM-III represented “a bold series of choices based on guess, taste, prejudice, and hope,” which seems to be a fair description.
Not only did the DSM become the bible of psychiatry, but like the real Bible, it depended a lot on something akin to revelation. There are no citations of scientific studies to support its decisions. That is an astonishing omission, because in all medical publications, whether journal articles or textbooks, statements of fact are supposed to be supported by citations of published scientific studies.”
“I have spent most of my professional life evaluating the quality of clinical research, and I believe it is especially poor in psychiatry.”
She is correct. She wrote about it in the New York Review of books in 2011 which I recommend.
Women are often called “histronic” by psychiatrists, but that’s probably just sexism.
But we still know narcissim when we see it. It’s just a person who is faking their way through life and will hurt others to maintain their illusions. It’s not a brain problem it’s a moral problem.
And women more likely to be diagnosed with BPD. Some psychologists think they are just manifestations of the same thing.
Perhaps one of the reasons to keep the grievance-studies departments in the lesser universities is that they might attract those with personality disorders, and thus we will know where they are (the ones not in parliament, that is).
If, overall, traditionally masculine traits are a problem in our ultra-schooled, pink-collar modern world because of the way this world is, then people who live by those traits just won’t do as well. There is no way around it. Therefore, we must now see extreme masculinity as a birth defect or disability, making some men worthy of special protections and accommodation, not unlike what we do with women’s relative lack of physical strength or breastfeeding.
We need new laws protecting excessively masculine men from mistreatment by women and feminized men.
But no masculine man would ever ask for or accept special treatment! This is why women always win every battle of the sexes – stoicism is a serious handicap when victory is defined by having the longest list of grievances.
“This is why women always win every battle of the sexes ” – I disagree. Women get special treatment because men are nice to women because they want to have sex with them.
That’s definitely another reason that often comes into play – I will grant you that.
“We need new laws protecting excessively masculine men from mistreatment by women and feminized men.” – good luck with that. It may have passed you by but given how feminist supremacy dominates politics, law, media and academia the chances of that happening are zero.
I work with a lot of truckers and manual workers. I think the move away from masculinity is the pressure that is applied in the modern world.
Two out of 6 truckers have recently asked to be referred to as female. One now dresses as a ten year out girl and constantly twirls his pigtails as he is chatting, while the other acts as a very girlie girl and wears a mini skirt and glittery top.
Since this happened they have started ‘dating’ two of the other truckers.
One of the other truckers has started wearing hot pants to work and a small t shirt leaving his mid riff uncovered. Apparently he is now homosexual, Every sentence he says is a double entendre.
One of the manual workers dresses in a baby grow and sucks a dummy all day as he works on site, and his mate pushes him to work and back in a giant pram. Feeds him bottled milk at lunch and he has two naps a day in a giant cot that he has brought into work.
HR refuse to do anything.
I despair at modern Britain.
I am thinking of finding a new job, but it’s like this everywhere these days.
I can’t decide whether you’ve invented this tale for comedy effect, (in which case it’s hilarious,) or if you’re serious.
I’m the one who pushes the pram 🙂
The very definition of toxic masculinity. 🙂
Humans are not chickens. If you must look to animals look to ones that are more closely related to us, that live in social groups more similar to ours, then reflect on how 1) our big brains 2) that we live with our parents into our late teens 3) intergenerational social and cultural structures might influence our behaviour.
Speak for yourself.
Bok, bok…
I suggest you take your own advice and go and look – notice how most pack / herd animals have a dominant male and how the younger males challenge for that position. Offhand I can’t think of any animal that behaves as humanity does with a major part of itself.
Somehow, I don’t think early homosapiens going around killing and eating wild animal (or being killed and eaten by them if it didn’t go their way) and living in caves had the same social norms we have today and looked after their teenage kids while juggling the mortgage payments.
I accused another guy of being a lefty earlier when it wasn’t the case, but this guy is definitely a Guardian-reading blank-slate, social-constructionist type this article rebuts, I’m ure of that. Hence the ridiculous strawman caricature of her very nuanced argument.
If we look to our closest relatives (chimpanzees) then her argument is made even stronger.
So hold on a minute. So when she said that men and roosters, quite literally, are one and the same, which I missed myself but obviously you didn’t fail to see her make that claim, she was incorrect? They are not literally the same then, like he claimed? OK, got it.
Thankyou, Mary!
I absolutely agree with this. The coolest women I know, including my ex-es, had a remarkable sort of courage and humour, even in the face of serious challenges. They definitely motivated me to be the best version of myself.
What I deeply appreciate was that with such people you can understand each other without retreating into group identity and gender wars.
I have cautioned my sons never to marry, and always to insist on completely separate finances. My will establishes a trust that will provide income for them, which they will lose if they marry.
The trust will provide legal counsel on the equivalent of a ‘pre-nup’ for the unmarried.
This will help to ensure that if they partner with a woman, she will have to contribute and get nothing undeserved if they part.
Testosterone is real.
Surprise!
I am a middle aged man who worries about the way society and feminism is going. Having said that I am a feminist as in I believe that women, like men, should try to do what they want to do. However I think they ‘should’, in general, want to be decent people who want children, to look after them and assume traditional feminine virtues and traits. They are, of course, able to completely ignore what I think they should do.
Just as men can be wimpy, interested in their hair spray, their nails and wear dresses. Wrong, but each of us must live our life as we see fit.
“I am a feminist as in I believe that women, like men, should try to do what they want to do” – problem is that modern feminists want men to do what they want – they don’t want equality, they want revenge and supremacy.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Probably because of white supremacy.
They will just perpetuate the system they say they want to radically change. They will get their prison investing elite friends creating for-profit prisons. They will let out the races that cannot be sent to jail, which will create the need for private guards for the elite, which will keep them safe and, again, get private contractors rich. so the lucky sheepdogs will protect the elite.
We already are letting in the gangs of urban cultures make hay of Swedish society and German society and other countries that did not have mafias. Look at all the films and Netflix series hiring diverse actors depicting the rise in gangs and thug lives in cities that did not have grenades, or gunfire on their streets. We ask for more of this. No worries, as the elites get the sheepdogs. Really, why worry? The elites are just fine.
“So, Harrington scratches her head and wonders what society can do with all these spare men – before they turn nasty.”
I’m pretty sure I know what society wants to do with them. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5M0d_RBv_A
I’m not clear whether Mary’s offering even a qualified endorsement. For example, Grosmann argues that the “sheepdog” role is an honourable one but it’s unclear to me as to whether Mary agrees.
Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but research strongly suggests that women prefer psychopaths (even when they control for physical attractiveness). Saints rarely marry and raise children. 1 in 200 men are descended from Chinggis Khan (whose rape and pillaging are legendary). His DNA was consistently selected at staggering rates, well beyond a time when anyone knew he was an ancestor.
“If you don’t want to be raising some other man’s child ” – also get your kids DNA tested as about 3% of children are not related to the man who thinks he’s playing Daddy.
To the ‘sheep and wolves’ analogy we must add the pigs. As in the Paul Simon tune “Pigs, sheep and wolves”. The pig cannot defeat the wolf on his or her own, but through control of the sheep, defeats the wolf every time. In fact the pig needs the wolf as the scapegoat, to mix metaphors. But this was a great read – very refreshing perspective these days. I often wonder what’s wrong with me that I don’t fear the coronavirus the way we are supposed to. The more the media pushes the fear agenda the more I want to ‘fight’. Maybe masculinity no longer has a place and is now a useless appendage to be removed like wisdom teeth, foreskins or appendixes. Or maybe one day a real enemy or real calamity will come along … social engineering comes with costs.
1.) The appendix is not a vestigial and useless appendage, and now seems likely to have a physiological role.
2.) The foreskin can easily be removed; any fully consenting person should be able to have the procedure.
3.) It is unquestionably true that efforts to engineer “masculinity” out of our society will come only with great cost. A good rule of thumb is that social policy based on fantasy will be a failure and possibly a dangerous one.
I don’t think the subtleties of whether those appendages were truly useless was important to the point i was making, but thanks for your input.
🙂
Good article. Our enemies have seen all this and you can hear them sharpening their bayonets and waiting for the right time to strike.
“And they didn’t just want gold and women; they wanted glory.”
Silver. The Vikings had a big thing for silver. The largest hoard of English silver pennies ever found was in Scandinavia, Denmark, I believe.
As a builder,and, very possibly a toxic male, I would like to thank you for this article.
Pleasure to read as usual. Makes me wonder: What’s the contemporary feminist explanation for the historical exclusion of women from military duty? Would that be classified as yet another denial of a job opportunity for women?
Having said that, I wonder if self-identification laws pass (e.g. the Equality Act in US), then in the (highly unlikely) case of a draft, would women find themselves in the battlefield given there’s no longer an agreed external (eg. objective) way to identify who’s men or women?
Good article. Defund all gender studies in the U.K. they are a waste of resources and undermine our society.
Thank you Mary, I sincerely enjoy reading your thoughtful, balanced articles – such a refreshing tonic from the mindless nonsense in the MSM. I have two daughters and when the first one was born, I never bought dolls, didn’t go to town with the pinkification of all things baby girl, though some of it is unavoidable. I really wanted to see at that time how true this whole nature/ nurture thing was in my own setting – she had teddies, blocks, the odd car or train set etc, but no dolls (maybe partly because I heard too many ghost stories involving dolls as a child!) She loved her teddies above all other toys, fed them, talked to them, played with them and mostly ignored the other things, unless I actively joined in with her. By the time she was 3, she demanded dolls. My second daughter was more or less the same – the dolls were already there and she preferred them. They’re both very active and love a bit of rough and tumble too, but no amount of social engineering will take away that nurturing instinct from them. Now my house is full of dolls, half of them destroyed, tea parties, pink and glitter and lots of ‘mummy and baby’ games and I’ve gotten rid of feminism once and for all.
“Gender studies courses should only be open to people who either have children, or have spent time working with farmyard animals.” When I first heard the gender-related manure being spread in college courses my first thought was that these people had spent no time in a barnyard.
I agree with modern society to about 25%, that is to say, I agree that men should be pressured to be less manly. The 75% where I disagree is in that I do believe that men behave the way they do because of testosterone, not because of toxic masculine discourses, and that women should similarly be pressured to be less womanly. We all should strive to overrule our hormones and act like human beings instead of acting like strutting cocks and clucking hens. I don’t think we can nullify our natural behaviour entirely, but we certainly don’t have to encourage it.
The next time you work out how to control your pituitary and adrenal gland secretions, please do apply for a Nobel Prize in physiology
I have read third or fourth hand accounts of mystics who can do this sort of thing. Never personally met one though.
We do suppress these urges though, all of us I think. Societies are built to some extent around ways to modify the results of these animal urges, both at the individual and collective level. As a woman and mother, I sometimes suppress the urge to elevate the good of my own children over that of others. Men (and women too, really) learn to control their aggression. People control their sexual urges. There is a balance of accepting what we are but fitting that into the wider good in a rational way.
What does being “less manly” even mean? People are what they are and they tend to respond badly to being pressured, especially when the pressure suggests that they are fundamentally flawed. Most folks, male and female alike, manage to adapt their behavior to the situation. How we act around close friends will differ from how we act around colleagues, casual acquaintances, or people we just met.
No polarity, no electricity. Nature exists solely on the basis of “gradients”. Flow.
I don’t think we should be encouraging people to be less ‘manly’ or ‘womanly’ Masculinity and femininity are not negative or positive concepts in themselves. I think the issue is that masculinity has a hard time fitting into modern society. Yes we can all adapt to an extent and we have and we do, male and female. But still our hormones have a big influence on how we feel and behave. Women have a lot to deal with, with PMT and the menopause and have to learn to manage difficult emotions and men have to learn to control high levels of testosterone. But I think it’s more about channelling rather than ‘over-ruleing’. As a parent I feel it is important we find positive ways for boys to express their masculinity, e.g. through sports, outdoor activities etc. rather than aggressive pursuits which may be harmful. I do worry a bit about the high rate of suicide among young men and I wonder if it is linked to the hard time they have fitting into this society where they struggle to find positive ways to be themselves. Many boys struggle in educational environments which are not always that attuned to their needs and don’t always engage them that well. This whole idea of toxic masculinity and blaming the parents (usually mothers) I find really unhelpful. But our boys do need good male role models and to be able to be boys, not to be told they are toxic and need to be less masculine to fit in.
Yes, absolutely. And for this we need more men going into teaching, especially at primary level.
Your description of the idea of toxic masculinity as “unhelpful” to my mind falls short. To me, it is not just unhelpful, but actually harmful and libellous. Many of the traits that are singled out as “toxic” – intense competitiveness, physical strength and readiness to use physical force, risk-taking, courage – are in fact admirable in certain circumstances. Just think of the firemen in the World Trade Center. Boys need tales of heroism and derring-do!
I mentioned above that the chivalric concept of honour is perhaps worth revisiting as a conceptual framework for channelling male aggression into worthy pursuits. Michael Ignatieff wrote an interesting book about this many years ago. I think it was called The Warriors’ Honour.
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I agree.
Not a few agressive despots around the world right now must be thrilled to read how the west intends to educate away “toxic ” masculinity.
It is not shooting ourselves in the foot -it is shooting our selves in the head!
I thought it was an interesting article until I read the comments.
Care to elaborate?
Thank you so much for writing this article. It’s heartening and rare to come across a woman who appreciates what men can bring to the world. I just wish more women would push back against the subtext of man hating that underpins much of modern feminism.
The tragedy is that by any reasonable definition of the word, most men are feminists these days. However, that form of feminism (believing that men and women have equal worth and should be given equal opportunities) has been replaced by the belief that all the worlds problems are the fault of men. This then pushes men away from feminism and creates so much resentment between the sexes.
A lot of feminists seem to believe that, if they’d had the chance, women would have achieved all the good things that men have done without any of the bad. They would have walked on the moon, eradicated smallpox and build the modern sewage system. However, they wouldn’t have created the transatlantic slave trade or concentration camps. Interestingly, left wing people also believe that the only reason Britain was able to develop so much science and technology at this time was because we stole resources from our colonies. Feminists have yet to explain how they would have squared this circle.
The fact is that the same masculine energy that created almost all science, technology and modern medicine is based on destroying what already exists and replacing it with something better. However, this can easily become purely destructive or greedy. It needs to be tempered women’s natural inclination towards compassion and egalitarian distribution. We need both working in harmony, not constantly sniping at each other.
You are inadvertently quoting Camile Paglia: “There is no female Einstein for the same reason that there is no female Hitler”.
This is meant as tongue in cheek, I was raised in a single parent family and now live alone with 4 women whom I love dearly.. even if it is like living in a coven sometimes 🙂
If we are the only sexually dimorphic species on the planet and male behaviour is indeed all environmental. Nurture, not nature. If a human personality is mostly set by about the age of 7. A recent piece of research (I forget who did it) found that most working fathers spend on average 20 mins a day interacting with their children.
Doesn’t this mean that women are getting the men they create?…
Benevolent toward men as this article may be, it still leaves masculine men as a “species” which should be recognised because it cannot be made extinct anyway. This sure is better than the usual “toxic” scolding (thanks!), but not really good.
Good promotion of men and masculinity should come from men. Not because brave support from brave women is unwanted, but because real recognition cannot be achieved by any group or any cultural movement without effort from those concerned themselves.
A comment points to strong men doing work at “farming, manufacturing, labouring, engineering, plumbing etc.” This list is interesting, because it is mostly about men doing physical work and all with physical results. Yes, I believe masculinity survives in such professions. Perhaps men of the intellectual/creative middle class shall have to look to those for a reminder? Reminded of masculinity men active in intellectual or creative contexts should start the long task of redefining masculinity as relevant to them.
I shall suggest a starting-point for this in a moment, but let me first point to another frontier to which we also shall have to attend. I think of identifying feminine evil and not only masculine. I find it surprising that as much as 23 % of pupils excluded from schools are girls. I should like to know if those girls are “boyish” – smashing windows, carrying a knife and cutting up the tires of disliked teachers like insurgent boys do. I would guess so. Feminine evil I would say is something else, using lies, manipulating feelings and shaming in order to achieve a position or to reach destructive goals. Those forms of evil are much less attended to and much less punished. True, not all such behaviour can be punished by say school authorities, because they are difficult to “investigate” and some of it perhaps even part of normal life. But for the record and for the upbringing the overweight in crime and overt evil on the part of boys/men should be balanced with a realistic assessment of the other sex.
Returning to masculinity for the middle class, I would suggest seeking the essence of traditional masculinity and see how it can apply to current, modern life. As one such essence I would suggest clarity as opposed to diffuseness. Another could be hard as opposed to soft. I would argue that X is not better than Y (in fact both are needed) but one is masculine and the other is feminine. From there on you can elaborate. Try for instance to take clarity into a modern organisation. Clarity is needed for effective coordination; diffuseness may be needed for communal sentiment. Do the two balance today? I would suggest not. The only clear statements accepted today are those who exclude anybody displaying clarity (or other forms of masculinity). Clarity is mixed up with brutality, and seen as hard – yes here the second masculine quality comes along, also finding itself unwanted.
There is a lot to do.
We definitely need a new definition of masculinity if the current one can be portrayed with the simple example of a rooster … ? Something in the sphere of a man capable of using his body, brain and emotional intelligence all at the same time, maybe? I love men being manly, but currently, we have a bunch of children full of testosterone acting as gods, destroying the planet in the name of proving to everyone that they are the most powerful … sorry, but that sounds like a bunch of sissies, not real men. The same goes for police and military forces; in what fairytale they are acting as “protectors”? Of what, current exploitative system? Patriarchy? I definitely like the idea of stable, strong and powerful men warriors, but comparing them to a rooster does more harm than good, in my opinion.
I suggest investigating the role of testosterone in matriarchal Hyena society.
Harrington’s point has always been patent -Rush Limbaugh has been similarly lampooning this stuff these last 30 years. So the real question has ever been “What does that tell you?” And at this, Harrington wimps out.