Toxic Femininity

Anything to do with gender and the status of women and men.

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Toxic Femininity

Post by Immanuel Can »

RCSaunders wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 5:55 pm
BeatriceMom wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 2:30 pm It's my pleasure. It's great that we agreed. It is very interesting when the points of view of different people coincide.
Like Hitler and Hirohito.
No, they were the same kind of cat. Thus their "agreement" was unsurprising.

Mind you, it's hard to say how long their "agreement" would have lasted, once they'd divided up the world. It might have been shorter than Hitler and Stalin's.
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Astro Cat
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Re: Toxic Femininity

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 2:25 pm Hello, Bea...nice to meet you.

I have found your descriptions echoed in the expressed experience of many, many women. And I believe them. I don't think they're exaggerating the case at all. But not having their experiences personally, I'm less than qualified to say for sure. Thank you for your insights, and for sharing your personal experience on this.

A "serpentarium." Nice turn of phrase. And yes, I do think that women feel more keenly than men do the slights and scorns of other women. I don't doubt that the shame and humiliation it causes them is real. And personally, I have found that you have to be more careful about female colleagues than male ones; the male one's will often just "call you out behind the woodshed," so to speak, if they don't like you: but then the matter is settled. Women tend to work more subtly, more long-term, and with a surprising durability of animus. It seems to me they do tend to resort to a kind of character assassination or ego destruction in regard to the other women they dislike, and many try it on men as well. Maybe this is the other side of physical dominance; that women, being less physically powerful, are inclined to resort to other tactics...I can't say for sure.

I guess a good question is what feminine traits we would NOT want to see replicated in males...that might be what "toxic femininity" would be.
Yeah, I'm totally stealing "serpentarium," LOL.

In any case, when I think of toxic masculinity, I'm not just thinking of things like aggression: I think of things that some toxic trait some men tell themselves is essential to their maleness, helps to define it: "men don't cry," "can't be beaten by a girl," things like that. If a man is simply aggressive, I don't think this is always toxic masculinity unless the man in question internalizes it as part of his gender.

I would think the same thing for toxic femininity. I think that using one's social claws is toxic femininity if a woman ties her catty prowess to feeling feminine. I've been on both sides of social maneuvering and never internalized it as being a woman, so I think this also depends on the individual in question. Sometimes behavior is just toxic, and I think there is a difference between being more associated with a gender and being tied to gender identity. I think gendered toxicity is a term better used for the latter, that the former is just toxicity that happens to be more common in one or the other genders.

My reasoning is because I don't think it's fair if a man that just happens to be competitive gets called out on "toxic masculinity" for instance. I think it makes the term less useful if it's broadened to just any toxic trait that's exhibited more by one gender.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Toxic Femininity

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Astro Cat wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 2:48 am I think that using one's social claws is toxic femininity if a woman ties her catty prowess to feeling feminine. I've been on both sides of social maneuvering and never internalized it as being a woman, so I think this also depends on the individual in question. Sometimes behavior is just toxic, and I think there is a difference between being more associated with a gender and being tied to gender identity. I think gendered toxicity is a term better used for the latter, that the former is just toxicity that happens to be more common in one or the other genders.
Thanks for that.

I spent many decades in a career that put me in contact with tens of thousands of young men and women. And I can say observationally that the physical aggression between women was not unknown, but was far more rare than the character-assassination type of behaviour. On the male side, physical violence was much more common, but the character-assassination strategy much more rare...and much less felt and cared about, if you asked most males.

But I wonder if we could think about the dynamics not within the two sexes, but rather between the two sexes. Would you observe, for example, that males and females adopt different strategies in attracting and repelling each other? Do they have different expectations of each other, or does the understanding flowing between them look seamless and unproblematic to you? Or, for a different angle, that females "take revenge" on males in ways that are different from the ways males "take revenge" on females?

If there is a difference in any of these kinds of things, that might give us a clue.
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Astro Cat
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Re: Toxic Femininity

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 3:23 am I spent many decades in a career that put me in contact with tens of thousands of young men and women. And I can say observationally that the physical aggression between women was not unknown, but was far more rare than the character-assassination type of behaviour. On the male side, physical violence was much more common, but the character-assassination strategy much more rare...and much less felt and cared about, if you asked most males.

But I wonder if we could think about the dynamics not within the two sexes, but rather between the two sexes. Would you observe, for example, that males and females adopt different strategies in attracting and repelling each other? Do they have different expectations of each other, or does the understanding flowing between them look seamless and unproblematic to you? Or, for a different angle, that females "take revenge" on males in ways that are different from the ways males "take revenge" on females?

If there is a difference in any of these kinds of things, that might give us a clue.
I think it's certainly the case that there are differences in the ways men react to each other, men react to women, women react to each other, and women react to men. Even as an adult I have circles of friends with varying ratios of men and women, and I know I behave differently when I hang with the boys (and I assume they probably behave slightly different when I'm there). I don't think it's a massive difference or anything. I don't know.

Both groups have toxic things that they do that are associated more with themselves than the other.

I'm only saying that I think "toxic masculinity" is a useful term if it specifically applies to toxic behavior specifically meant to reinforce a gender identity rather than a toxic behavior that's just done more by a gender. I only think that because this can help men escape from it: "Showing emotion every once in a while doesn't make you less of a man," that sort of thing.

I am sure there is also toxic femininity in this way, and perhaps such a term could help women escape from that sort of thinking, too.

If someone is being toxic but they don't internalize the behavior as part of their identity (even though they're more stereotypically likely to exhibit the behavior because of their gender, they may not internalize it as gender-affirming), I think that's just being toxic in general; and if we use the term for that, the term becomes less useful.

I'm really probably just splitting hairs though at the end of the day.
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Re: Toxic Femininity

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Astro Cat wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 4:51 am I'm really probably just splitting hairs though at the end of the day.
..you mean splitting hares surely, along with carrots and onions for soup..
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Re: Toxic Femininity

Post by FrankGSterleJr »

In the 1980s, during my teens, I observed how, in general, by ‘swinging first’ a person potentially places himself (or herself) in an unanticipated psychological disadvantage — one favoring the combatant who chooses to patiently wait for his opponent to take the first swing, perhaps even without the fist necessarily connecting.

Just having the combatant swing at him before he’d even given his challenger a physical justification for doing so seemed to instantly create a combined psychological and physical imperative within to react to that swung fist with justified anger. In fact, such testosterone-prone behavior may be reflected in the typically male (perhaps unconsciously strategic) invitation for one’s foe to ‘go ahead and lay one on me,’ while tapping one’s own chin with his forefinger.

Yet, from my experience, it’s a theoretical advantage not widely recognized by both the regular scrapper mindset nor general society. Instead of the commonly expected advantage of an opponent-stunning first blow, the hit only triggers an infuriated response earning the instigator two-or-more-fold returned-payment hard hits. It brings to mind an analogous scenario in which a chess player recklessly plays white by rashly forcefully moving his pawn first in foolish anticipation that doing so will indeed stupefy his adversary.

I’ve theorized that it may be an evolutionary instinct ingrained upon the human male psyche — one preventing us from inadvertently killing off our own species by way of an essentially gratuitous instigation of deadly violence in bulk, which also results in a lack of semen providers to maintain our race. Therefore, in this sense, we can survive: If only a first strike typically results in physical violence, avoiding that first strike altogether significantly reduces the risk of this form of wanton self-annihilation.
In short, matters should remain peacefully peachy, or at least non-violent, when every party shows the others their proper, due respect. It’s like a proactively perfect solution.

It should also be noted, however, that on rare occasion (at least from my many years of observation) an anomalous initiator/aggressor will be sufficiently confident, daring and violently motivated, perhaps through internal and/or external anger, to outright breach the abovementioned convention by brazenly throwing the first punch(es).

Perhaps with the logical anticipation, or hope even, that his conventional foe will physically respond in kind by swinging at or hitting him, the unprovoked initiator/aggressor will feel confident and angered enough to willfully physically continue, finishing what he had essentially inexcusably started. It was as though he had anticipated that through both his boldness in daring to throw the first punch and then furthermore finish the physical job he himself had the gall to unjustifiably start in the first place, he will resultantly intimidate his (though now perhaps already quite intimidated) non-initiator/non-aggressor foe into a crippling inferior sense of physical-defense debilitation, itself capable of resulting in a more serious beating received by that diminished non-initiator/non-aggressor party.

Or, another possibility remains that the initiator/aggressor will be completely confident that when/if he strikes first and the non-initiator/non-aggressor responds with reactor’s fury, he, the initiator/aggressor will himself respond to that response with even greater fury thus physically/psychologically overwhelm the non-initiator/non-aggressor with a very unfortunate outcome for the latter party.

Post Script: It has always both bewildered and sickened me how a person can throw a serious punch without any physical provocation; and equally disturbing were the girls clamoring for front-row viewing of the almost-always-male after-school scraps.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Toxic Femininity

Post by Iwannaplato »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 3:25 am Okay, let's try this.

My female friends have often said to me, "You're so lucky to be a man. You have no idea how brutal girls are to each other." In fact, I've never met a woman who doesn't have "horror stories" about how she's been treated, at one time or another, by other women.

So should we suppose they're lying or exaggerating for effect, or that they're trying to say there are some behaviours in the feminine realm that are toxic?
There's at least one other option here. Women tend to socialize with women. So, toxic connections are more likely to arise in female to female relationships for them.

But I do think women are capable of all sorts of toxic behavior.

I am not sure I experience social media the way Jordan Peterson's idea would suggest, though. Men seem perfectly capable of expressing aggression, forming mobs online, doxxing people, and have had a habit of including violent sexual talk when the mob or individual is aimed at women. I'd really have to see some research data.

I would guess that there would be differences between the types of aggression, even online. That men would tend to more blunt insults, early, and also openly dominate, where women would have more tendency to claim someone is something so that,yes, a reputation is damaged. But I don't find men less aggressive online because they can't bit, hit etc.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Toxic Femininity

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Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 10:46 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 3:25 am Okay, let's try this.

My female friends have often said to me, "You're so lucky to be a man. You have no idea how brutal girls are to each other." In fact, I've never met a woman who doesn't have "horror stories" about how she's been treated, at one time or another, by other women.

So should we suppose they're lying or exaggerating for effect, or that they're trying to say there are some behaviours in the feminine realm that are toxic?
There's at least one other option here. Women tend to socialize with women. So, toxic connections are more likely to arise in female to female relationships for them.
"Tend to socialize"? More than men with men? Because if it's equal, then the behaviours ought to be identical. There should be "toxic connections" in equal proportions. Why do women, then, say they experience worse in that regard than the men?
But I do think women are capable of all sorts of toxic behavior.
What would that look like, do you think?
Iwannaplato
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Re: Toxic Femininity

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 3:46 pm "Tend to socialize"? More than men with men? Because if it's equal, then the behaviours ought to be identical. There should be "toxic connections" in equal proportions. Why do women, then, say they experience worse in that regard than the men?
That's a good point. I think there are a few reasons, but I will also have to mull. First, I don't think men form as close connections. Or the connections are by osmosis. They are less openly emotional. They do rather than speak. Their toxicity can come out in violence generally against other men who are not their friends, much less frequently against women in their lives. Two, until fairly recently they had direct outlets for aggression in ways that women did not. In general. That's been shifting. It would be interesting to see if toxic relations between woman is affected by participation in sports. Also, I think it is more acceptable to be tough, cut people off in a conversation, express rage, dominate for men rather than women. So, women's aggression is more likely to come out indirectly - passive aggressive shit, negative gossip, judgmentalness. You may be told you are being bitchy but you won't get classed as essentially a bithc for this.

But I am not fully satisfied so I have to mull more. You don't hear men complain about each other as much as you hear women do this. At least, in my experience. Are the men sitting on their bitchiness? Do they care so much about cars and sports teams and not interpersonal feelings that they just don't go for each other? Do they not admit they are hurt?

I dunno, good question. I'll mull.
But I do think women are capable of all sorts of toxic behavior.
What would that look like, do you think?
[/quote]
I have some examples above. I mean, don't get me started. I recently got shit all over by a female narcissist. (and I mean that clinically, not as an insult). Playing the victim, manipulating people to be her knight's in shining armor, spreading lies. calling in organizations with lies. One incredibly effective pattern was to be passive aggressive, through body language, voice tone, interrupting, condescending comments until someone would pop - and men and women were victims of this - then playing the victim card, then getting her boys together to advocate and punish and....
oh, man it's been a couple of years. This was a covert narcissist not the more open kind. Since I was friends with this person before, I know how she actually views people including her flying monkeys
What does flying monkeys mean in narcissism?
When the narcissist wants to evoke some punishment on a target they dispatch their henchmen (aka flying monkeys) to do their bidding. Unfortunately, this can and often does include abusive behavior such as guilt-tripping, twisting the truth, gaslighting, assaults, threats, and violence.
but that's all deniable. It has been like playing chess with the devil.

But you know for all that, when it comes down to how the world is set up, I think most of the big players causing the most horror are men.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Toxic Femininity

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Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 4:19 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 02, 2022 3:46 pm "Tend to socialize"? More than men with men? Because if it's equal, then the behaviours ought to be identical. There should be "toxic connections" in equal proportions. Why do women, then, say they experience worse in that regard than the men?
That's a good point. I think there are a few reasons, but I will also have to mull. First, I don't think men form as close connections. Or the connections are by osmosis. They are less openly emotional. They do rather than speak. Their toxicity can come out in violence generally against other men who are not their friends, much less frequently against women in their lives. Two, until fairly recently they had direct outlets for aggression in ways that women did not. In general. That's been shifting. It would be interesting to see if toxic relations between woman is affected by participation in sports. Also, I think it is more acceptable to be tough, cut people off in a conversation, express rage, dominate for men rather than women. So, women's aggression is more likely to come out indirectly - passive aggressive shit, negative gossip, judgmentalness. You may be told you are being bitchy but you won't get classed as essentially a bithc for this.
Good thoughts. Good guesses. No doubt that's at least part of the story.
But I am not fully satisfied so I have to mull more. You don't hear men complain about each other as much as you hear women do this. At least, in my experience. Are the men sitting on their bitchiness? Do they care so much about cars and sports teams and not interpersonal feelings that they just don't go for each other? Do they not admit they are hurt?

I dunno, good question. I'll mull.
A theory for you to mull. Could it be because of the differential in strength?

What I mean is that men's physicality always offers a present threat. If I, as a guy, step too far out of line with you, I know you'll throw a fist. Likewise, if you go over a certain line, you know I can jump up the game. So we respect each other's physicality...even if it's not always equal. And we don't cross lines with each other, unless we're willing to fight. And most of the time, we're not, even if we think we can win. (Of course, I'm speaking of how it is for men in physical proximity.)

But I think women experience many times in life of feeling deficient in power, physically. They feel they possess less of an imminent threat, a much smaller possibility of mounting a defense. They need other channels of power. And they feel maybe some resentment and vulnerability, as well...in any case, they don't seem to be able to opt for physicality, in most cases.

Something to ponder.
But I do think women are capable of all sorts of toxic behavior.
What would that look like, do you think?
I have some examples above. I mean, don't get me started. I recently got shit all over by a female narcissist. (and I mean that clinically, not as an insult). Playing the victim, manipulating people to be her knight's in shining armor, spreading lies. calling in organizations with lies. One incredibly effective pattern was to be passive aggressive, through body language, voice tone, interrupting, condescending comments until someone would pop - and men and women were victims of this - then playing the victim card, then getting her boys together to advocate and punish and....
oh, man it's been a couple of years. This was a covert narcissist not the more open kind. Since I was friends with this person before, I know how she actually views people including her flying monkeys
Yep. Seen that.
What does flying monkeys mean in narcissism?
When the narcissist wants to evoke some punishment on a target they dispatch their henchmen (aka flying monkeys) to do their bidding. Unfortunately, this can and often does include abusive behavior such as guilt-tripping, twisting the truth, gaslighting, assaults, threats, and violence.
but that's all deniable. It has been like playing chess with the devil.
Yep, deniability's part of the attraction, I think.
But you know for all that, when it comes down to how the world is set up, I think most of the big players causing the most horror are men.
Maybe. But women tell us that it's pretty bloody hard being a woman, too. And most of the time, it's not the men who are making the misery for them.
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Re: Toxic Femininity

Post by Phil8659 »

As I am allergic to aromatic hydrocarbons, to me this means something totally different. A toxic female is one who uses perfume and makeup imagining that they can improve themselves as an appearance, why both denying natural beauty, in fact the most beautiful of all creation, of both body and mind.
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