No I understood that was what they were saying. People don't just use the term fragile masculinity because men like that find it belittling, though; it's a term to describe insecure masculinity, and commonly to describe insecurity that leads to harmful behaviors.
My point there at the end is that I fundamentally disagree with using "fragile masculinity" to refer to exclusively to toxic behavior born of insecurity. Whether intentionally or not, recreates the "fake/weak men" vs "real/strong men" binary that is how the patriarchy categorizes men. What people define as "weak" may vary, and in feminist-leaning spaces "weakness" often gets defined around that idea of "fragile masculinity," that misogynistic and harmful behaviors stem from an inability to just be confident and assertive and unshakeable - not weak - in one's manhood.
But this then ignores that many people are insecure in their manhood without acting in harmful ways, they are just less visible. Patriarchy creates gender insecurity in all of us, male gender insecurity being the most obvious.
Moreover, when I say this is disgustingly individualistic, I mean that this puts the blame for toxic masculinity onto individuals not doing gender good enough, not believing in themselves enough, and the solution is for individuals to just get "more secure" in their manhood. But I feel this links patriarchy far too much to individual men's individual feelings about their gender, rather than the circumstances they do gender in or their understanding of gender and patriarchy on a sociopolitical level. Toxic behavior is directly tied to this insecurity, yes, but how I see "fragile masculinity" used always focuses on the failing of individual men to Just Be Secure, to Fix Themselves, rather than how patriarchy makes all of gender structurally insecure as a form of social control.
Whether intentionally or not, people who talk about fragile masculinity like above do the opposite of encouraging men to be fragile. bell hooks in The Will to Change talks about her own experience as a feminist woman who, she realized, was averse to her male partner showing genuine emotional weakness around her. People do no want fragile men, they want men who are already secure. When you moralize fragility, no matter your intentions, the divide between insecure/secure man becomes one of moving from being morally bad to morally good in a way defined by a sense that one has removed a weak spot. That one is now a Strong Confident Man as opposed to a Weak Emotional Man, and the fact that weakness is linked with toxic behavior is just a slight modification on the patriarchal paradigm.
Its very reminiscent of the problems with the original Men's Liberation Movement, also discussed by hooks in TWTC; good intentions to reduce cis male violence, but ultimately it's just taking patriarchal gender roles and giving them a new look, without really questioning gender on a more structural level:
Describing the men’s movement spearheaded by Robert Bly in her essay “Feminism and Masculinity,” Christine A. James explains:
Bly claims that women, primarily since feminism, have created a situation in which men, especially young men, feel weak, emasculated, and unsure of themselves, and that older men must lead the way back…. Bly holds up the myth of the Wild Man as an exemplar of the direction men must take and never challenges the hierarchical dualisms that are so integrally linked to the tension he perceives between men and women. Arguably, the notion of the Wild Man merely reinforces clichés about “real masculinity” instead of trying to foster a new relationship between men and women, as well as the masculine and feminine.
[...] Many of the New Age models created by men reconfigure old sexist paradigms while making it seem as though they are offering a different script for gender relations. Often the men’s movement resisted macho patriarchal models while upholding a vision of a benevolent patriarchy, one in which the father is the ruler who rules with tenderness and kindness, but he is still in control. In the wake of feminist movement and the diverse men’s liberation movements that did not bring women and men closer together, the question of what the alternative to patriarchal masculinity might be must still be answered.
^ even outside of just the term fragile masculinity, you see this line of thinking come up a lot in pop feminism and general discussions of How To Fix Men. people keep reifying the idea that there is "real masculinity" and "fake masculinity" and that "real masculinity" is benevolent sexism (men are the brave confident strong secure Protectors and Providers) but with all the bad sexism magically divorced from it.
I hope this clarifies why I take umbrage with the term "fragile masculinity" as its often used. I respect OP's reclaiming the term for themself as (I assume) a neutral descriptor of experiencing insecurity around one's masculinity.
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