Non-toxic masculinity/in defense of masc approaches
Set aside the reality that many people who identify as men or women or genderqueer do not identify strongly with traits traditionally associated with masculinity or femininity, and that that is more than valid and more than important. (This should not be set aside.)
I think a positive femininity and a positive masculinity are ones that allow you the freedom to take on both femme and masc traits without feeling stuck with them or burdened by them, and that allow you to borrow from the other when one toolkit isn't big enough, or just allow you to use every tool in every toolkit, while still admitting that there are some tools you feel yourself more drawn toward (if you do - I’m writing as a cis person and a person who identifies strongly with the gender I was assigned at birth, sometimes so strongly that I overidentify with the associated femme ‘helper’ traits to my own detriment).
I'm very femme in my essential outlook and approach to things, but here are some things from the masculinity toolkit that I find indispensable and have sort of had to fight to access without feeling guilty or wrong or just weird:
- the acknowledgment and embracing of anger as an indicator that something needs to change;
- the acknowledgment of lust and personal physical preferences and desires;
- a willingness to fight for my own interests rather than compromise into the ground;
- a willingness and excitement about embracing leadership positions, and a capacity to believe I am good enough for them and will not ruin everything;
- a willingness to allow other people to be my support rather than always supporting others and making my goals secondary;
- a willingness to embrace my own tendency to take initiative in a crisis situation or when others are uncertain or when I actually do know best about something;
- a willingness to express a view that might result in social opprobrium;
- an occasional stubborn desire to do something myself without help or the input of others, resulting in me challenging myself to do something I wasn't sure I could do;
- a willingness to take risks that may look foolish to others, and a willingness to make mistakes and be bold;
- an essential stubborn arrogant streak that stops me from losing myself.
I think if anyone loses access to the masculinity half of the toolkit, they are at terrible emotional risk. It's just very clearly only half of the integrated-human-being toolkit, and I don't think the problem with masculinity is that it is toxic in its essence; it's that it is toxic when a person is essentially taught never to touch the feminine toolkit, and the pain associated with that becomes more and more and more striking when people start casually deriding the masculine toolkit. Because one of the things men are taught to do, culturally, is self-sacrifice for the good of others, and the language of 'dismantling toxic masculinity' sounds a lot like 'give up everything you have, give up the few things we've let you have'. And given that one of the only emotions men are still 'allowed' to access is anger, and given that anger is being more and more and more derided and demonised, one can see why the response would be lashing out in anger.
Crucially, a healthy masculinity and a healthy femininity need to not demand that the people around you do all the work for you if they have easier access than you to one of the toolkits - that’s how, for example, women doing disproportionate emotion-work forever happens, and that’s also how men-should-do-the-heavy-lifting happens. But we are also all damaged by the culture, and sometimes playing co-op games (friendships, romantic relationships, collaborations, teamwork) means allowing different people to play to the strengths they find it easier to access, all while trying to build a world where we aren’t as damaged, individually and collectively, so we can all play co-op better.
