This week I’ll be focusing on toxic femininity. This is the first of a 3-part series. The focus will be on the following:
- What it is
- An in-depth psychological aspect of what it encompasses
- How it affects society
- What positives can we get out of this. How we can shift our mindset from toxic to safe or even inspirational
For this article we’ll only touch the surface of what toxic femininity is and I’ll some examples. Let’s get into it.
What is Toxic Femininity?
Disclaimer: Most of the research that I had done on this is not necessarily things that I agree with, however there are parts that I do agree with. I just want to make clear that the following is research-based and not my own opinion unless stated otherwise.
Please read to the end to get my opinion on the matter and reason for tackling this topic.
Defining toxic femininity
According to Rebecca Strong toxic femininity is a term used to describe the “potentially negative impact of society’s standards for women”. One of these standards are beauty. I’ve written an article on the negative impact the beauty industry has on women. Please take the time to read more about it here.
There is no clear definition of the term and so everyone and their mother has their own definition for it. Anti-feminists define it as making use of feminine qualities to manipulate men.
However, most experts agree that it involves the restriction of behavior to fit stereotypical traits that are pleasing to men.
Sean Galla puts it simply as “gender-specific expectations for women that are supposed to keep them quiet, subservient, and submissive“. He further goes on to explain that the term is sometimes used by women to receive privileges. However, this is open to interpretation.
To put it simply
Women and men are both borne with certain expectations even before birth. Boys are taught to play soccer, rugby and perhaps some form of martial arts.
Whereas girls are rather kept inside to help with cooking, taught to clean and had to focus on developing their fine motor skills. They play with dolls, draw more often, play doctor and so forth.
As these children get older they are pushed to fit a standard rather than being their authentic selves. Doing something that they want to do. Becoming who they feel most right to become.
Gender roles have been so ingrained in us that it’s hard to shake off or give a blind eye to. However, I do believe that masculinity and femininity falls on a continuum. Let me explain.
There are certain things that women are intrinsically better at than what men are and vice versa. This is normal. Women are much better at intuitive thinking, drawing conclusions and analyzing whereas men have stronger motor skills and a heightened perception (Northwestern Medicine). This is due to how our brains are wired. This is not as a result of male domination or living in a patriarchal society.
However, toxic femininity and masculinity becomes a problem when these “gender roles” are pushed to the extremes. When these cultural and societal expectations are not relative to our DNA and women are told to fit a narrative that they don’t necessarily want to fulfill.
What Does Toxic Femininity Look Like?
Since the term cannot be specifically defined it can be difficult to give clear examples. Looking at the definitions given above, toxic femininity can look like the following:
- Women are supposed to stay at home and fulfill their child-rearing duties.
- Society looks down on women who make the decision to not have children.
- Women in the workplace sometimes have to use their bodies/looks to advance in their careers rather than getting the promotion based on performance.
- Females should know their place and handle confrontation with grace. They are not allowed to get angry and physical as it is not a “good look” on them.
- Specific jobs are more catered to females and they should rather stick to those like nursing, teaching, ballet etc.
- Hearing that real women have curves (we’re not all built the same).
- Women being criticized for growing hair on their legs and underarms.
The Other Side of the Coin
There’s another definition of toxic femininity that I found to be the most disturbing of them all. That is that women use their feminine traits in such a way that it harms others (not only men). These can be seen in the following examples:
- Having an utter disdain for men. Thinking that all men want to have sex with them, cheat or traumatize them.
- Wanting so badly to be equal to men but in the same breath is praying for the downfall of men.
- Playing the victim to avoid responsibility or even accountability. This includes rationalizing actions due to being oppressed.
- Women ostracizing other women if they’re more successful.
- Using their emotions as a weapon of abuse. It also includes verbal and psychological abuse as per a study done by the NIH.
My Opinion
My opinion on the topic is simple: women need men and men need women. Women and men are bashing each other in social media and for what?
Men are being targeted and told that all they do is strut around with their toxic traits telling the weaker sex what to do. But this is not true.
Women are targeted and told that all they do is use their bodies to gain advancement and furthermore to ostracize other women who achieved success without using their bodies. This too is not true.
We are all made differently – it’s in our DNA to not be the same. When war breaks out (taking as an example Ukraine and Russia), who is at the front line? Men! How many women would volunteer to either blow up and kill or get blown up and be killed?
Both sexes need each other to pro-create. If we’re constantly bashing each other and hating on each other the human race will not survive. Thus my reason for tackling this topic is to showcase how we are different, but also how badly we need each other.
And if you think you don’t need the opposite sex just take a moment to think how the world would be with 6 billion of yourself. No one is made perfect, we all have “bad” traits, but we also have good traits. We need each other to complement each other.
Conclusion
From my perspective it is clear to see that there really isn’t a clear, concise definition of what toxic femininity is. However, it does seem that it all boils down to the same thing: female traits that are seen as negative.
I hold the opinion that both men and women have traits that are seen as negative if used in the wrong way. But it is easier for women to “get away” with it as they are already seen as the weaker sex.
It’s okay for a women to physically abuse a man, because she’s weaker. No! It’s not okay. Toxic femininity carries a wide variety of traits and characteristics and I’ve only covered the tip of the iceberg.
For my next article I’ll cover the following:
- An in-depth psychological aspect of what it encompasses
- How it affects society
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