It is a term that is made to cover a wide verity of harmful behavior being masked as "masculinity." Basically ideas like, considering homosexuality to "emasculating," that men who express their openly express their emotions to be less "manly," and harmful teachings of what it should be considered "masculine." So the main issue of toxic masculinity is more so the idea men being forced into a small box of acceptable behaviors and attempting to fit outside of that box is met with social backlash.
So it is an intentionally fairly broad ranging concept that covers things others would take on a more case by case basis, and as such less useful than specifics or even really as a narrowing pathway in diagnostics. Worse is it seems to have a wide variety of definitions or interpretations out there in the world, several of which I find quite suspect. Oh well.
Well first I have to stress enough that this was a earlier time, when I was younger (and people was less open to certain things unlike today) most girls did not play games. I don't know if it cause they didn't see interest in them, but could also speculate that is because maybe they didn't find them intended for them. When games that started features story or relevant characters, they didn't feature female ones, and if they did, they usually was "Damsel in distress" rather than playable protagonist. While today there is plenty of games where they do have female characters depicted in positive influence to the player base regardless of the role in the game's story.
In the past, if you was a young elementary school student, you liked video games, playing with robot action figures and being dirty if you was a guy. Or style, playing with dolls, and staying clean and smell nice if you was a girl. It was very segregated between the two genders and if one of them showed interest in the things the other was mostly dominating, it made for some awkward times. But my point was the difference between today and the past, not trying to offend anyone here but that's how it was for some people. I personally didn't think much about it cause it seem exaggerated.
If memory serves you are still rather younger than I and have been doing this gaming lark since I too was a small lad. Still not remembering a time when women were unwelcome or uninvited as a general concept. I don't doubt demographics as a whole have shifted somewhat but I care less about that than people being made unwelcome.
Is "Damsel in distress" not a positive character role?
Like most things, it's changed over times. So, "play games" is okay so long as they're "girl games". If they're competitive games, gory games, etc then the girl is treated as a "tomboy"; if they play enough of those games will likely receive comments of "never getting a guy". Of course, the last comment will possibly occur if a guy plays enough games to "never getting a girl", but the threshold is lower for girls receiving the comment in my experience.
Do you hear "woman up"? Is "man up" said to women? I think when people start blatantly referencing gender or age, one has to consider if they're implying something about that gender/age. With boys, it's mostly about age not gender. I'd consider homophobia somewhat disconnected from toxic masculinity (as there's toxic femininity with the same mindset), but I imagine that depends a lot on your local culture. I definitely agree it's hard to narrow down what's the source/direction of toxicity, as it's not limited to gender roles, race roles, etc, but it definitely is a thing and it often is more cultural norms masquerading as gender norms. That's a major reason why it's so hard to define concretely because cultural norms aren't agreed upon and are fluid.
Yes, both as a "logical" counterpoint I have seen women told to lean into the femininity as it were, and as an amusing twist type thing to ultimately mean the same thing as man up (for want of a more precise phrase as a kind of gender neutral version of man up).
Yes I have heard it as a general phrase when women are engaged in a task and need some encouragement to get it done.
I don't know that age is the basis for such a thing, other than puberty tending to be associated with things.
For the most part I go with the classic harms done thing as far as how you approach the world, and will tie it in with "you do you" here*. However most times I hear the phrases it is people with an agenda and outlook on the world I find less than agreeable.
*it gets a bit more fun when it comes to parents doing things, and it gets tricky with the gay thing mentioned before. For instance I would have no problem with someone teaching their kid, gay and inclined to be a softly spoken mincer, to do all the "manly" stuff like hunting, martial arts, hard graft labour... not to stop them being gay but as a general thing they want them to know (and replace as necessary for the other gender options as it were), and compelling them strongly do such a thing. Many that would be inclined to throw around the phrases in question seem to fail to see that, never mind all the fun and games associated by many of said same with roughhousing.
It just all stems from a stupid commercial and never should be taken seriously.
Assuming you mean that Gillette business then it massively predates that -- here is a 2012 article from a fairly major publication covering things
https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/the-end-of-violent-simplistic-macho-masculinity/ , 2013 in wired
https://www.wired.com/2013/10/breaking-bad-toxic-masculinity/ and you can find examples from the years before and after readily enough. While I have massive misgivings with the term/its definitions/it proponents/its usages in wild it is far from a term that lept out of some dusty textbook or was concocted in recent times.
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K3Nv2:
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