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"Toxic" is one of those terms like "problematic" that rely on in-group knowledge to understand. I've often heard it in reference to masculinity; often used by f
by ben509 8y ago
"Toxic" is one of those terms like "problematic" that rely on in-group knowledge to understand. I've often heard it in reference to masculinity; often used by feminists who have a more concrete definition in mind. And, sure you can look at any violent crime stats to see masculinity has its problems, but instead of the more reasonable claim they're making a very nasty one that's indefensible.
Allusions to people being poisonous are particularly destructive. This was very common in the military, if a soldier didn't fit in, he was labeled as something similar to toxic so that others knew not to associate with him. Even then, when the military does it, there's a practical solution: the soldiers get out of the military.
If you claim a larger group is toxic, you have to ask: these are our neighbors, what do we do with them?
> But decisions regarding such deals are made by a small handful of people at the top
Yeah, that really blew the article for me. Something like not-invented-here syndrome is a cultural issue, not bad corporate strategy.
- magic_beans 8y ago> Allusions to people being poisonous are particularly destructive. The phrase "toxic masculinity" isn't directed at one SPECIFIC man, so you can dry your tears.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't post ideological swipes or personally nasty remarks ("you can dry your tears") to HN. It only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ben509 8y agoTo clarify: when I said "you can look at any violent crime stats to see masculinity has its problems" I'm acknowledging that the issue the feminists are trying to address is a real one. And that's an olive branch to avoid derailing the discussion into politics.
- belorn 8y agoTo say that masculinity has a problem because of violent crime statistics is identical to say that femininity has a problem because of eat disorder statistics. Correlating statistics is useful when looking for potential causes in a large space of unknowns, but horrible when misused as evidence to justify a negative label on a category of people. Its not an olive branch for peace.