4 ms·

Yes it is. Psychotic and mental illness are very serious issues, and trivializing them as caused by "masculinity" is as sick as it gets.

• geographomics 12y ago
  Why do you claim that this is trivialising mental illness? The potential influence of culture on mental health is surely a topic of some pertinence and interest.
• wpietri 12y ago
  Is your claim that there is zero correlation between violence and culturally constructed notions of masculinity? Or that there is no relationship between guns and cultural notions of masculinity? Because both of those things seem obviously wrong to me. For example, I love "guy movies" with guns and explosions and macho nonsense. But it is enormously gendered. Take the movie Salt, where Angelina Jolie played the sort of role typically reserved for guys. There was enormous discussion about having a woman in a role like that. The script was substantially reworked because a woman took the title role. Neither would have happened if this stuff weren't heavily gendered. Also, psychosis is very serious, but are you really asserting that all mass shooters were experiencing psychotic breaks at the time of their actions? I've only seen a couple of psychotic breaks up close, but those poor people hardly seemed capable of planning the purchase of a happy meal, let alone making and and carrying out a carefully crafted, months-long plan to murder a bunch of people.
  • ivanca 12y ago
    >Is your claim that there is zero correlation between violence and culturally constructed notions of masculinity? No, my claim is that is phisically impossible to distinguish between society pressure and testosterone combined with a chemical imbalance. When I was a teenager I have had desire to end it all in the same way that many shooters did, you know why? Is not about "masculinity", is about hatred for everything that breaths, for not fitting into society and the complete lack of social skills that I supposed I was too stupid to learn or that society didn't teach me. There is a lot going on in our body when you are going through puberty, testosterone, loneliness, discomfort, confusion, extreme self-consciousness, a lot of stuff besides "masculinity". So yeah, Annita and people should STFU about things they don't start to understand.
    • wpietri 12y ago
      As a person who was also once a teenager with testosterone, puberty, loneliness, etc, I disagree on a few points. First, I disagree that the loneliness, etc, doesn't have a lot to do with our culture's construction of masculinity. There's a lot of stuff that boys are "supposed" to be that plays into that. We're supposed to be tough, macho, and unfeeling, so we don't get much support for expressing or managing those emotions. We're supposed to "win", to be dominant, to be high status, with no help if we don't. We're not supposed to talk about the details of social interaction the way that girls do, so it's always more mysterious. We are discouraged from building social and emotional support networks. And there's a whole host more. It has taken me literally decades to start seeing how poisonous so much of that early gender programming was for me. Second, I disagree that having been through it once makes you such an authority that you get to tell everybody else to shut up. Fishes undeniably understand water. But so do chemistry professors and hydrodynamicists. There are different ways to understand something. Third, I disagree Anita and David Futurelle and I "don't start to understand". I think I understand my past as well as you understand yours. I'm sure David feels the same way about his past. Both Futurelle and I have also spent years examining the mechanisms of gender culture. And for us, Anita's point is accurate. Which is unsurprising to me, because she literally has a degree in this stuff. Her Master's thesis was on gender representations in SF&F TV. Now that doesn't mean she (or anybody) is automatically right. But she does have standing to talk.
• delecti 12y ago
  As a general rule, men are much more reluctant to get help with mental illnesses, largely as a direct result of toxic masculinity.
  • ivanca 12y ago
    How do you conclude is thanks to "toxic masculinity"? And not something else? BTW the slipery slope in such term is revolting, otherwise can you give me an example of common toxic femininity?
    • delecti 12y ago
      Toxic femininity isn't really a thing, but the other side of the same coin would be societal pressures on women's appearances, and pressures to not be a slut/prude/bitch. Also, I think you need to explain what slippery slope you mean.
      • ivanca 12y ago
        Oh, yes it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA
        • delecti 12y ago
          The idea of toxic masculinity is that it's a set of negative behaviors among men that are reinforced by other men. "Toxic Femininity", if it existed, would have to be a set of behaviors reinforced by other women, so the "disposable male" idea wouldn't really qualify as part of it. Also, the idea of the disposable male is a bit misleading, because it really only applies to less privileged men, barring exceptions like "women and children first" on a sinking ship, which really is another example of toxic masculinity anyway.
          • ivanca 12y ago
            Yeah, everything is just the fault of males, they are the only ones reinforcing gender stereotypes. Yes, of course, you are so right.