Toxic masculinity qualities refers to cultural norms and societal expectations that encourage men to behave in certain ways, such as being aggressive, unemotional, and dominant, which can lead to harmful behaviors such as violence and abuse. This can cause harm not only to those around them, but also to the men themselves, who may feel pressure to conform to these expectations and suppress their emotions. The term “toxic” is used because these cultural norms can have negative effects on individuals and society as a whole.
Toxic masculinity can create an unhealthy atmosphere of competition and aggression, where men are encouraged to view other men as rivals or threats. It is believed that toxic masculinity can also harm men themselves by forcing them to repress their emotions and preventing them from seeking help or support when needed. This can lead to mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.
Men with toxic masculinity qualities exhibit traits such as:
Aggression: The belief that men must be physically and emotionally aggressive in order to assert their dominance and prove their strength.
Emotional suppression: The notion that men should not express their emotions or be perceived as weak.
Dominance and control: The expectation that men must be in control of their environments and assert their power over others.
Omniscient knowledge: The pride of knowing more than other men. Try to show off how he knows everything more than others and/or before others.
Lack of empathy: When fellow men face the same ordeal as him, he cannot treat the men the way he want other people to treat him.
Toxic Masculinity is not a good thing in divorce
Especially in the eyes of professionals, Toxic Masculinity is a kind of self-awareness of a more progressive person. The self-awareness divides male qualities into “toxic” and “non-toxic”, and identifies the “toxic characteristics” one by one. It is also a reflection of the public’s stereotypes on men. Since most people think that way, we shiould avoid going in that “toxic” direction and avoid to be called a toxic male.
Interestingly, the academic literature which invented the term Toxic Masculinity talked about it with some sympathy. They would say the toxic nature is inherited from the expectations given to men by society in the last generations. Dring childhood, boys were educated in such a way making Toxic Masculinity inevitable after the boys grew up to become men. However, the sympathy is just gone from academia to family court or related fields. Toxic Masculinity will definitely not help you when it comes to make a choice between fathers and mothers, men and women.
How to remove our Masculinity Qualities?
Most fathers will not accept that they are called Toxic Masculinity. In fact, our experience shows that the real men who exhibit the characteristics of Toxic Masculinity, their marriages are bright and easy, and they don’t even care about their children. Said that their Toxic Masculinity traits also protect them from being hurt in this fragile 21st century marriage relationship, continuing to control everything and not caring about others. Unfortunately, on the contrary, those fathers who have the least Toxic Masculinity traits, who are relatively gentle, caring, and understanding, are the real victims of being wrongly labeled as Toxic Masculinity in the family court, and, just because they know I am not “Toxic Masculinity”, but being accused of these things makes me even more sad and indignant, very desperate.
Let’s give some countermeasures as examples to these “masculinity qualities” male traits:
Removing Aggressiveness: Aggressiveness refers to the aggressive characteristics of men. When we face professionals, we try too hard to explain ourselves and convince the other party. We are in a hurry to use reasoning, sort it out, and tell the other party. Sometimes we as men just sound too anxious and too demanding, If our facial expression is also too aggressive, we will naturally be crowned as Toxic Masculinity. Therefore, remember that no matter what, in addition to keeping your stance soft and your tone gentle, you should also keep the “speed” slow and calm. The speed holds key to eliminate the other party’s stereotypes about men.
Removing Emotional suppression: Some fathers misunderstand this point. Professional workers, who are mostly women, might lead fathers to believe that as soon as they integrate emotions, shed tears, or even cry bitterly, with tears all over their faces, they can “move” the listeners. However, the fact is that tears already running from a man’s eyes does not mean “showing weakness”, because we are often agitated or aggressive while weeping to explain. So we are still labeled as “toxic” by these female audiences. Men and some audience members may be even confused, if not shocked, by our over-expressed tearful emotions which look so “un-men”. Therefore, we suggest that men should use a large number of weak adjectives and use them in a slowly fashion. Phrases such as: Helpless, helpless, silently accepting, so sad, I don’t know what to do…etc. would be effective as tears. We can also constantly remind our listeners that we, as men, must suppress these because of the burden of our gender. We use everyone’s stereotypes of Toxic Masculinity to make ourselves authentic.
Removing Dominance and control: When dads explain things to professional workers, they often try too hard by using a very strict structure and having a full PowerPoint presentation. Fathers also tend to bring along many, many documents, which would just make them look very demanding. These actions remind the professionals of Toxic Masculinity. They often misunderstood us as “wanting to control them”. Now, how to solve it? Ask as many questions as you can. Using questions instead of affirmative sentences can subtly resolve your listeners suspicion that we want to control them.