At the most basic level of gender and women’s studies, students are taught that gender is a social construct. However, understanding what gender really means requires us to deconstruct what society has taught us about it. It is also necessary to debunk the myths that society teaches us about gender in order to have discussions about why gender is important. One misconception about gender is that humans are born with it; several gender studies refute this, telling us that we are born with sex, but socialized into gender. Because gender is socialized, it can also be fluid. This means that a person does not have to adhere to just one social standard. Unfortunately, gender fluidity is not completely socially accepted. Almost everything is gendered: bathrooms, clothes, toys, and even sports or fields of study. If someone is born with a penis, their favorite color is supposed to be blue, they are not supposed to cry, and they should like someone with a vagina. A person with a vagina is not supposed to want to play football, they should like to wear dresses, and they are supposed to want someone with a penis. These societal standards may seem harmless, but they are examples of inscribing gender, enforcing gender roles and isolating those who don’t fit into the strict categories of gender ideals. Gender roles are boxes that people of each biological sex are expected to fit in, and they can be very damaging to both sexes. Although we are usually not explicitly told what a boy should do and what a girl should do, traditional gender roles have been around for so long that they have become engraved into our society.
A phenomenon called toxic masculinity is a product of gender roles. Toxic masculinity, defined by Terry Kupers, is “the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence." When men are strictly confined by gender roles, they often exhibit toxic masculinity. I was raised in a fairly conservative suburb in the south. Growing up in this environment, my brother and I, and all of my friends, were surrounded by the notion that men and women (and boys and girls) have specific roles in society. Gender roles manifested themselves in many of my guy friends when they got hurt, but started to act aggressively and hide their emotions to protect themselves from looking “weak.” Weakness has been defined as an inherently "womanly" trait ("Boys don't cry"), and what's worse than a man being like a woman?! Apparently, not a lot. Many young men have said hurtful and/or sexist things to me and others in order to assert their dominance. Although many individuals may not believe in the dominance of men over women, our nation has historically been and still is one which very much puts white men in control. Gender roles say that men are the leaders; women cannot have that position, and political structure still overwhelmingly supports that notion. When a man cannot fulfill an aspect of his prescribed masculinity (such as being a leader), he often turns toward misogyny, as the above examples speak of. Such is the case in small cases of toxic masculinity—men exhibit sexist actions; in the extreme, however, they enact gender-based violence.
Gender based violence is a systemic problem that has historically conformed to masculinity norms in U.S. society. The theory of toxic masculinity does not claim that all men are rapists or abusers...it states that men have the capacity to become violent if they are pushed into a role of masculinity that they do not fit into, or if their masculinity is challenged. Toxic masculinity theory does not recognize that gender based violence can also be enacted by women, but I need to highlight that fact. Women do rape men. Women do abuse men. Women do have certain power over men in some circumstances, such as in a divorce or sexual assault prison sentencing (women are not punished as severely). Women certainly take part in gender based violence, but the reasons for that are different, and I'm only addressing toxic masculinity in this piece.
Although the U.S. government and legal system have taken large strides in prevention and better handling of gender based violence, it is still a prevalent institutional problem. Gender based violence is not an abstract issue. It is something that has affected millions of people; preventing them to go to work or school, and even causing some to take their own lives. Even though individuals struggle with the impacts of gender based violence, it has effects on more than just the victims. I would argue that U.S. society as a whole has become somewhat desensitized to the phenomenon of gender based violence. High schoolers will walk down the hallways and say, “That test just raped me!” without realizing the harm that the word "rape" carries. Many men still think cat calling is a form of flattery, instead of realizing that it is an attempt to claim a woman as their sexual property. Media (such as "Fifty Shades of Grey") will romanticize dominance of men over women and sex without consent (aka rape). The list goes on and on; gender based violence has become all too familiar in our vernacular, and not for the right reasons. There have historically been many barriers preventing reform in the government, which have thankfully been removed by new and more progressive laws dealing with sexual assault. On a societal and individual basis, however, there are many things preventing reform. Because rape and sexual assault have become so ingrained in our culture, a great number of people believe that, “That's just the way it is,” that gender based violence cannot be removed from our society, and that, "Boys will be boys".
I'm not buying it. Toxic masculinity that leads to gender-based violence can be decreased if our generation is one that teaches our children that there are no gender ideals that they have to conform to. Letting a person grow up in a world that does not expect them to adhere to a certain standard of gender is freeing, and beneficial to both the individual and society as a whole. I urge you to teach your sons to be soft, and your women that they are not bossy for wanting to speak up. There is no reason gender should restrict someone from being who they are.
