Mais sinon, la question de départ ? (Qu'est-ce qu'une femme ? Qu'est-ce qu'un homme ?)
Un Australien cherche des réponses :
Citation:
Maybe we’ve got toxic masculinity all wrong: maybe it’s not a type of masculinity at all, but instead its ultimate descriptor.
This caution isn’t new. William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies in 1954 – a case study of what happens when you drop a group of young boys on to an island. Left to their own devices, they fall back on their socialisation. The island becomes a site of bullying, aggression, death – a microcosm of the war they seemingly escaped. Golding very much looked to explore that “darkness in man’s heart”.
But the way we use “toxic masculinity” now – as a carceral kneejerk to awful behaviour – really doesn’t get to the heart of the issue. It creates a binary around an imaginary “good man” vs “bad man” that isn’t altogether useful. Why?
Because “bad men” will keep sprouting out from the conditions we set for the socialisation of our children. “Bad men” will keep exploiting their powers in a culture that continues to uphold and revere masculinity as a fundamental norm.
Citation:
“The concept of toxic masculinity encourages an assumption that the causes of male violence and other social problems are the same everywhere, and therefore, that the solutions are the same as well.”
In focusing heavily on individuals, with little attention paid to culture or broader structures, the easiest targets of this “toxicity” are men impacted by other forms of structural inequality (such as poverty and racism). These men are then most likely to fall back on to their masculinity due to the overarching discrimination and marginalisation they already face. For them, masculinity becomes a familiar comfort – to women’s imminent discomfort. They become the “bad men”.
But “good men” are worthy of interrogation, too. While we typically use “good” as a proxy for “non-violent”, we miss the fact that these “good men” are complicit in a culture that harms women (and other men). Our behaviours might not be necessarily “toxic” but we take little to no action in actively challenge the system or our own masculinities – because it continues to reap us enough benefits.
What could positive and healthy manhood look like? Is it just … femininity? Or are “care” and “empathy” maybe just part of the human condition?
In 2019 we largely understand gender as socially constructed, but sometimes I fear that we forget what that really means – to construct socially means that gender comes into action through our ongoing movement, language and dialogue. It becomes enforced and reinforced through continual ritual, repetition and rehearsal from a very, very young age. The more we practice, the more we cement it as a social norm.
TLDR : parler de « masculinité toxique » dans les cas les plus extrêmes d’empoisonnement à la testostérone (si on peut dire) pourrait être contre-productif dans la mesure où cela évite de s'interroger sur la masculinité tout court.
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'Human beings. You always manage to find the boring alternative, don't you?'
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- Quand Redstein montre l'abattoir, l'imbécile regarde Redstein - (©Masha)
