Toxic Masculinity: A Relational, Contingent, Yet Perceived Fixed Social Reality

Toxic masculinity is defined through its toughness, anti-feminity, and centrality of power. From the binary opposition with feminity, we can tell that masculinity is not a material ideal that is always there; instead, it becomes the ideology that we constantly reiterate through different discourses to the extent that we don’t have an alternative paradigm to navigate through but conforming through such binary gendered expectation in ways we (both man and woman) should behave, if not perform in a more post-structuralist term.

Masculinity and its binary opposition to feminity are at the core of how we should behave through our “predetermined” gender. Thus, it is a gendered behavior with several ways reinforcing such ideologies. To deconstruct the fixed, universal ideal of gender through the expression of masculinity and femininity, we could apply the deconstructionist ideal or the aligned framework of the post-structuralist framework to examine how such socially constructed ideals are reinforced in the process, making it the illusion of stability and universality. In the structuralism era, linguistics posits that language is not the mere reflection of pre-existed nature or conception; instead, in linguistic turn, language is a tool that mediates between nature and our conception: that is, language both constitutes and articulates the truth. While structuralism offers a progressive philosophical view on reality, knowledge, and subjectivity, it posits that language, structured through binary oppositions, is the fundamental system upon which we build our understanding of the world. I n structuralism, the sign has two parts: signifier (tangible or sensible fact, conceptual objects) and signified (the meaning/idea, conceptual ideas). Things signified can not exist alone, instead through a highly relational process involving claiming not to be the “other” to be that identity. Then, meaning is gained through such a relational process but considered as the universal outcome of the linguistic system, and our expressions are just the reification of such a linguistic system.  Michel Foucault, in his philosophical thinking “Power and Knowledge,” posits that meanings, though relational, do not entirely come from the linguistic system and are not as stable as in essence. He argues that discourses are processes in which knowledge is formed, but discursive formation, the institutionalized ideas, norms, and rules that govern our lives, has the power to decide what can be talked about and who is qualified to say. Through that process, biased knowledge is learned through power reinforcement, so strong that it constantly makes an illusion of it as truth, sharing the universality.

The discursive formation for the case of masculinity and femininity is maintained through different discourses, including medicalization, political discourse, and family discourse. Firstly, masculinity cannot establish its legitimacy and explain its inherent superiority without an axis for comparison, that is, femininity. By defining femininity as something negative, powerless, and passive, masculinity could establish itself through such a relational process: being not feminine is one standard for qualifying masculinity. To widen the differences (and the designated meanings) between two categories, the power (people who conceive them as the center through comparison) establishes boundaries (physical, mental, psychological) to reinforce the power dynamics and thus turn differences into otherness to establish a truth regime. For example, the division of separate spheres is one structure set to emphasize the differences between men and women in terms of their physically active domain, creating an illusion and thus internalized ideal that women are born with such attributes, so they take such knowledge for granted and absorb such ideology. Also, medicalization is another way to shape such fixed and seemingly inherent construction. By absorbing the tenet of androcentrism, medicalization turns human conditions and variations (formerly not medicalized conditions) into medical conditions through pathology or psychoanalysis. A male-figured man acting in a feminine persona is not considered a natural variation with their agency in doing things they like. They would be interpreted as “faggot” and “ferry,” the already deviant labels, so that their deviant behavior could be justified. Those gender-deviant folks are not only subjected to gender-policing but also homophobia. All discourses dictated that only normalized man could talk and thrive, and anyone who does not meet the expectations is expected to be subject to punishment for their innate illness and should receive proper treatment for that. Over and over, we take this relationally constructed knowledge as a part of our subjectivity, in which we constantly reflect on the tenets and have the consciousness of sticking with that ideal without considering where that knowledge comes from.

The narrative, or the legitimized and normalized one, restricted the possibilities, not only in the way of being alone in one particular way but also the possibilities of being subjected to discrimination, harm, and violence, making such learned knowledge entrenched over and over.