Toxic Masculinity is a new phrase to me, one that I had been mercifully unaware of until now. It seems to be all those nice things about being a boy, but all twisted up and made horrible. Apparently all of us boys are presumed to be toxic, which makes me rather sad, because I'm quite nice really.
Yes, it seems that boys really are made of frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails - and much much worse. We want power, power over other people, power over women and power over children. We are competitive and we are violent. Blimey! Most guys I know like to go fishing, and kick a ball about, and we kind of like to see our ladies and kiddies happy and smiling.
I know the hierarchical ambitious people are a bit nutty, but that's not most us. The worst that can be said about most guys is that we're a bit lazy.
I came across this term, Toxic Masculinity in a report by the Samaritans about suicide levels in middle aged poor men, which are quite high, it seems. Clearly the writers of the report had been reading their Gender Studies handbook, because as a poor man of a certain age I found it truly hard to recognise myself as the psychopathic troglodyte portrayed in the report. If I was half as bad as they think is the normal male condition, all rage and oppression, I really would top myself.
Suicide is a result of lack of power over oneself, rather than lack of power over others. Indeed, suicide, which is an evil deed, like all acts of violence, is a result of lack of power over ourselves, not over others. It is slaves, not the the masters who kill themselves.
The capitalist 'patriarchal' world is split into two basic classes. - those who manage and those who are managed, those who give the orders and those who obey.
In traditional society every man and every woman has a sphere of authority, either through skill, age, or position in the family. When the capitalist state comes along and removes all those spheres of authority the poor man is left with nothing. The poor man never had power, but he had authority, and it is this authority that the capitalist state is forever trying to steal. It is the loss of authority that leaves men and women feeling powerless and worthless. It is this theft of authority that is behind the portrayal of men as the enemies and abusers of women and children, and not the protectors, the providers, the servants of women and children that is our traditional role.
In a society that treats the poor as worthless - born sick, both mentally and physically, victims - ordinary people suffer huge emotional and spiritual damage.
The traits of 'Toxic Masculinity' that the Samaritans ascribe to the poor man are in fact the characteristics of the psychopathic military bureaucrat, the degraded wretches who man and woman the hierarchy. Violence, competitiveness, domination of women are the habits of the armed gang, not the habits of poor men. The Samaritans themselves are the managerial class, the overseer class, and they transfer their own sickness to the poor, to their victims. It is they, these Samaritan hierarchs who can only perceive the world through the prism of power. The original Good Samaritan knew very well that it was better to give than to receive, but these guys can only see Darwinian struggle.
The armed band, the hierarchs, compete with each other to extend the domain of the armed gang by dominating others. These servants of the capitalist state are the complete opposite of the workers and peasants whose life is one of solidarity and mutual help. We could not get by otherwise.
The bureaucrats want us to turn to them and their 'professional' help - they want power.
The bourgeois adherents of Gender Studies and State Feminism are simply bureaucratic Fascists. They will not see the world in terms of social class, they will not recognise the validity of the experience of the poor. The bourgeois experience is power, possession and submission. They wish to transfer their toxicity to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment