We’ve all been reading Trump’s threats about shooting looters to unleashing “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” on protestors if they come to the White House. One of the phrases that jumps to mind when I learn about him saying such things is toxic masculinity. The Wikipedia definition is as good as any:
The concept of toxic masculinity is used in academic and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and to men themselves. Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominant, along with related traits such as misogyny and homophobia, can be considered "toxic" due in part to their promotion of violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence. The socialization of boys in patriarchal societies often normalizes violence, such as in the saying "boys will be boys" with regard to bullying and aggression. Wikipedia
My good friend, I’ll call her E., has been vexing over her observation that men are responsible for all, as she sees it, the problems in the United States as played out by the cops in the George Floyd case and in other instances of police brutality, and of course by Donald Trump’s toxic masculinity.
I wasn’t going to write about this until I opened my email this morning and looked at an article about masculinity with referenced The Terminator. More about that in a minute.
The very first essay I posted on Daily Kos was all of seven paragraphs long. It was about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his role in The Terminator:
Too bad the Republicans can’t nominate the Trumpinator. Just think, were it not for two words in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, Republican and former Mr. Universe, two term governor of our largest state, world renown movie star, and the man selected to replace Donald Trump as host of “Celebrity Apprentice" Arnold Schwarzenegger could be running for president. Take out the words “natural born” from our Constitution and it could have happened.
Continued
Striked out as likely to be historically inaccurate:
The only female head of state that came immediately to mind as being toxic was Mary Queen of Scotts. After a web search I found Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar. Of course I am certain there are a few more, but by far the vast majority of despotic leaders were and continue to be men.
I won’t get into the subject of the masculine culture in law enforcement. Lots has been written about it. You can review many of the articles here.
In a word association psychological test (say the first thing that comes to mind when I say the following): when presented with the phrase “toxic masculinity” my hunch is that many of you would say “Donald Trump.”
After two days of fervent phone conversations with E. on this subject this is from this morning’s email:
It links to a 28 page article which you can read here.
Because this is a PDF it is labor intensive to copy excerpts so I won’t include more than two. I haven’t read every word and I don’t expect you to do so either. What struck me was how the author used the Terminator as one exemplar of masculinity in the introduction and once in the article.
Introduction
Here are ten things we could say about masculinity: toughness; my friend keeps his head shaved; prostate cancer; not-femininity; ordinary blokes; the bits about men in Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo (1913); a penis; Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the terminator in James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984); boxing; the adjective masculine, defined as “relating to or characteristic of a man.”
The cyborg character, if you aren’t familiar with original movie, is an
assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose son will one day become a savior against machines in a post-apocalyptic future. He begins systematically killing women named Sarah Connor, whose addresses it finds in the phone directory. Wikipedia
How toxically masculine is that? How Trump-like in that the hostility is directed against women?
The Terminator is referenced again in the article (on page 14):
We may concur that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance in The Terminator has an immediate bearing on the topic of masculinity, not because we agree about the content of masculinity but because the example conforms to common sense about where and how masculinity will most predictably be found: “ah yes, Arnie.”
Ah yes, Donnie.
For more toxic Trumpian masculinity, let’s not forget what Donald Trump said about waterboarding: 'even if it doesn't work they deserve it'
DonaldTrump touted the benefits of waterboarding in a campaign rally on Monday night, telling a crowd that “you bet your ass” he would bring it back into use.
Addressing thousands of people in Columbus, Ohio, the Republican frontrunner praised waterboarding, an interrogation method that has been called torture. “I would approve more than that,” he said.
Trump told supporters: “Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that. It works.”
The Republican frontrunner then added “… and if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us”. The Guardian
Ah yes, Donnie.