That’s what the term means- not that “men are all necessarily this way and it’s *because* they’re men”- and if you resist its use because you misunderstand that, the problem isn’t with the term, it’s with your misunderstanding. By violence, by bigotry, by the idea that the only appropriate way to express manhood is through domination, which renders everyone a target for hegemonic abuse and renders every emotion other than raging ego to be ‘womanly’ and ‘weak.’ “Toxic masculinity” means there is a strain- a version of the ‘product’- that IS tainted. “Toxic masculinity” doesn’t *mean* “all masculinity is violent, bigoted, emotionally stunted, demeaning to ‘others,’ etc ” if you believe that it’s because you’ve gotten bad information from people who are stupid (or who are lying for the prupose of providing cover *for* toxic assholes). If you think “toxic masculinity” shouldn’t be a term because- uhh- “real masculinity isn’t toxic,” then you must get really confused when people say, for instance, “don’t eat that bacon, it’s gone bad.” “Bacon is good, so it can’t be bad!” Cue food poisoning.
