A Woman in a Man’s Church

if they are shamed by others for their “unmanly” behavior, the result can be toxic masculinity, a twisted version of masculinity in which violence, aggression and competitiveness are the yardsticks for success.

Instead men are regularly shamed for their manly side these days and handed phrases like “toxic masculinity”, which is why their mental health is going down the pan and boys are being let down at school. “Toxic femininity” never gets a mention, yet I’m sure there is such a thing – it would probably include body shaming and psychological abuse.

I’m sick of being expected to account for other people’s behavior. If I see men acting stupidly, sometimes I can intervene, but I am not responsible for their life choices. Nor am I responsible for everything white people have done or will do.

The way the church treats women sucks, I don’t deny that, and I try not to perpetuate that, but I’m not to blame for what others do who share some physical characteristics with me.

Excellent post. Two things:

1) What Roy said. This is NOT an excuse of the LDS Church. Far from it.

2) Toxic masculinity is a real thing. If we look at the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the Beatitudes, it is overwhelmingly a Sermon about the need to be more stereotypically female to a society that was organized upon and valued a stereotypically male organization and approach.

I’d go with the term “Machavellian”. Calling it “toxic masculinity” is sexist; a woman can be just as much of a d*** as any guy.

And I’d put Robert Greene deep into the deep in the camp of “toxic masculinity”, as well as anyone who applies his teachings.

dande48 and on own now: I recommend you read the whole post I linked (or much better, the book) so you can improve your understanding of what Robert Greene is saying. Both so-called masculine and so-called feminine traits exist in ALL people, and they are all good qualities (or not inherently bad). It’s only when you tell men & women to suppress traits that are naturally theirs (that society and/or their parents have assigned to the opposite gender role) that toxicity happens. When you shame boys for being “feminine” or “not manly” (for traits that every child possesses) or you shame girls for being “masculine” or “not feminine” (for traits all children have), that’s when these negative and extreme behaviors come out. The reason “toxic masculinity” and “toxic femininity” don’t look exactly the same is because it’s a patriarchal world we live in (built on traits deemed “masculine” like competitiveness, aggression, logic) and women have less direct access to power in our social structures.

It’s not a matter of “adopting” traits one doesn’t possess. It’s undoing the suppression of our traits that we learned to hide as very young children. It’s regaining some balance we lost along the way. Babies and toddlers of both sexes cry, fight, yell, are contented, snuggle, are selfish, are affectionate–until we start teaching them that only (roughly) half of those things are (more) acceptable for their gender.

Sambee: from the post:

So what, if anything, is toxic femininity? First, there are some Men’s Rights Activists who claim “toxic femininity” is a byproduct of feminism, that women want to blame men for violence while enacting violence themselves, then playing the “woman card” to get away with it. That’s not what Robert Greene’s book is talking about (and he avoids the term Toxic Femininity as well as the term Toxic Masculinity) nor is it what this OP is about. The negatives that we see leaking out when women are forced into a “feminine” role are:

“The hyperfeminine woman will often be concealing a great deal of repressed anger and resentment at the role she has been forced to play. Her seductive, girlish behavior with men is actually a ploy for power, to tease, entrap, and hurt the target. Her masculine side will leak out in passive-aggressive behavior, attempts to dominate people in relationships in underhanded ways. Underneath the sweet, deferential façade, she can be quite willful and highly judgmental of others.”

When you have to pretend to be nicer and less aggressive than you really feel, the natural byproduct is to weaponize your niceness. You can couch an insult as a compliment, for example: “Usually girls your size can’t pull off that type of outfit, but you really look great in it!” Manipulating men through childish behavior is the entire premise of the book Fascinating Womanhood, a book that was popular in Mormon circles in the 70s and 80s. In the book, women are encouraged to act helpless, use a baby voice to get their way, and to stamp their foot during an argument to seem more “feminine” and dependent which is supposed to boost their husband’s ego. It’s all a play act designed to help a man who is insecure feel more masculine.

This enforced femininity can also create other problems for women, such as eating disorders, depression, or even mental illness like Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy which disproportionately affects women and is also a form of child or elder abuse.

To me, there’s a lot of that I recognized from the Relief Society.

Roy, exactly! Also from the post:

Second wave feminists know very well that to succeed in these environments, women must suppress their “feminine” traits and bolster their “masculine” traits to succeed and get ahead, and yet, they pay a price for doing so, both internally and also within the group because they are seen as acting “unfeminine.”

Yeah, I’ve read Robert Greene. Great writer, highly amoral. I’m not interested in anything else he has to say.

“Masculinity” by definition is “qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men.” “Femininity” by defintion is “qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women.” By using those words, in conjucntion with “toxic” you are applying negative characteristics to gender. It is inherently sexist. Toxic is toxic, no matter where it pops up.

The thing is, I WISH everyone were treated with more kindness and compassion, no matter what traits they posess. I wish virtuous people could achieve positions of power. I don’t think anyone should feel disadvantaged because of their gender. I think cat callers are butts, and I think the rich men in power (or anyone else) who sexually harass anyone should all be run over by a truck. But I cannot support a movement that belittles another group in order to further their cause. It’s not right when men do it, and it’s not right when women do it. Period.

I’d like to articulate my own views briefly and hopefully leave this thread on more of an upswing (for my own mental health).

I don’t believe that either “masculine” or “feminine” traits are inherently better or closer to God. Therefore people who have primarily masculine traits (mostly, but not exclusively men) and people who have primarily feminine traits (mostly, but not exclusively women) all bring important social and individual elements of themselves to our shared world. Are traits such as these elevated or suppressed by gender roles and narratives during upbringing? Yes. Are they also part of our natural makeup before our environments affect them? I believe yes and I allow that others will disagree.

But regardless, we, us people here on the earth, are what we are, and I believe that each of us has amazing qualities along side a propensity to falter. Each of us has the ability to utilize our qualities for good; for our own betterment and for the betterment of our community. We may solve problems in different ways, we may seek out and maintain relationships in different ways, we may perceive the same situations differently. Yet, ultimately, it is our ability to leverage our own individual strengths in our own individual approaches while at the same time seeking to cooperate with each other in spite of differences that makes us truly amazing creatures.

My wife and I are different people. We see things differently, we solve things differently. We frequently smile and repeat the mantra vive la difference. Part of what makes our love work so well is our mutual admiration of qualities in the other that don’t come as easily to ourselves. We have been able to see these in each other by reaching across the proverbial aisle.

To my sisters here at StayLDS: I have been your advocate and will continue to do so. I frequently voice my desires to end gender roles in Church and have admonished other men to see how easily women in the Church regard themselves as second class citizens; and that we have to do what we can to end that. As I mentioned in a recent thread, I would rather not talk about ‘modesty’ in Church any more, because the Church’s definition is in appearance, and that falls on the girls as their special burden. I don’t want the Church to be in the business of telling one group they have special rules. I hope for a day when women receive the full priesthood, not some subset (and semantics-based) version of it. I believe completely that it will happen and perhaps some of you who are younger than I am will live to see it. I hope so. I long for a day when the Church will renounce polygamy; not simply say “we no longer practice it” (which isn’t even entirely true). I don’t know if that one will occur. I think so, I hope so, but it’s a long way off. I do these things and I hope for these things as a white male American with masculine traits, not in spite of it.

To my gay and lesbian friends here. As I’ve said before, I am sorry for my past views. I was wrong before. I have learned of myself because of people I have known and know now, that you are just as valid as anyone else in your sexuality and your desire for relationships that don’t fit the heterosexual view. For several years now, I have been your advocate and I will continue to do so. I have marched with Mormons Building Bridges. I frequently voice my support of SSM in the secular world and that I think someday the Church should change its own stance. I do believe it will happen. Not soon enough, for sure, and we will lose many good and amazing and wonderful and unreservedly first-class members of the Church because of this. But someday, it will change. I pray that I live long enough to see the changes. I don’t think the prohibition is well-supported in our scriptures. I do these things and I hope for these things as a white male American with masculine traits, not in spite of it.

If you are still reading this, I want to leave you with one of my own favorite passages from the New Testament. As I’ve said on these pages before, Paul was a radical universalist. He was way ahead of the game on women in the Church. Unfortunately, later, people who wanted to get back to establishing a distinction between men and women wrote words into the NT that they ascribed to Paul, to counter what Paul himself had said. That left Paul posthumously stripped of one of his most distinctive views. Paul himself wrote to the Gentiles in Galatia to assure them that they were every bit as good and Godly and loved by God and part of the Family of Christ as anyone else (and for this one, I’ll use the familiar KJV):

ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

IMO, whether we believe Paul, believe in God, don’t know, or believe there is no God, Paul’s ideal resonates through the centuries; we are all of equal worth and goodness.

I don’t know what movement you are talking about here, nor what group you are saying this movement is belittling. The post is about a book that describes childhood development as relates to gender roles.

I wasn’t refering to the book. That’s a very old theory, and I agree with the premise.

I was referring to the modern wave of feminism. It has, in my experience, extensively belittled men, by using terms such as “toxic masculinity” in order to further their cause. I think it’s counterproductive. By using terms, like “toxic masculinity” (among others) we are doing exactly what the book discusses. It is assigning the trait “toxic” (comprimising a variety of traits, all bad) primarily to the male gender. It makes men feel ashamed for being men.

What we really want, is to do without toxic behavior in all its forms, wherever it comes from. Calling a male “effeminate” for tearing up with emotion is counterproductive. You can be 100% a man, and still show emotion. You can be 100% a woman, and still be aggressive. If both men and women can posess a trait, and should feel comfortable in posessing a trait, why apply those traits primarily to a single gender? Assigning a label to a trait which conflicts with the trait-barer’s identity, will not make them more self-accepting. Which is what we all really want, isn’t it?