We Hear about Toxic Masculinity, but What about Toxic Femineity?

 Toxic masculinity. At this point, it's one of those terms that has almost lost all meaning. In today’s culture, we use that phrase so much that it seemingly holds no longer weight. People say it but can’t explain it. How many videos are there on the web of people being interviewed and giving half-hearted examples of toxic masculinity, if they can even provide examples? Most just say ‘Sorry, I can’t’ and walk away.

It's time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Everything has an opposing counterpart. Night, Day. Good, Evil. So, what about ‘Toxic Masculinity”, “Toxic Femininity?”

The Unacknowledged Elephant in the Room

Let's clear the air on my definition of toxic femininity. First, I will start with a definition of what I think is the opposite of the truth.

“Toxic femininity posits that women are without agency and exist to be defined and judged of their value by a male in their life such as a father or a husband. (Link).

WRONG. The above statement isn’t addressing the right kind of toxic femininity. Oh no, it goes much deeper than that.

Let’s expose the dark side of femininity.

The Dark Side

In the endeavor to make women’s rights equal to men’s, women have torn themselves and each other down. People say that it is a system we have been brought up in, a system that encourages the green-eyed monster between women, and then goes back and blames it all on men, or other women. Whatever happened to accountability?

When one woman is successful, single, and happy, other women might look at her and feel anything from scorn, to anger, to jealousy. Anything but oh wow, look at her, she is CRUSHING it! Good for her.

If another is by choice a stay-at-home mom, other women look at her and act as if that isn’t a worthy profession in and of itself. That’s not even a REAL job, it’s easy. You’re useless, you don’t even make money. You’re fully dependent on a man, how does that feel?

Another problem in our world: people find it so easy to make quick, inaccurate judgments on people, thus creating certain stereotypes that we have worked against.

If a woman is a stay-at-home mom, that doesn’t mean she is against women working and not having a spouse and/or child. She is using her right as a free citizen to make certain decisions in her life that quite frankly, are nobody else’s business.

It’s the same way the other way around. If someone is single and working, that doesn’t automatically mean she’s unhappy or lonely, she has a right to make that call for herself.

Women rush to crush stereotyping without even realizing that they do it themselves.

Women have torn other women down in a frantic endeavor to build women up.

Instead of working to have only one type of ‘perfect’ woman, we should celebrate the different kinds of women in the world. From working to married and working, to mothers, to working mothers, to aunts, to grandmothers. From different cultures, colors, and countries, we should build each other up and continue doing so until not only women support women, but men support men, women support men, and men support women.