I’ve never understood why this isn’t called toxic femininity. If society’s standards of femininity cause women to become anorexic, that standard of femininity is clearly toxic. Just like how a standard of masculinity that causes men to take steroids and damage their bodies would rightly be considered toxic by everyone.
I think the reason is that there’s a kind of cat-coupling. When you say “I visited the famous golden gate bridge”, you don’t mean “among all the golden gate bridges, I visited the one that was famous”. You mean “I visited the golden gate bridge, and by the way the golden gate bridge is famous”.
When you say “toxic masculinity” even if you mean “the subset of masculinity which is toxic”, it’s possible to interpret that as “masculinity, and by the way masculinity is toxic”.
Feminist academics, being mostly female, have no emotional response to the idea that saying all masculinity is toxic, so the possible misinterpretation doesn’t bother them. But they might have a response to someone saying all femininity is toxic, so they wisely chose a term that was less likely to be misinterpreted (“internalized misogyny”). More diversity in their field would have prevented them from making the same mistake w.r.t. toxic masculinity.
Because language itself is also subject to societal bias - it's turtles all the way down.
Men are by default the transgressor - they are actively aggressive and when good things happen to men it's because they went out and fought for it and got it done and when bad things happen to or because of a man it's because of a flaw in the man, a failure to actively improve ones self. These are both not true pictures of reality, of course, but the man is always the one depicted with the active tense, for better and worse.
Women are by default the passive transgressee - when something bad happens to a woman it's often because they are the victim of a system or person that was stronger than them - they could hardly be expected to do otherwise. Similarly when something good happens it's often lucky, thanks to the support system of the people around them, or even worse painted as an 'inspirational' exception that is novel only for it's improbability.
The truth is somewhere in there, but with all the layers of human abstraction on top of it it's hard to prise it apart, but one thing is for sure - our language informs how we think in a very concrete way.
Perhaps it would then also be helpful to use toxic misandry instead of toxic masculinity because as you mention people can take it to mean that men by nature are toxic.
Toxic masculinity isn't misandry, so, no, it wouldn't be helpful. Both toxic masculinity and internalized misogyny are aspects of partriarchal socialization; they aren't symmetrical with regard to sex or gender.
Men's fashion or even just basic clothing choices are very restricted as well and have their own rules. In that case it's not fast fashion, but the toxic fashion industry goes well beyond feminity.
The difference I'd highlight to you is that women are taught these things to get a husband and fulfill their traditional roles in a patriarchal society. They are baby incubators as far as that system is concerned.
Men are taught to be aggressive or not show emotions not because it will get them a wife and family, but because in Western society the chain of command goes: God -> Father -> Mother -> Children
In fact many of our cultural cornerstones rest on this baked in assumption, like The Iliad. The entire plot is set into motion by a tantrum wherein Achilles does not want to hand over a captive woman he views as his property. Thousands die in that pissing contest with a human being as the prize.
Now imagine we say Helen of Troy is displaying toxic femininity by investing so much in her appearance. Well, the reason she does is because it's the only source of her worth (besides making children of course) to a patriarchal society such as that of Ancient Greece
I challenge this. Men are taught to be strong, aggressive, and not show emotion precisely because it's seen as how strong men behave, and being a strong man is seen as a way to get a wife and family.
> In fact many of our cultural cornerstones rest on this baked in assumption, like The Iliad.
"So speaking glorious Hektor reached out to take his son. But the child shrank back crying against the breast of his girdled nurse, terrified at the sight of his own father...Hektor took the helmet straight from his head and laid it gleaming on the ground. Then he kissed his dear son and dandled him in his arms..."
One could also make the argument that it is a patriarchal attitude to suggest women are so lacking in agency, that a popular interest amongst woman could be reducible solely to the interest of pleasing men.
But jokes aside I think it generally applies here, we don't live in an equal society so women don't experience the level of agency men do, even in the presence of wealth.
There are immense pressures for women to like certain things, dress certain ways, etc. Men have their own pressures, but they have more agency when choosing how to dress specifically. Can you think of a single woman CEO that can get away with dressing like Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey, for example?
Yet - women wearing mens clothing choices is very normal.
I’m not saying men have it worse or anything btw - just giving vision to the other side which is ignored often. Men have simplistic wardrobes out of habit but also because they literally are so limited in what they can wear. Choose your bottom - pants, pants, jeans, or pants. Choose your top - polo, button down, or t-shirt. Those are your options. You can try to add layers like a scarf, sweater, suit jacket, etc. but mens fashion is inherently way more limited due to gender norms. It’s not a surprise that you see CEOs wearing the same thing everyday because they’re like, “well, what else can I fucking wear? I can’t wear different dresses everyday with different cuts and patterns and designs. It’s not masculine. I’ll be ridiculed.” So they go with what is exceptionally boring and repeatable because very few people will even notice to begin with…
Even when men just accessorize - it becomes a costume and a joke. Prime example - Bezos wore a cowboy hat. Now it’s a costume you can buy off Amazon because of the cowboy hat. It should really show you how men cannot wear almost anything outside the norms without heavy critique. So they go with what is safest and normalized and just wear that every single day.
I have never met a man who cared about what color of anything they wear.
I have never heard a man even notice makeup, other than being too much.
And the big one--shoes. Men don't notice shoes. We just gasp at the price. I have a sister who because a multimillionaire making/selling shoes to women. She knew how they felt about shoes, and exploited it. Oh yea, throw in hand bags. I have never heard a male utter this sentance, "But did you see her handbag?"
Female fashion is not due to men. Men got a break on this one war. You can argue the mini-skirt was man's doing, but that's pretty much it.
(This is just for America. I have no clue to the rest of the world.)
We teach them that they can't wear white after a certain time the year, and then black after a certain time. Why? Just because. We teach them never to wear the same outfit as their friend at the same party. We teach that they always have to wear perfect clothes.
There are examples of people fighting these things (such as ripped jeans) but they're the rebels, not the norm.
So yeah, I think that in regards to most clothing issues, "toxic femininity" definitely applies.
For fast fashion... I don't know. I have never paid attention to that scene, so I don't know how much it affects men.
Also, I should note that "toxic masculinity" generally only refers to behaviors that straight men show, and not gay men. And is often badly applied.