The fact that it demands violence off men. As my very next sentence states.

Demanding that a 'masculine man' is capable of violence is making men ... more violent. Men being too violent is a decently big societal problem. Hence, the idea that men should be able to defend themselves (and others) is harming society.

A man that can protect their family from a criminal or home intruder is harming society? Men with enough balls and sense of duty that join armed forces, so society is able to protect itself, are harming society?

If I was Putin or other adversary of the West, I would pour tons of money into promotion of this self-castrating idea.

They didn't say those things did they? They said "the idea that men should be able to defend themselves (and others) is harming society." The idea that they are duty-bound to these things by their manhood, not that they choose to do so. People should feel free to make their own reasoned choices.

I ging it sad and frankly creepy to think of the many great minds who have added so much to our society being sidelined or pushed down arbitrary funnels in their lives because someone had an obsessive idea that they needed to prove a biological tautology of "having balls" by going down a certain route towards militancy.

That's exactly what "they" said: "the idea that men should be able to defend themselves (and others) is harming society".

"Their" twisted logic is "man defends his family" -> "man gets more violent" -> "man gets too violent" -> "much violence is bad". I'm not sure if it's troll, stupidity or sincere and intentional self-castration.

What was your point?

It's reductive, essentialist and prescriptive and myopic. It's fine for someone to defend themselves but saying that "men should be strong enough" to do so gets quite murky. Would you say Stephen Hawking was less of a man because he was unable to defend himself? Is someone who defends themselves by de-escalating a situation through dialogue less of a man than someone who uses their strength? The above statement implies these things but I certainly don't think they're true.

Toxic is your word and I'm not sure the EU is a "weak sausage." I think it's remarkable that so many people within the EU have been able to co-exist peacefully for so long and work together in developing systems that give them other options than the kinds of violence we saw for so much of the past. Could you really point to Russia and say that they're in a stronger position, that they're a "strong sausage(?)," because their leader exhibits some loosely defined manly ideals?

Stephen Hawking had a condition that he never wanted to have. Nobody would want it for oneself or to be promoted as a "new norm" for society.

> someone who defends themselves by de-escalating a situation through dialogue

If his only _personal_ defense is "through dialogue" then yes, it's a wimp, unless he's a very rare person that can really convince anyone.

> Could you really point to Russia and say that they're in a stronger position

In "Russia vs EU" war EU doesn't have a single chance, despite all fancy tech and gear. The only hope for EU is USA (not anymore), Ukraine and Poland that still have testosterone in their blood.

Where are you from? What did your country do over three years of full scale land war next to you to prepare for the next one? Aside of importing men from other countries to compensate for the lack of domestically grown ones, of course.