Toxic Masculinity May Be Well-Known To You, But Here Are 35 Different Forms Of Toxic Femininity
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I’m sure almost all of us have heard the phrases toxic masculinity, toxic men, and toxic women, but have you heard of toxic femininity? If not, the term "toxic femininity" is used to describe a broad concept of womanhood that is restrictive and repressive, including the pressures women experience to live up to stereotypically feminine features and behaviors.
So it’s nothing new that women are constantly being told the way they need to dress up, behave or obviously, be a mother. In simple words, anything that women think, say, or do to the advantage of others—mostly men—at the price of their own autonomy, agency, ability to feel all of their emotions, mental and emotional health is considered toxic femininity. So here you can find 35 of the most common examples from everyday life shared by Reddit users.
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Dad of a 5 year old girl here. When my daughter was a couple of months old my wife discovered a nearby play group and was planning on taking her there for a session. I decided to take her myself as it landed on one of my days off and I wanted to spend some real time with my little girl and my wife deserved a break.
The play group is taking place in a large community hall and there's quite a few people there with kids ranging from newborns to around 4 or 5. However I quickly noticed that out of about 30ish parents I'm the only man there and everyone stares at me. I think nothing of it and proceed to the soft play section for the babies to play with my daughter.
Not 10 minutes pass however and I notice mums and even nans pretending not to stare at me and talk under their breath. At first I thought I was being paranoid because I was nervous being the only dude there but then I noticed it was several groups doing it. I then overheard one of the mums in the baby section with us say to her friend/sister/who cares that I must be dodgy or on the offenders register. Yes. THAT register. All because I happened to be the only dad there.
I picked my daughter up, told the women where she could stuff her opinions and promptly left.
I told my wife what had happened and then she went back by herself and had a somewhat heated exchange with the organisers. Sometimes I think I married a dragon because she returned with a face so red with rage you'd think she just breathed fire.
But yeah... Tldr. Play group mums can be f*****g sexist as hell.
Bro all he wanted to do was take his daughter to play group they need to CHILL.
I am a feminist and I am constantly discussing how boys are being left behind. Statistically, they are further behind girls now than girls were behind boys in the 70s. And that warranted federal legislation to deal with the inequities.
We are promoting feminism at the expense of boys. Instead we need to be promoting both sexes to succeed. From a feminist perspective, everyone in society loses when either sex is left behind. And we are seeing the effects of this now. Sky high rates of single mother households which is also the most impoverished cohort, triple the suicide rate among men than women, low college degree achievement, etc etc.
I get shouted down and basically shunned when I discuss this with other feminists.
“Individuals raised in families and cultures where these rigid norms are perpetuated often internalize these restrictive values and power structures, role modeling, and blueprints learned from an early age,” one of Canada’s leading clinical psychologists Dr. Monica Vermani, C. Psych, author of A Deeper Wellness and TEDX speaker, shared with Bored Panda.
“When young girls, from an early age, are raised to dress, look, act, and respond in ways that are pleasing to others, when they learn to derive their sense of self-worth from others, and from superficial, materialistic, and highly polished — often impossible — beauty standards, this sets girls and women up for a lifetime of self-scrutiny, feelings of low self-worth, lack of self-actualization, and a life of serving others at the cost of finding value and meaning in their own lives.”
Being the default choice for custody of children even when you have a record of jail time, [substance] abuse, assault, and are a felon, while the father is employed and only has traffic tickets on his record.
Whoever decided my mom was the better parent could only have come to that decision out of sexism. No other answer.
My mother got us despite being a toxic alcoholic. her own father told mine to come get us out of that house. Thanks grandpa 💜
The mindset that a man cheats because he's a scumbag looking for some fun, but a woman cheats because she's feeling unloved in a relationship and the intimacy is just not there.
Cheaters are s****y people, period.
Dr. Monica Vermani, C. Psych. says that the media is a huge contributor to perpetuating toxic — and impossible to live up to — stereotypes of women. “Stereotypes — of the perfect body, the swift post-partum bounce-back, the perfect mother, the loving, long-suffering wife, the dutiful daughter, the cookie-baking, care-taking grandmother.”
Also, through the media, women are objectified, told they are not good enough, and pressured to act, look, and strive to please the men in their lives, to spend their time and energy striving to attain and maintain standards of behavior and appearance, not for themselves, but to please others.
Mothers telling women without kids that their life is meaningless and they can’t understand true love.
women who bully/criticize guys on their height and treat them horribly but when a guy PREFERS to not date a 250lbs woman, oh he's a misogynistic pig that's judging women based on their appearance.
(And a man who DOES date a plus sized woman gets labeled a "chubby chaser.") I never understood the whole "guy must be tall" thing. I mean, it helps that he can reach stuff, but honestly that's the only benefit.
Mothers shaming C-Section moms saying they didn’t give birth because the child was surgically removed
What twaddle. They grew a baby, it came out. Therefore they gave birth and probably had a longer recovery process too.
She notes that well-behaved women, that is to say, women who model behaviors like agreeableness, passivity, and a focus on pleasing others while subjugating their own needs and deriving a sense of self through their value as an object of desire to men, are celebrated and rewarded.
“Furthermore, many social media influencers send powerful reminders of impossible beauty standards through their relentless creation of content that supports the impossible beauty standards for women, including unboxing fast fashion hauls and makeup tutorials, and commentary on the latest trends in fashion for women,” Dr. Monica adds.
Wanting to be treated equally only in certain situations, depending on who benefits most from it. You can't pick and choose like that. We should all be treated equally all the time, in every aspect.
I'm surprised I'm not seeing anything about pushing standards of self presentation on other women. For example, "you can't wear heels if you're too tall", "if you don't wear makeup it means you're lazy", "she should have gone on a diet before wearing that dress", etc. To me this is what toxic feminity is.
From a short, makeupless, flat shoe wearing cuddly woman, i couldn't give a flying fûck what other people expect me to wear, or what other people wear, and neither should you!
Telling men to be more sensitive then nope out when they are.
I recently saw a post where toxic women here on BP were horribly, making fun of a man who cried.
Finally, when we internalize the rigid constructs of toxic femininity, we do it in order to conform, fit in and please others.
“As humans, we are social animals! We are highly motivated to be accepted, to fit in, and do so often without much thought or self-examination. We are hard-wired to seek connection with others. When the way we seek connection is dictated by toxic gender-specific norms, this is often how we engage,” says Dr. Monica.
She adds that unchallenged toxic views about how the world functions and how men and women should adhere to strict and confining gender-specific norms, behaviors, and standards are points that some people believe are worthless, just as an unexamined life is not worth living. Both men and women can start to understand their right to live their lives on their terms and enable themselves to live their lives on their own terms by questioning patriarchal conventions.
So, guys, just as toxic masculinity can be harmful to everyone — including the toxic male — for women and men alike, toxic femininity is both self-destructive and limiting. And what would you say is an example of toxic femininity that you notice in everyday life?
My wife could not produce enough milk for our children. When our first was born she tried and tried. I woke up in the middle of the night to her crying. She felt like she was a horrible mom to even bring up formula.
There is so much pressure on moms, and it is incredibly stupid. Our kids are very well adjusted and were on formula the entire time. I tell anyone who is expecting their first that the only “right” way is the “right way for that child.” Damn everyone else’s opinions; do what is best for your family; not the mommy bloggers.
Edit:
I want to put this in because of all the responses: my oldest is 10 years old and my Wife is at peace with it; she worked through her guilt, which I totally agree she should not have any guilt: she is an excellent mother. The statistics on breastfed vs. bottle fed have other correlations which I don’t want to take the time to defend, anyone can read the studies….but adding other factors like home life and atomic households, the delta between the two are not as big as the breastfeeding fanatics point out. Lastly, anecdotally and take this as a a claim from a dad. My kids are healthy and hyper-intelligent. My oldest has been consistently tested through school as top 2% composite intelligence, and she is thriving in advanced classes. I say this because there are people who say that IQ is impacted by breastfeeding. It just isn’t true, my children thrive, they are healthy and they know they are loved.
A healthy household and particularly a healthy mum will give more benefit than a b00b over a bottle.
Being a b***h and pretending like it's cool or acceptable just because you openly admit you're a b***h. Maybe being "a bad b***h" is just you being immature and grasping at social constructs to justify your immaturity and lack of growing potential.
Plus size women having to be hyper feminine to be taken seriously.
Or worse, trying to shame men who are simply just not attracted to them.
Toxic femininity is not being allowed to show anger, displeasure or frustration. I was brought up to be accommodating and non-combatative. Unlearning...
And any time you do, you you get told either you're PMSing or being a nag, harpy, b*tch, etc.
"If a woman doesn't have a job that's okay, but if a man doesn't it's just pathetic."
^ have heard repeatedly from radical feminists I know
I get told at least once a week that I need to "make my man get off his lazy @ss and support me." Um, no, first off, he's disabled. Secondly, I am fully capable of the work I do. (And let's not get started on "it's ok for women to be on disability but not men.")
Not putting in romantic efforts in a relationship because they think only men should be romantic and pamper them. Works both ways!
“Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme gimme. Oh, you want me to reciprocate… You’re a monster then, and I’m gonna tell everybody “
Calling men “creeps” for doing totally normal things.
Same way men overuse “crazy” for women
I was sexually abused as a child for many years ons weekly basis by my paternal grandfather so I can easily be creeped out by men and feel guilty as most haven’t done anything wrong.
In my professional experience working in a field that is predominately female, I have observed that gossip and defamation can be pretty common among women. At least in a professional setting, women (or people who identify as women) won't confront you directly with an issue, but they will assassinate your character when gossiping to others. You know it's bad when normal volume turns to whispers and then the door closes. Yikes.
Where I work, it's mostly women and we are there for each other and help each other when help is needed.
Judging other women for not wanting to wear heals. It’s a freaking spike attached to the bottom of your foot!!! Why is this still a thing that’s expected to look ‘professional’ or ‘classy’. I’m convinced the majority of the pressure comes from other women.
When girls aren't allowed to do things because it isn't feminine.
I love seeing women bikers. It's the coolest thing ever IMO. Especially when they're on 200bhp superbikes and they can keep up with me.
Women who throw other women under the bus for a man, or the attention of a man etc.
Women who will believe other women purely based on the fact they are a women without any facts or evidence put forward.
There are so many people who believe other people just because they are a certain gender, have a certain skin colour, have a certain religion or political conviction. Ask those people for hard data and you're confronted with anecdotal "evidence" at best or a barrage of derogatory terms at worst or just plain rehearsing of a set phrase such as "we have policies in place that help to ensure...yada yada yada" which is absolutely meaningless.
Leading on a guy you don’t intend to get romantic with to get him to do things for you.
Moms bullying other moms.
I hate seeing that… And then, in time, the bullied becomes the bully. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Pulling the "If you're a real man" card whenever they need something.
Putting other women down for their interests
Overall, whether it’s toxic masculinity or femininity… I think the root cause is insecurity
Women that only want traditionnal values when it benefits them.
This...a distant in law tried to dictate my clothing (a.k.a. conform to sex based stereotypes) for a "casual friends/family baby shower" because there would be "traditional values" there. I asked them which of their rights they wanted to give up because of what's in-between their legs. I did not receive a response.
Girls in classrooms that think they shouldn’t raise their hand in class because it makes them too nerdy. That they should hang out with the guys and oversexualise their behaviour at a young age because then they feel valued and ‘cool’ but really are just being used.
The nerds in my class don’t raise their hand anymore as they know the teacher will never call on them
Acting like they’re better than other women… Idgaf if that girl is basic or if she’s trying too hard to be quirky. Mindless gossip is stupid, just stfu if that’s all you have to add to the conversation. Let’s be honest with each other and improve together without putting anybody down.
I do have to admit, that women do seem a lot more brutal to each other than they are to men
Weapons grade entitlement, which is closely related to the Karen phenomenon. Also, a general inability to take responsibility for one's actions.
Clique behavior
It starts in junior high and continues on into the workplace as adults. Take a hint people, nobody likes to be around that girl who acts like she still in high school. Some men do it too… We don’t like you either.
heres what **my wife** said;
1. "women who shame men for being draft dodgers, knowing full well that they will never be drafted." (she says that they have absolutely no right to have an opinion on any man who "dodges the draft")
2. "the fact that nearly all women hate each other and talk s**t behind each others backs" (yes, she admits that she is guilty of this, I always point it out when she does it and she gets annoyed with herself for it)
3. "blaming men for things we have done"
4. "believing that they are perfect and that their mere presence is enough to sustain a relationship"
The fact that this woman pointed out that "nearly all women hate other women" is a concerning, pick-me behavior. That's not true at all. Good thing she's trying to rise above it.
Any mlm s**t , yOu arE sO pRetTy juSt nEeD tO uSe mY prOduCt for bLah blAh bLaH… and then they steal your money.
"Any MLM s**t , you are so pretty just need to use my product for blah blah blah… and then they steal your money." if anyone else than me had a problem reading mixed smal and large :P
Sometimes it’s hilarious being a masculine gay dude in a bar. I remember a time when I went to the bar for a beer. There was one open spot, so I went to that spot. it was next to a very beautiful woman. I didn’t even make eye contact with her or anything… I just ordered my beer. She whipped around in her chair, sneered at me and said “you need to know right up front that I am not interested in you“ I looked at her and said “oh thank God, because I am gay and don’t have to worry about you hitting me up for a drink.“ everyone within hearing distance, laughed their asses off. She stomped away.
You my good sir are the king with that comeback mate lol
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Sometimes it’s hilarious being a masculine gay dude in a bar. I remember a time when I went to the bar for a beer. There was one open spot, so I went to that spot. it was next to a very beautiful woman. I didn’t even make eye contact with her or anything… I just ordered my beer. She whipped around in her chair, sneered at me and said “you need to know right up front that I am not interested in you“ I looked at her and said “oh thank God, because I am gay and don’t have to worry about you hitting me up for a drink.“ everyone within hearing distance, laughed their asses off. She stomped away.
You my good sir are the king with that comeback mate lol
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