Justin Ward
2 min readSep 1, 2019

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Rather than refute you point by point, I’m going to focus in on this statement, which is by far the easiest to falsify. Women are far more likely to have their negative behavior attributed to their femininity, and this has been the case for 3,000 years give or take. The evidence is embedded in our very language.

Take the etymology of the word “hysteria” for example. You can look up the history for yourself, but here’s a snippet:

The term hysteria comes from the Greek word hysterika, meaning Uterus. In ancient Greece it was believed that a wandering and discontented Uterus was blamed for that dreaded female ailment of excessive emotion, hysteria. The disease's symptoms were believed to be dictated by where in the body the offending organ roamed. It was not religious belief but a social belief.

The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates was one of the first to identify this disorder. He noticed hysteria was common in women and thought it was caused by a displaced or "wandering uterus". Because there was very little understanding of women's biology the term "Hysteria" was used to describe most of the physical and emotional female illnesses.

In the 19th century women were diagnosed with hysteria and locked up in mental institutions for it. And to this day, it’s used as a gendered attack word. Any women who expresses any sort of negative emotions is described as being “hysterical” and an essentialist biological explanation is given, i.e. “she’s on the rag” “it’s that time of the month.”

By contrast, all virtues are by definition masculine virtues, which you amply demonstrated by saying taking responsibility is masculine rather than, you know, being an adult or a good person. Again, this conception of masculinity goes all the way back to antiquity. The root of the word virtue is the Latin “vir,” meaning man. Virtus is a specific set of Roman virtues associated with manliness.

Also, women are punished when they act outside of their prescribed gender roles. A strong woman is “bossy” or a “bitch.”

No one is blaming “masculinity” or men in general. They’re blaming “toxic masculinity,” which isn’t an inherent biological characteristic of men but rather socially imposed norms of behavior.

Let’s review

Good masculinity: Crying when you need to cry, sharing your feelings instead of bottling them up, being a good father, being respectful to women.

Toxic masculinity: Getting into fist fights so people won’t think you’re gay, beating your wife because she said something that threatened your manhood, thinking eating a bean will make you impotent and cause you to grow tits.

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Justin Ward
Justin Ward

Written by Justin Ward

Journalist and activist. Founder and co-chair of DivestSPD. Bylines at SPLC, The Baffler, GEN, USA Today. Follow on Twitter: @justwardoctrine, @DivestSPD

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