Toxic Masculinity

Sociology (Humanities), 1995

The parts of masculinity which aren’t typically female, can be upsetting, and act similarly in nature to chemicals which poison workers in factories not wearing protective suits.

Derived from a Marxist idea of “hegemonic masculinity” in Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell’s “Gender Order Theory”. Although referenced in 1982, it was her 1995 book “Masculinities” which popularised the concept, after the term was directly used around 1990 for a New Republic article by Daniel Gross titled “The Gender Rap: ‘Toxic Masculinity’” (unavailable now, but discussed by Sculos). Unsurprisingly, Connell is a “trans-woman”, and somehow was a professor at Sydney.

• https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&content=toxic+masculinity
• https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=toxic+masculinity
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_masculinity
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raewyn_Connell
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/1395325
• https://www.academia.edu/35434047/Who_s_Afraid_of_Toxic_Masculinity_Class_Race_and_Corporate_Power_