Toxic Masculinity Reflection

 After watching "Tough Guise 2", and reading "The Boys Are Not All Right" and "Not Your Father's Masculinity", my eyes have really opened to the struggles men go through that we might not see in our day to day. I think the piece that really demonstrated the problem of toxic masculinity in today's world best was "Tough Guise 2." Not only were you able to see the visuals, such as news reports, but I think that it gave the most examples of how masculinity is affected everyday. For example, men are told to act tough and not show their feelings or cry, whereas women are taught that it is okay to show your emotions. Another aspect in "Tough Guise 2" that I was truly shocked over was the statistics at the beginning of the film. 86% of armed robberies, 77% percent of aggravated assaults, 87% percent of stalkers, 86% of domestic violence incidents resulting in injury, 99% of rape, 90% of murder, and 61 of the last 62 mass shootings were all committed by men (at the time of this film.) Gender becomes the story in the news as opposed to the crimes actually committed. In Matt Labash's "Not Your Father's Masculinity", he highlights how the idea of masculinity is changing and how some choose not to follow these changes and stick to their "old" or "toxic" ideas. I feel that "The Boy Are Not All Right" by Michael Ian Black shows these same ideas, just in a different way. In Labash's piece, he highlights more on how the idea of masculinity is changing, while Black's piece talks about how these changes are affecting the boys, as seen also in the title. These pieces have opened my eyes to how boys and men are affected everyday, and how masculinity is changing whether or not people are conforming to the ideas.