By David Futrelle
So who’s more toxic: A dude who spends every lunch hour staring at women passing on the street like a hungry lion eyeing a wounded gazelle, or any of these women who take a moment to tell him to “stop staring at me, you creep!”
If we follow the logic set out by Intellectual Dark Webber Heather E. Heying in her recent piece on “toxic femininity” in Quillette, it would be the women. At least if they’re wearing makeup — because makeup “invites” male attention and it’s wrong for women to chastise men who give women the lustful gazes that they’re (supposedly) signaling they crave.
Heying, a former evolutionary biology professor at Evergreen State College, declares that it’s an “ancient truth” that
[s]traight men will look at beautiful women, especially if those women are a) young and hot and b) actively displaying. Display invites attention.
Apparently, any time a young hottie puts on flattering clothes and a bit of makeup, she’s basically advertising that she’s open for business, sex-wise, much like a female mandrill presenting her swollen red ass to the nearest monkey Chad.
“Hotness-amplifying femininity puts on a full display, advertising fertility and urgent sexuality,” Heying proclaims, writing about human females in much the same way, I imagine, that she’s written about the sex lives of the poisonous frogs she’s studied in the wild.
It invites male attention by, for instance, revealing flesh, or by painting on signals of sexual receptivity. This, I would argue, is inviting trouble.
So you’re saying these women are asking for it?
No, I did not just say that she was asking for it. I did, however, just say that she was displaying herself, and of course she was going to get looked at.
I’m not quite sure how that’s different from saying “she’s asking for it,” but never mind.
The amplification of hotness is not, in and of itself, toxic, although personally, I don’t respect it, and never have. Hotness fades, wisdom grows— wise young women will invest accordingly.
So dressing like a dirty slut isn’t toxic, it just makes you a dirty slut, which Heying definitely isn’t, unlike all you dirty sluts being all dirty and slutty out there with your dirty slut outfits.
Femininity becomes toxic when it cries foul, chastising men for responding to a provocative display.
Ah, of course, femininity becomes toxic as soon as women point out the bad behavior of men.
Heying dials back her rhetoric for a moment to assure her readers that, yes, she does believe that there are some male behaviors that it’s legitimate to complain about.
Every woman has the right not to be touched if she does not wish to be; and coercive quid pro quo, in which sexual favors are demanded for the possibility of career advancement, is unacceptable.
Alas, she follows up this bit of uncharacteristic reasonableness with a big ol’ “but.”
But when women doll themselves up in clothes that highlight sexually-selected anatomy, and put on make-up that hints at impending orgasm, it is toxic—yes, toxic—to demand that men do not look, do not approach, do not query.
Wait, what? “Make-up that hints at impending orgasm?”
As best as I can figure it, she thinks that whenever women use any makeup that reddens their cheeks or lips they are doing so because this redness is a simulation of the “sex flush” that many women experience during, well, sex, and that typically starts to fade after an orgasm.
Of course, cheeks also turn red due to embarrassment, sunburn, vigorous jogging, cold weather, falling into a vat of tomato soup. So maybe all that a woman with blusher on her cheeks is trying to signal is that due to her balance issues it’s probably not a good idea to take her on a tour of a soup factory, at least not without securing her with a sturdy rope first.
Also, “sex flushes” don’t only affect the face; they also tend to redden necks and chests, among other places. So for women to really convey just how totally into sex they hypothetically are, shouldn’t they cover every visible inch of skin with red paint, like this sexy lady here?
But I digress. Heying continues her tirade against mean hotties being mean to men.
Young women have vast sexual power. Everyone who is being honest with themselves knows this: Women in their sexual prime who are anywhere near the beauty-norms for their culture have a kind of power that nobody else has.
Weird that very few of these women are able to use this supposedly vast power to command much higher salaries than, for example, their much older and much less sexually appealing male bosses.
They are also all but certain to lack the wisdom to manage it. Toxic femininity is an abuse of that power, in which hotness is maximized, and victim status is then claimed when straight men don’t treat them as peers.
Why shouldn’t men treat women as peers? What does “hotness” have to do with it?
Creating hunger in men by actively inviting the male gaze, then demanding that men have no such hunger—that is toxic femininity.
No one is demanding that straight men cease being attracted to — hungering for — women; they’re simply asking that men treat the women they’re attracted to with simple courtesy and not openly drool over them like creepy creeps.
Subjugating men, emasculating them when they display strength—physical, intellectual, or other—that is toxic femininity.
“Subjugating” men for “displaying strength?” Where is this coming from? What the fuck are you even talking about?
Insisting that men, simply by virtue of being men, are toxic, and then acting surprised as relationships between men and women become more strained—that is toxic femininity.
No one is claiming that all men are toxic “simply by virtue of being men.” Yes, it’s true that all men in our culture are taught some toxic attitudes and encouraged to display some toxic behaviors. But that doesn’t make all men predators or creeps.
Many men consciously or unconsciously reject the toxic aspects of masculinity — while holding on to other aspects of masculinity that they and many others (including most feminists) find appealing. Terry Crews is about as masculine a man as you can get — and he’s speaking out against toxic masculinity. I don’t know any feminist, male or female, who has a problem with him; I’ve seen Men’s Rights Activists call him a “cuck.”
If every young woman who complains about creeps staring at them is guilty of “toxic femininity,” at least in Heying’s mind, are there men guilty of toxic masculinity as well?
True, she does explicitly acknowledge that toxic masculinity is a thing. After all, there are men out there who sexually assault women. But she’s willing to absolve most men of any degree of blame.
“Yes, toxic masculinity exists,” she writes, before moving on to the inevitable “but.”
But the use of the term has been weaponized. It is being hurled without care at every man. When it emerged, its use seemed merely imprecise—in most groups of people, there’s some guy waiting for an opportunity to fondle a woman’s ass without her consent, put his hand where he shouldn’t, right? That’s who was being outed as toxic. Those men—and far, far worse—do exist. Obviously. But wait—does every human assemblage contain such men? It does not.
Well, pretty much any human assemblage with more than a handful of men in it is likely to contain at least one toxic asshole who likes to grope women without consent. Hell, our president is one of these men, if his own boasts (not to mention the accusations of numerous women) are anything to go by. Kind of hard to argue that “toxic masculinity” is super duper rare when the top elected official on our country is about as toxic as a man can get.
This term, toxic masculinity, is being wielded indiscriminately, and with force. We are not talking imprecision now, we are talking thoroughgoing inaccuracy.
Indeed, she suggests, if you talk about “toxic masculinity” too much, many people will leap to the conclusion that “all men are toxic.” Never mind that this isn’t actually happening in the real world.
While Heying is convinced that every young woman who puts a little rouge on her cheeks is “inviting trouble,” she cuts men a lot more slack. Indeed, at the start of her piece she literally gives human males credit for not murdering babies.
No, really. She starts the piece by noting that male lions, as is well-known, will “kill the kittens in a pride over which they have gained control.” This, she acknowledges, is pretty “toxic” behavior. But
[g]iven the opportunity, the vast majority of modern human males would do no such thing. … the vast majority of men would not and could not kill babies, nor rape their grieving mothers.
Good to know.
So, to summarize: in order to be convicted of toxic femininity in the court of Judge Heying, all a woman needs to do is to put on a spot of makeup and then complain if men leer at her.
In order to be convicted of toxic masculinity, by contrast, a man has to do one or more of the following:
- Grind on or grope a woman without her consent
- Rape a woman
- Demand sexual favors for career advancement
- Kill some babies
With such divergent standards, it’s no wonder that she thinks “toxic femininity” is much more common than “toxic masculinity.”
It’s also no wonder she’s considered part of the “Intellectual Dark Web,” because arguments like hers deserve to be sent back into the darkness from whence they came.
*Pinches bridge of nose and sighs deeply*
This is almost exactly what Jordan Peterson said about women and makeup in his Vice interview. Including the part about simulating arousal with blush and lipstick. Can’t these people come up with anything original? (And by the way, Peterson also basically said they were “asking for it” but called it some euphemism like “being hypocritical.”)
This comment of hers sounds very sour grapey to me…not to mention, not very wise.
Some women never stop being hot. You can have both wisdom and hotness; they are not mutually exclusive. The work that it takes to be beautiful does not prevent one from doing the work that it takes to be wise, or educated, or literary, or anything else.
In addition — I always understood we wore blush because of those naturally red cheeks that some littles have — just like the blonde hair thing harkens back to those tow-headed little folks…with the intent of making us look youthful.
Ah yes, another textbook example of “I’m not like other girls, I’m a Cool Girl who likes men to be men and hates it when those Other Girls complain about wanting to be treated as equals and stuff.”
Okay, so I imagine that you, Cool Girl Who Doesn’t Complain About Men, know how to “wisely manage” your feminine power? But of course you won’t elaborate on that. Can’t give away the secrets for free!
Are you suggesting that the problem is, in fact, women saying that men are being awful for sexualizing women, and not men not treating women as peers?
Like, you just said that straight men don’t treat women as peers, but that women are bad for pointing that out. How?
I suppose I could ask for a more detailed, specific, explanation beyond just vaguely waving your hand at the word “strength”, but I also suppose that would be asking too much of our Cool Girl Not Like Other Girls author.
Because it’s not just “physical, intellectual, or other strength” that women are not happy with. It’s certain instances or certain practices that women aren’t happy with.
There’s nothing wrong with a physically strong man. But if he’s using that physical strength to bully or intimidate others, then it’s a problem.
There’s nothing wrong with an intellectually strong man. But if he’s using that intellectual strength to assume that he’s the smartest person in the room and everyone else is a drooling moron who requires his guidance, regardless of whether they know more than him or not, then it’s a problem.
And I have no fucking clue what “other” kinds of “strength” she could possibly be going on about.
“Insisting that women, simply by virtue of being women, are toxic shrill harpies who are out to steal your money/sperm/life and would be much happier if they just allowed men to subjugate them, and then acting surprised as relationships between men and women become more strained — that is a toxic belief system.”
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
But the truth of the matter is, no one worth listening to is claiming that all men are toxic and are therefore bad. What I, as a feminist person, am saying is that there are parts of masculinity that have been taught to men that are damaging to those around them and to themselves. This is an issue that does need to be looked at. Patriarchy hurts men too, and it’s honestly a good idea to look at how and why that is and how we can fix it as a society.
And any one who can’t stand to hear that, regardless of gender, might need to take a look inside themselves and ask why that is.
Because most people know how adjectives work to differentiate nouns from one another.
Where to start… There is so many wrong things about her hypothesis.
First of all, makeup isn’t used for sexual display amongst humans. It’s practically a convention. I think the number of women who never use makeup is very small. Most of them will use at least a touch of makeup on a pretty regular fashion. Makeup itself was never the mark of seduction, but of higher social standing. A women who wear makeup and perfume isn’t saying “I am sexually available”, but more “I am a person of good social standing and class”. This explains another thing. The average age where women start to wear makeup on occasion is around the age of 10, before the onset of puberty. The main reason for girls to wear makeup is to look like adults and because other girls are doing it. There is nothing sexual there. Thus, the idea that makeup is a form of display is simply wrong or at the very least incredibly simplistic.
Then, there is this idea that it’s toxic for beautiful young women to attract people and then complain about it. You cannot, simply cannot qualify this behavior as toxic. That would be like making beauty a vice. Beautiful people (no matter their gender) attract people eye and are much more likely to attract people sexual advances. Shaming them for doing so would be shaming them for something they have little control over: their appearence. That’s litteraly a Madono-Whore complex. She’s bad if she puts out and she’s bad if she refuses. Furthermore, there is a fundamental difference between looking and leering; between seducing and harassing, etc. What’s toxic isn’t so much the behavior as the way it expresses itself. The toxic part is that the men leering has become so obsessed by his impulse that he doesn’t even consider the women he is lusting over as an equal, but as an object to be desired and conquered. Nobody can stop people feeling attracted or even lusting, but people can definitely control how they express this attraction and lust.
Then there is the usage of toxic masculinity. The people who uses that term the most indiscriminately and the most stupidly are certainly anti-feminist. They are the people who cannot be bothered to even read the definition of the term on wikipedia or any other online encyclopedia. Toxic masculinity isn’t a condamnation of masculinity, but of certain aspect or excesses of it. Toxic feminity of course also exist and has been defined similarly as toxic aspect of feminity and excesses of it. It’s no more a hot topic, but it used to be one in the 70’s, as the most shinning example of toxic feminity is this idea that a women must be a mother to be a “real women”, that she most devote herself to her children and family, that she must live through them to achieve happiness. Of course this is toxic because it places women in constant state of dependencies and invites child abuse from their mother as they are her only fullfilment avenue (thus they must conform to her expectations). The idea that women being beautiful being toxic is absurd. The idea that women being some sort of seductive hot-and-cold succubus is nothing else than misogynous and ridiculous.
anyway that’s my two cents…for now…there is so much crap in those few sentences.
Cats have kittens. Lions have cubs. If you’re going to use a completely unrelated animal species to say something about human behavior, at least get some basic facts about that species down. Not that it matters. Lions and humans are very, very different and lion behavior tells us nothing about ourselves. Besides, if we’re going to emulate lion behavior, might I suggest lying around all day as preferable to killing infants?
Anyway, like I said in the other thread, why should women be held responsible for men who can’t control their own actions? If men feel emasculated by not being able to grope every woman who strikes their boner’s fancy, if they’re so fragile they can’t just behave for 8 hours a day, we have two options.
1. We let women run the world. Men can stay at home where they are safe from the tyranny of miniskirts.
2. All women frump it up. We won’t wear any flattering clothes or makeup. We won’t diet or workout to stay slim. We won’t shave our legs and armpits. We’ll all look like the ugly feminist stereotype the manosphere is always going on about. This option has a condition though. Men aren’t allowed to complain about how ugly we are. Not in person, not online. If they don’t want us to tempt them with boner inducing sexiness, fine. But be careful what you wish for.
So, which is it, boys?
Oh, and there is a secret third option. Stop harassing us and then blaming us for it. But that’s probably too hard.
didn’t make it past this statement n I had to comment on Kupo’s foto of the geoduck from the Jordan Peterson thread a couple days ago….
For those going “w… t… f…?”, the geoduck is Evergreen State’s mascot… honest, I kid you knot!!!
*SIGH* Ok I get that not everyone can actively work to make things better for women, but could she at least shut her gob and actively make things worse?
@David – Hey hey hey! I said something similar about blush in the Jordan Peterson thread, but this –
– is much funnier. Well done. 😀
@epronovost – I know, right? I don’t usually wear makeup – not really organized enough – but when I wear lipstick it’s mainly to signal formality (whether it’s business formality or for a slightly dressy party). And trying to look “hot” isn’t a come-on by itself. You might want to attract someone or another, but clothes aren’t a giant flirt-bomb for everyone in the vicinity.
@weirwoodtreehugger – The “kittens” thing. That was bugging me, and I couldn’t figure out why. Thank you!
Also, this:
I was excited about getting rid of said underarm hair when the weather started warming up. “Let’s get this annoying stuff out of the way,” I thought, tired of looking at it, but lo and behold – I’d forgotten how ugly I find naked armpits. I shouldn’t say “ugly,” but they look like plucked chicken skin. I guess armpits just look weird to me in whatever capacity I find them. 😛
Our esteemed Gooey-Duck
Well, bucky, I been studying me some paleoanthropology, and I got news fer YOO!!!
WE ARE NOT COCKROACHES!! REGARDLESS OF WHATEVER GENETIC (or in this case more strongly memetic) DISPOSITIONS WE MAY HAVE, WE ARE NOT AT THE MERCY OF OUR IMPULSES!!
We have choices. Let us exercise them and by doing so, exorcise the demons of incelitudishness and mysogynification….
From the article:
horse-pee.
Men are being called out for a wider variety of offensive behavior, but the idea that the term is being weaponized is not defensible. What’s becoming apparent is the incredibly wide variety of offensive behavior men engage in. Yes, all men. #Even me.
All men are socialized to be patriarchal. All men are enculturated into a system which values them over non-men and indicates that men have power over non-men. All men have choices, too.
I may not have control over my first thought, but I sure as hell have control over my subsequent ones… and I always have control over my actions.
Because obviously all attraction is sexual attraction, right?
When I’m going to spend all day at home, I don’t care what I look like. I don’t shave. I don’t comb my hair. I wear a ratty shirt (which is mostly because we have cats, I don’t wear good shirts at home because anything I wear at home will get clawed at some point so why?)
If I’m going out to interact with people, I do the opposite of all that. I shave. I comb my hair. I put on a shirt without holes beyond the minimum number needed for limbs and such.
Now, I’m not advertising for sex. I’m socially awkward and the idea of someone romantically approaching me fills me with a kind of terror. I’m just trying to display basic, minimum competence at making myself presentable.
People react to other people based on how they look. You get better service when you look presentable.
The thing is, “presentable” means different things for men and women. This has long been an ingrained part of our culture. I can get away with a shave and bit of applied combing and be out the door inside of five minutes. Women are expected to put far more effort into the “bare minimum” than I am, by virtue of my maleness. As late as the nineties, a community college I worked at was still docking female employees employee-review-points for not wearing minimal makeup or not having their hair fancy enough. I have no idea if this is still true, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
If workplace dress codes are requiring makeup and hair-dos, then lipstick is not about simply about making oneself sexually attractive. And you’d think anyone who calls themselves “intellectual” would be able to put two and two together and not get SEX.
As I suspected, the fuller version of this article is far worse than the wee extract I shared on the other thread. No wonder Heying has people falling over themselves to praise her incisive analysis: she manages to absolve men and dunk on younger women at the same time. I hadn’t seen that snarky comment about hotness vs wisdom, but it’s extremely revealing. Got to love, too, the claim that young women have incredible Super Sex Power but no idea how to control or use it. Uh-huh.
For women, it’s the tightrope I mentioned – don’t be a slutty slut but also don’t be an ugly unfeminine b*tch. It doesn’t seem to have changed since I was in high school, which is really depressing.
As for men, what a low, low opinion she has of them, even as she reassures them that it’s ok to harass or creep on women. I’d find it deeply insulting to be praised for not killing babies, or not groping any woman wearing make-up.
“Here, have a cookie! Well done on not being a monster, you champ!”
hey David?
is the author named “Heying” or “Heyling”?
because you go back and forth throughout the entire post.
just thought you might want to know.
Seriously. I think I’m as much an enthusiast of human beauty as most people, and sexual attraction is only one way that manifests (and, this might just be me, but one that generally manifests when actively engaged with an intimate partner, rather than just lookin’ at strangers.) More often, I’m thinking “wow, they look so cool” or “that outfit is gorgeous” or “I wish I looked like them” or something like that.
Really? That’s funny, I don’t see us being ruled by beauty queens…Justin Trudeau notwithstanding. (He’s not female, duh.)
Just because men of all ages get mildly horny when they see a pretty young thing, doesn’t mean the PYTs have power.
BTW, I agree that this whole toxic screed reeks of sour grapes. She must be mad at all the girls in her college classes. Especially the ones who complain of being sexually harassed.
Also, this song feels appropriate here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbrIgaLHxnA
Be aware that it’s satire, of course.
Well then why don’t the misogynazis (whether male or female) insist that we drop the silly beauty standards that only apply to women then we don’t need to “lead men on” anymore. I mean if they hate makeup so much then why are they not against that?
Hey everyone. I found this site a while ago but haven’t really commented on an article until now because well usually I just have nothing much I can add. Sorry for being weird. Anyway I haven’t read the comments yet so I’ll go do that now.
…so what does non-‘natural’-coloured makeup signify? If I wear electric blue lipstick or black lipstick, what kind of state of being am I mimicking? Am I telling everyone around me that I want to be more like a cassowary or a polar bear, which have blue and black skin, respectively? I mean, I’m down for telling everyone around me that I’m channeling powerful, intimidating animals with massive claws.
Also, I wear concealer to hide the dark circles under my eyes. Surely that is the opposite of inviting sexual attention, since having dark circles means that I’m tired, which means that I should go to bed, and bed is where the sex happens! Am I negating my female sexual power, or am I redirecting it in some other way that I have not foreseen?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Of course! If women want to be treated like human beings, then they can’t dress like slutty, slutty sluts, now, can they? It’s just common sense!
Other qualities that disqualify a woman for being treated like a person include, but are not limited to: not being white, not being skinny, not putting enough effort into her appearance, voicing a dissenting opinion to a man…
Once you follow all the rules, then you can have your humanity acknowledged for exactly as long as you are useful. It’s a perfect system.
Toxic femininity is absolutely a thing, but it’s what the other commenters have been describing: the constant barrage of mutually exclusive requirements that women must fulfill to have their humanity acknowledged. And Heying is a great example of a woman caught in that trap. She’s trying to distance herself from the bad women, but if she pushes too far away from the bad women, she’ll find herself a part of another group of bad women and the space between the lines is entirely arbitrary and subject to change at any time.
The apologists for toxic masculinity are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Enter “toxic femininity”. However our dark intellectual seems to understand the impotence of that argument since she spends so much time on the usual argument of “not all men”.
This argument fails also because the biggest problem with toxic masculinity is not the percentage of the male gender who exhibit this behavior. The insidious nature of toxic masculinity resides in the fact that our culture has normalized many of these behaviors.
That is a rabbit hole that the dark intellectuals are terrified of and will certainly never explore. It would expose them as frauds. As if their current baloney hasn’t already done that.
David, what an amazing post! You take something so hurtful and dismantle it so well. Wow.
@Diptych
Thank you thank you thank you!
Brilliant comment! You just explained so much of what I do and why I love it!
Well. I’m AFAB and deathfat.
I have massive boobs.
It’s summer where I live, so I pretty much live in cargo shorts and t-shirts.
I’ve never worn makeup in my life.
I’m not conventionally attractive by any measure.
I still get leered at by men.
And how is me sitting on the train with my big fuck off headphones and reading a book ‘asking for it’?
@knitting cat lady
Well, you’re definitely
asking for it“displaying yourself” by daring to show any skin in public, therefore you are 100% at fault for any leering or comments that might happen.Also, even if you AREN’T asking for it, you should be GRATEFUL that a man deigns to even pay attention to you, since you’re not skinny enough and therefore are obligated to be thankful for any interest expressed, no matter the context. These dudes are performing a great and onerous act of charity by leering at your fat body. They clearly deserve awards for their selfless objectification of another human being! /sarcasm
I must share this immediately and seeing as this post is partly still to do with our Canadian prof (views on make-up, IDW, etc.), I hope it’s okay to gush about it right here.
Laurie Penny has just published a piece on JP, and I realise most of us are getting heartily sick of him (or passed that point a while back), but it’s so damn good that you must go read it at once.
The whole thing is uniformly excellent, but here are some choice excerpts:
I have to say, this next bit could have been written by our very own chief manatee, weirwoodtreehugger:
Sorry for the very long post! It’s just so good 🙂