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We learn about men and the advantages they are given because of their gender. However one of the concepts we need to focus more on is on toxic male masculinity. How toxic masculinity is stereotyping how a male should be and creating an unhealthy pressure. The role intersectionality plays in is also mentioned and seen how it also is a contributing factor. Specifically addressing the issue and educating on the toxic aspect of it.

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“Peggy Orenstein conducted an interview in “the Miseducation of the American boy”. In the interview it was highlighted that males were feeling the pressure to uphold that toxic masculinity. The masculinity that they are supposed to show their man enough by not showing their feelings. These stereotypes say a man is supposed to be superior and not show emotions. In Orenstein’s interview it was said that “more than 40 percent said that when they were angry, society expected them to be combative”. Society creates these stereotypes for males and expects them to follow it, despite how they feel. Males feel pressured to uphold and stick to this unreasonable image.Additionally, society plays a big factor in shaping these stereotypes and normalizing them despite them being toxic to males.

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Males need to be able to express their feelings and be able to talk about them. Society needs to normalize that it is okay to have emotional support and break those masculinity stereotypes. Andrew Reiner mentioned how “They need to know we care about them and value them”. We need to give them that emotional support instead of telling these young males to ‘man up’ and to ‘suck it up’. Forcing men to compress their feelings and keep up a front is not healthy. It educates them to hide the feelings and normalizes it. It feeds into that unhealthy stereotype. Toxic masculinity does not target one specific race or group; it is a problem all males are facing today. In “The Manning Up of Boys Begins In the Cradle” Andrew Reiner found that “American males of every age, race and income level are lost and bewildered”.

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Toxic masculine is a problem all males face as Reiner established. It targets different races, income levels, ages, and sexuality, but what those all have in common is it targets males in those subcategories. When adding more subcategories such as race and income level to a male it increases the degree of toxic masculinity that an individual faces.  Intersectionality just makes it harder for some males in specific subcategories. For example a white male faces toxic masculinity, but in comparison an African American male faces an even higher degree of toxic masculinity. The African American has two intersectionality (subcategories): a male and African American. John Scalzi explains this concept in his article “Straight white male: the lowest difficulty setting there is”. Scalzi explains it through a game and the level of difficulty is selected by the intersectionality’s one has. The more intersectionality a male faces the harder it is. Toxic masculinity is still affecting all these different groups, intersectionality just affects to what degree.

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An example of how strong intersectional exists in toxic masculinity is in Martin Espada’s article. Espada is a Puerto Rican man who has had experiences with toxic masculinity. Especially in areas of controlling emotions. He’s stereotyped to be mad because he’s a male but lashing out is frowned upon because he’s Puerto Rican. He describes it as “The behavior we collectively refer to as ‘macho’ has deep historical roots, but the trigger is often a profound insecurity, a sense of being threatened”. As a man he is stereotyped to be angry because toxic masculinity frowns upon other emotions. While his ethnicity, Puerto Rican puts him in an awkward position because his lashing out is seen as more severe than a Caucasian would. Here intersectionality is affecting Espada, because toxic maleness is telling him one thing, but the stereotypes with his ethnicity is telling him another. In the end Espada is still losing because that toxic aspect in being a male makes it hard to express their emotions. Which is shown because in his article Espada goes on to talk about how he struggled with expressing his feelings, and how he hopes to show his son better. To conclude males are told to man up and be macho, thus disregarding the emotions these males are feeling which creates a toxicness for males Intersectionality is also present in this toxicness and it helps adjust how harder it is for an individual male.