Toxic Masculinity vs. Toxic Femininity

Here’s what I picture.

Small seedy bar in Texas. A 280-pound ex-linebacker good old boy drunk is casually hammering a few patrons over the head with a pool cue. Standard behavior for a Tuesday afternoon.

Suddenly, a rail-thin U of Texas history prof with a buzz cut wearing a crisply tailored pantsuit hops up and stands on a table, grits her teeth, and shouts:

“Where are the metrosexual men?! Where are the transgender men who want to go shopping for antiques?!”

The good old boy puts down his pool cue, turns, and stares at the professor.

They stare at each other. Suddenly, they both change into giant bulls with horns, and they charge and crash together.

The walls tremble. The ceiling collapses, killing everyone in the bar. Except the two bulls, who plod outside and engage in a pissing contest in the parking lot.

A guy gets on a horse, he’s toxic. A guy works on his car in his back yard, teaches his son to throw a football, fixes a fence without a lesbian supervising, he’s toxic.

He tells a story about a fireman rescuing a family from a burning house, removes 13 throw-pillows from his bed, fishes in a stream to catch trout and feed his wife and kid, watches 90 seconds of rugby during the commercial break from CNN News, shows up at the bail hearing of a Venezuelan migrant who killed two people in his neighborhood, he’s toxic.

A gay teacher wants to take his kid’s class on a camping trip in the woods and he says no, he’s really toxic.

He breaks his leg in a skiing accident, he’s lying on a table in the hospital waiting for surgery, a young black doctor comes up to him and tells him he’s going to perform the operation, he asks the doc if he’s a Diversity hire, he’s toxic and should be sent to prison for life or shot by a firing squad.

The history professor with the buzz cut hears about the “horrible incident” at the hospital and pens an op-ed for the NY Times. “All That’s Wrong with America.”