No Such Thing as Toxic Masculinity

Masculinity is not ever toxic; a false idea of masculinity (often in sissy-men who bully others) is the true, toxic problem.  We must never confuse these two groups or blame all men.  Truly masculine men are strong and kind.  Yes, even good men make mistakes, but they take responsibility for their mistakes.

True masculinity breeds good men, not the sissies who behave as bullies.  True manliness, masculinity, and testosterone do not produce bad behavior.  Wrong choices produce this evil.  Many manly behaviors are simply different from women’s (and girls’) behaviors. When some boys are very active and loud, they are simply expressing a commonality of many males.  Yet when boys are artistic and sensitive, they are also masculine, but just rarer than their louder male friends.

Some men have acted like bullies, and then the hurt and angry women have labeled the entire role of masculinity as toxic.  This is sad and blind-sided, because we gals end up losing our friends, the men and boys.

We don’t need to emasculate men to get them to behave.  We need to introduce them to the True God, who made them masculine.  It is the devil who stirs men to use their strengths for evil.  God always intended men to be strong and good.  Some claim the church and God caused men to go bad.  This directly contradicts God’s heart as he speaks in Scripture. 

Let’s examine the first reference to a man meeting a woman (in Genesis.)  Some unfortunate Bible translations use the term “Help Mate” (Genesis 2:18) to describe Eve in her relationship to Adam.  I say this is unfortunate, because the Hebrew term, “Ezer,” used to describe Eve, means more than “just” a help mate.  As I said in my earlier post “Warriors in Genesis’ Eden” this title was also used as a name or title for the Holy Spirit.  Yes, the Holy Spirit comforts us, and yes, women can and should comfort good men.  But the term also meant military ally.  The Holy Spirit empowers us and comes along side us to help us fight Satan. 

Eve was equipped to empower Adam to help him fight Satan. This was true while they were still sinless.  Satan’s sin and trouble were already present, before Adam and Eve fell into sin. God meant for women to be strong along with men.  God meant for men and women to use their strength as fighting allies, working against evil, not against each other.  Look at these amazing verses from Genesis chapter one: (verse 26), “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind {men and women} in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  Notice how the man and woman were to do the ruling together.  She was no secondary helper but an equal ruler with man.  Furthermore, two verses later (28a) it says, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’”

So when a man fights against a woman, he is sinning and opposing God’s plan  Look at how Adam sinned when, instead of fighting Satan, Adam and Eve cooperated with Satan and ate from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Instead of acknowledging his sin, Adam insulted God and Eve and blamed them both (Gen.3:12.)

Please don’t blame God or the Bible for Adam’s sin.  God clearly told Adam he was sinning.  So when a man blames a woman for his sin, God is not pleased (Gen.3:17b, “Cursed is the ground because of you…”)  My daughter, Amy, reminded me that the bad men have no identity in themselves, so they identify with their testosterone and use it for evil.  She said they also have many bottled up feelings so they actually hate themselves and view their hurt (scared, sad) feelings as feminine, and therefore they reject this side and even hurt women.  She says it is a harmful cycle of feeling an emotion but then bottling it up and then acting out in cruel anger.  Amy says this sad and cruel cycle keeps happening in these men.

God’s original plan for men and women to work in cooperation still exists.  God has never applauded men when they mistreat women. Look at 1 Peter3:7, “In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together.  She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life.  Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.” God will punish a husband who refuses to respect and cherish his wife, because God is the author of masculinity being good and kind.  God also clarifies how a man must treat his wife in Ephs.5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  Husbands are supposed to sacrifice their own will for their wife’s needs.  No selfish husband is allowed in God’s view.

This admonition to treat women well is not just for married men.  1Tim.5:2-3 says, “Treat older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters. Take care of any widow who has no one else to care for her.”  God says this is true for all men. They must show kindness and respect to all women and girls.

God has an admonition for fathers too, because He opposes ruthless fathers.  Colossians3:21, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath.”  Fathers are not to be harsh and controlling and thus provoke children to become angry in response.

Look at Abigail, married to foolish and cruel Nabel.  Their story is in 1Samuel, chapter 25.  Abigail never asked for Nabal’s permission to serve David (verse 19.)  Yet when she did this, God blessed her and not her mean husband Nabal (verse 33a “May you be blessed for your good judgment.”)  God struck mean Nabal dead as a punishment (verses 37-38.)

Zechariah was punished (with muteness), just for doubting the angel who promised barren Elizabeth (his wife) a son.  God punished this older man (Luke1:20.)  But later, Zechariah respected Elizabeth and supported her choice to name their baby son, John, as the angel had told Zechariah.  As Zechariah showed his trust in God and respect for Elizabeth, God gave him back his voice.  From his prayer (verses 68-79) Zechariah showed he was going to be a good, spirit-filled and thankful Dad who would raise a son who was also strong in the spirit as confirmed by verse 80.

I could go on about how God disciplined men who disrespected their women.  God makes his intentions clear.  He wants men to honor him and respect and cherish their wives, sisters, daughters, mothers, and friends.  God wants men to be truly masculine, and never toxic.  When a man is mean or stingy or forceful, his masculinity is not guilty. His selfish sin-nature is at fault.  Jesus referred to Genesis 2: 27, which says, “so God created mankind in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  Jesus referred to this verse when he said, (Matt. 19:4b-6), “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?  So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”  We are stamped with a quality that reflects God and as a result, a good man reflects God’s goodness.  Any behavior deemed toxic is not from God, since He is only good.

We gals must encourage the good men in our lives, especially when they do not fit the world’s stereotype of a manly or masculine man.  That stereotype might be something, often unrealistic, about his physique, his wealth, his personality, or some other trait the world has deemed to be manly and masculine.  But this stereotype is a lie that contradicts God’s word.  So many good men of all races get overlooked.  Perhaps the man is an introvert.  Perhaps he is short, thin or chubby.  Perhaps he has a softer voice, or he is gentle or artistic and not athletic.  Perhaps he is more academic or nerdy.  This list goes on, but it must remind us that a man who has any of those qualities can still be manly and masculine, and non-toxic, if he truly loves God.

I also do not include men as good, if they claim the title of “Christian,” but they don’t live a godly life.  Some men may go to church, but they haven’t surrendered their lives to Christ. Those men don’t read the Bible and apply its truths to their lives. Those men are not humble and compassionate like Jesus is.  As such, I want to comfort people who would say they are atheists, agnostics or anyone else who says she is not a Christian.  You have a right to be mad at these fakes, but please do not let the fake Christians give Jesus and true Christians (men and women) a bad name. If they treated you without love, they are liars to claim the name of Jesus, who loves all people.  Yes, Jesus hates sin, but he came to free us from our sin through our surrender to him and to his strength that enables us to repent of our sins.  He is the perfect man, the true model of masculinity.

At times Jesus was very angry, and he used his anger for good, to drive out money changers who were ripping off the visitors to the temple (Matt.21, Mark 11, Luke 19, John 2.)  Those money changers were making it hard for people to come to know the Lord.  Jesus also called the Pharisees “White washed tombs,” which was a huge insult to their egos, since that meant the Pharisees (and other insincere religious leaders) were unclean and capable of contaminating others (Matt.23:27.)  But Jesus was right.  Those leaders were stealing from desperate widows and likely causing those ladies and their children to starve to death.  God hated the behavior of these vicious men.  God condemned their behavior.

Jesus was kind to the outcasts, whom the wealthy and popular people ignored.  And for this, the popular and rich people mostly ignored Jesus or even looked down on him.  So the good men of the world need not fear if the popular and rich people of the world look down on them too.  The truly masculine men are kind and giving.  They may not look as fit and handsome as the ones who behave in toxic ways. 

I must urge the hurt and angry women who say all men are toxic to please look again at the humble and gentle men of the world, the true Christians, not the fakers.  There are many good men who get over-looked, because they do not do anything the world says is amazing.  The world thinks the way the producers of the popular movie, “Eat, Pray, Love” thought.  The main character was married to a man, who was a sensible guy (I think an engineer.) Her husband was kind, loyal, faithful and very in love with her. But he was also clumsy with his words and not very romantic.  Yet this man would give his life for his wife.  But she grew bored with him, had an affair and then abandoned him so she could go on an adventure, having sex with whomever the whim caused her to pursue.  She threw away a good man, because she said she was bored.

In this story, this woman is toxic as she throws away a good, albeit quiet man, for a thrill outside the bonds of a sincere marriage.  There are so many people who do not forgive and who do not forebear with others (Cols.3:13, “Bearing with one another, forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”)  When someone makes a mistake, some people just cut them off.  Perhaps the person did not perform according to the other person’s demands or whims.  It is the throw-away culture, where people are so quickly cast off that is toxic too. 

I could write so much more, and I will if my readers would like me to expand on this truth.  But otherwise, I want to close by saying that God made men to be kind and good. Their masculinity is not toxic.  It is the abandonment of the true role God gave men that causes some of them to become toxic. But it will always be their sin, not their masculinity that is toxic.  So let’s celebrate the good men in our lives who love God, who humble themselves and who are kind to us.  Please don’t overlook them.  They might also be your local librarian, the janitor at your favorite shop, the mail carrier, and other men the world would deem “humble.”  Yet their humble and faithful service proves they are the truly masculine men.  True masculinity is not afraid to be kind and serve others. 

Truly masculine men can be strong sports players or clumsy, great successes in their career or simply faithful for a life time at a modest career, very smart or of average intelligence. All these men can be kind and gentle and know how to control their temper, or at least apologize on the rare times they lose their temper or commit any other sin. The truly masculine men work on their flaws and let God work on them to become better men.  They are good works in progress (Ephesians 2:10, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God created in advance for us to do.) Good, truly masculine men exist, but too often our world over looks them, because they do not make gobs of money, don’t have bulging muscles or super handsome faces.  They are the good men, and we need to applaud them, since our world just forgets them and then raves in anger over the ones who are mean.  God knows their hearts, so let us remember the good ones too.

What about the mean guys?  We don’t throw them away.  We always forgive.  We ask them to stop hurting us.  We let them know that if they refuse to stop, we can walk away from them (Proverbs 2:24 “Don’t befriend angry people or associate with hot tempered people.)  We cannot reconcile until they want to change, if they are sincere.  Even then, we can be careful and wise to make sure they will not resume hurting us.  And when we have to walk way, God will deal with the truly mean ones.

I pray we have blessed you with this week’s post.  I heard an Irish pastor talk about this topic and I decided to write from a woman’s perspective.  If you ever have any questions, let me know, because I do my best to write these posts based upon what the women I know need to hear (to bless and encourage them.)  My daughter Amy was especially eager to share her ideas on this post too, so it was fun to add her perspective.  You have blessed us by reading the post!