Toxic masculinity is a form of fragile masculinity that says there is one man at the top and all men below this man are inferior. There is no room for equality. There is no room for failure. There is no room for inferiority…except there is. That is what sustains toxic masculinity. It tells you how you are not good enough and then shows you ways you might be good enough. This is what makes it toxic. To be good enough, you must harm others based on the tenets of this belief system. Punching down is how this system works through a messed up form of validation for harming those seen as beneath you.
The joke? Usually the top rank of these pyramid schemes is an old, past his prime, decrepit man who is almost sexualizing the number two position he has found to represent what he wishes he was. These old men past their primes will often tell stories of when they are young and how great they were. I’ve talked to the people who have deconstructed from these groups. Often, these men were found to be lying about ever being who they say they were. They were often incels themselves.
This is likely the capture point. Incels who have grown old and learned to tell stories are telling young men what they themselves would believe to be true. The problem with this is the radicalization of young men being taught that nothing is their fault while blaming marginalized groups for somehow having power over them. I believe incels are celibate due to not actually having a strong enough desire for sex but having their social value compared to how much sex they have.
Perhaps incels should be blaming someone other than themselves: the toxic masculinity that tells them to chase something they don’t even want. Toxic masculinity tells you what a man is. True masculinity does not need to be identified. It is understood. These systems of oppression on young men radicalize them to keep them oppressed. These young men might be able to be happy if encouraged to live the life they enjoy rather than chase something they have no motivation toward.
Eric W. Dolan writes on the PsyPost about an article that links influencers of this toxic masculinity to increased dehumanization and mistrust of women. The system is set up to tell men the problem is the women who will not have sex with them rather than to teach them how to woo a woman into wanting to have sex. It is a demand system rather than one of garnering interest. It is similar to when very rich people in the media recently had sued advertisers for not paying them to advertise on their platform. It is a system of oppressive aggression without any responsibility given to the aggrieved.
This reduction of responsibility is on purpose. It takes away your power to change the world around you. It makes you accept the rules that are handed down from these past their prime snake oil salesmen. The system is made to shame you into not believing your own strengths so that you never question the system. At the same time, it tells you violence toward those who are oppressed by this same system is the only answer.
Think about the goals you have for yourself that you might be struggling to achieve. Do you actually want to achieve these goals? Where did you get the idea of these goals to achieve? What would it mean to achieve these goals for your sense of self? Who are you in the context of the rule system you follow? If you woke up tomorrow and were good enough, what would that look/feel like?