How Us Dudes Can Do Better: Addressing Toxic Masculinity As Men

How can we, as men, be true allies to womxn in helping to create a world where toxic masculinity, male privilege, and power are artifacts of the past?

Why do womxn have to adapt to this insane, unsafe world instead of addressing the systematic, patriarchal problems that benefit us, as men, at the expense of womxn?

We are in 2021, so why does it feel like it’s 1821?

I’m currently exploring how I have contributed to this toxic masculine culture and how to dismantle the supremacy power structure that has solely helped men. In this article, I explore four ways that I’m trying to be an ally:

• Creating A Safe Environment
• Owning My Privilege As A Man & Using It To Open Doors Once Closed To Womxn
• Being Aware of How My Language Contributes To The Patriarchal, Supremacist Culture
• Celebrating & Honoring Womxn That Are Stepping Into Their Power

Being An Ally By Creating A Safe Environment

There are many ways we can actually support womxn, and I’m just sharing a few ways that I got from this Burbles Podcast post. Please let me know even more ways to change this society that tolerates this dangerous, misogynistic, patriarchal structure. The hashtag shouldn’t have to #textmewhenyougethome, but instead #nomore.

If you are watching this as a guy and thinking, it’s not that big of a deal, ask the womxn in your life, do they feel safe, and do they have to adapt how to live to protect themselves in this patriarchal world? We are better than this, so we need to start acting like it.

Being An Ally By Owning Our Privilege As Men

Watch this video, men, and let me know if this triggers you. If it does, you haven’t owned your privilege as a man in society.

You haven’t recognized that we are in current positions of power partly due to us simply having a penis. Not because of our talent or skillset, but simply because a hiring director or a client of ours is willing to pay us because we are men.

Until you can recognize this level of privilege and own the fact that you may not have earned this position, you’ll have trouble doing this allyship work.

You are simply doing performative activism, claiming to be a feminist when you aren’t willing to give up the power necessary to change the dynamics that benefit us as men.

So ask yourself, what privileged level of power are you willing to give up to change how society treats womxn in this world?

We also must challenge what actions we are currently doing to change this system and if they are actually making a difference or just going through the motions to fulfill our ego.

Call Out Toxic Masculinity When You See It

I use my platform on TikTok to call out toxic masculinity and the movement around Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). I happen to use humor to point out the ridiculous contradictions of someone touting their alpha maleness.

Being An Ally By The Language We Choose To Use

Questioning terms like resting B**** face and the misogynistic undertones communicated by these derogatory labels is another way we can start to break down the patriarchy embedded in our language. The use of these sexist slurs is a way to exude toxic masculine power. It comes from a place of inadequacy, weakness, and fear of losing said power. We have to call each other out when we use these terms unknowingly. We have been raised in a white male supremacist culture that celebrates us using this language, so we must call out this culture.

Be An Ally By Celebrating Womxn Stepping Into Their Power

We need to start recognizing the massive impact womxn have had on shaping this society and realize that they do it better than us many times.

An example of this is the black womxn that altered the outcome of this past election & elections before this.

How come we don’t know about all the womxn inventors who created devices that altered the course of history?

How come we don’t celebrate womxn leaders who lead with compassion, care, empathy?

We need to celebrate this type of leadership, as this is the type of shared humanity perspective that we will need post-pandemic.

Conclusion

To be true allies to womxn, we must ask ourselves these questions honestly:

Only when our actions communicate our stance as much as our values can we truly dismantle this patriarchal, misogynistic system destroying all of us, men and women, from the inside out.

Toxic Masculinity In Silicon Valley

If you’d like to explore more about the toxic masculinity that is embedded in Silicon Valley, I have compiled a list of articles that outline the massive issue at hand:

1. Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful To Women — The Atlantic
2. “There’s a deep sadness to it”: A new book takes on masculinity in Silicon Valley — The Quartz
3. A Friendly Reminder That ‘Silicon Valley’ is a Garbage Bin of Toxic Masculinity — Femestella
4. Can tech culture’s toxic masculinity be solved? — GQ
5. The Fragile Masculinity of Tech Bros and the Failure of Liberal Feminism — Praxis Center
6. Toxic Masculinity in Silicon Valley — Sarah Lacy (Video)
7. Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley
8. Emily Chang — Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley (Video)
9. PANDO’S SARAH LACY EXPLAINS WHY “TOXIC MASCULINITY” PERVADES SILICON VALLEY
10. How Sexism in Tech Impacts the World Outside Silicon Valley — Wharton
11. The Boring Sexism of HBO’s ‘Silicon Valley’ — The New Republic
12. To succeed in Silicon Valley, you still have to act like a man — Washington Post
13. The Tech Industry’s Gender-Discrimination Problem — The New Yorker
14. The Quiet Efforts to Battle Silicon Valley’s Bro Culture — Wall Street Journal
15. MALE ALLYSHIP: THE KRYPTONITE TO SILICON VALLEY’S LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY PROBLEM — Women 2.0
16. Appalled by Sexism in the Valley? Meet the Tech Bros of Finland — Caterina
17. Dear Joe Biden: Don’t Listen to Silicon Valley — Wired
18. Meet Silicon Valley’s Version of ‘The Cool Girl’
19. ‘Bro culture’ and why it’s an issue for startups
20. The Toxic Masculinity Bubble has burst — Pando
21. “OH MY GOD, THIS IS SO F — -ED UP”: INSIDE SILICON VALLEY’S SECRETIVE, ORGIASTIC DARK SIDE — Vanity Fair
22. Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far — NY Times
23. The “manosphere” is getting more toxic as angry men join the incels — MIT Review
24. ‘Boys will be boys’ gets a new spin in Silicon Valley sexism scandal
25. Redefining Modern Masculinity Through Skincare — A Conversation With MadeMan’s CEO — Men’s Journal
26. Networks of exclusion in a gendered organization in the high-tech industry (Dissertation)
27. Alignment with gender stereotypes predicts success in tech — Stanford University
28. Adrian Daub and Anna Wiener on gender and power in Silicon Valley
29. The Basic Problem with Silicon Valley: Straight White Male Complacency — LinkedIn
30. The Lack of Women in Technology: The Role Culture and Sexism Play — Capstone Thesis Penn State
31. A New Utopia: A Political History of the Silicon Valley, 1945 to 1995 — Cambridge University Press
32. How One Hardware Startup Solved Silicon Valley’s “Woman Problem” — Wired
33. Exposing Silicon Valley sexism — ATSE
34. How Silicon Valley’s Sexist “Bro Culture” Affects Everyone — Business Insider (Video)
35. Tackling Toxic Masculinity in Technology Workplaces — Appropriate Technology
36. Macho ‘brogrammer’ culture still nudging women out of tech — Financial Times
37. Ten years on, why are there still so few women in tech? — The Guardian
38. Sexism In The Technology Industry — Wikipedia