Toxic Masculinity Quotes

“There were men who cracked their knuckles while divulging to me what they would do to the defendant if they got the chance, thinking this was somehow reassuring for me to hear. But all it did was make me realize that there wasn't so big a difference between the man who brutalized Denise and half the men I passed every day on the street.”
― Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

“Boys with their first beards can be a thorough pain in the neck.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

“Our society doesn't allow any foreign objects. I've always suffered because of that," Shiraha said, drinking jasmine tea made with a teabag from the drink bar. I was the one who had gotten the jasmine tea for him since he didn't make any move to get anything for himself. He just sat in silence, and when I placed it in front of him he started drinking it without even saying thank you.

"Everyone has to toe the line. Why am I still doing casual work even though I'm in my mid-thirties? Why haven't I ever had a girlfriend? The assholes don't even bat an eyelid when they ask whether I've ever had sex or not. And then they laugh and tell me not to include prostitutes in the count. I don't make trouble for anyone. But they all seem to think nothing of raping me, just because I'm in the minority."

I considered him one step short of being a sex offender. But here he was casually likening his own suffering to sexual assault, without sparing a thought for all the trouble he'd caused for women store workers and customers.

He seemed to have this odd circuitry in his mind that allowed him to see himself only as the victim, and never the perpetrator, I thought was I watched him.

"Really," I said, even wondering whether he made a habit of being self-pitying. "That must be hard.”
― Sayaka Murata, コンビニ人間 [Konbini ningen]

“Both parties can consent to one-sided sex, but that should not be the bar set for a healthy relationship.

Just because it's not rape doesn't mean it isn't dehumanizing.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality

“Why is the superficial, legalistic approach of purity culture often so ineffective in curbing toxic masculinity in Christian men? Because it deals in a truncated, false gospel. Rules and regulations for sexual behavior don't make men new. Rather, the renewal of our minds and bodies by the Holy Spirit is the solution to the broken masculinity that plagues our culture and churches.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality

“Manhood Diaries (The Sonnet)

Onun için cennet ol, cehennem değil.
Vicdanlı bir adam ol, hayvan değil.
Sé una bendición para ella, no una maldición.
Onun yaralarına ilacı ol, tuz değil.

Be her paradise, not prison.
Be her man, not master.
Be a miracle to her maladies.
Be her crown, not custard.

There is no alpha male and beta male,
There is only man and baboon.
Decency defines a man's character,
Not the virility of his heirloom.

Partner on the streets,
Slave between the sheets,
That's what a real man is.
Undaunted in danger,
Uncompromising in calamity,
That's what a real human is.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“What are you on?' said AJ. 'Leon's mum has died and you are determined to add to the total sum of misery by going out with the girlfriend of the nastiest piece of manhood that was ever assembled in the factory of life...”
― Sally Gardner, The Door That Led to Where

“Women Run Better (The Sonnet)

Men only inherit the world,
Women give birth to the world.
If women can birth the world,
women can run the world
(far better than men).

History reveals, war is a masculine merchandise,
Whereas preserving life is an act of the feminine.
Masculinity bears inclination for competitiveness,
Femininity is synonymous with synergy and cohesion.

That's why female leaders
can step down more gracefully,
making way for new minds at the helm,
Whereas their male counterparts would
rather take their position to the grave.

Femininity is not a reproductive quality,
Femininity is the source of all rejuvenation.
No matter what gender or orientation you are,
Nourish your femininity, and there'll be ascension.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“There is no alpha male and beta male,
There is only man and baboon.
Decency defines a man's character,
Not the virility of his heirloom.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Let me give some morons out there a lesson on jealousy : people who get jealous are the ones who’ll typically harbor an attachment and fixation in the absence of which, there can never be any jealous reaction if you’re looking for one. So, good luck with the unsavory mind games and mixed signals.”
― Word of Truth Ministry

“As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today--- the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.”
― Thrity Umrigar, Honor

“We need to be looking after young men a bit better before we start demonising them.”
― Matty Healy

“[Fashionable Beard]
I asked a friend growing a fashionable beard playfully: “Has your beard increased your fans?”
“You have no idea how much it has!” He responded.
“Do you wonder why people can’t see you clearly without it?” I asked.
“This beard reminds me every day that people simply refuse to see things as they are – bare and naked. They will notice and see things covered with any cover, except not as they are!” he added with a laughter.

[Original poem published in Arabic on January 16, 2023 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“War is a masculine merchandise.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“War is a masculine merchandise, whereas preserving life is an act of the feminine.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Why is the superficial, legalistic approach of purity culture often so ineffective in curbing toxic masculinity in Christian men? Because it deals in a truncated, false gospel. Rules and regulations for sexual behavior don't make men new. Rather, the renewal of our minds and bodies by the Holy Spirit is the solution to the broken masculinity that plagues our culture and churches.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity

“Both parties can consent to one-sided sex, but that should not be the bar set for a healthy relationship.

Just because it's not rape doesn't mean it isn't dehumanizing.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity

“Divine boys were just like human ones, and why should that surprise her? The toxic masculinity went all the way to the top. Of-fucking-course it did.”
― Lilith Saintcrow, Spring's Arcana

“Women in power is power used best,
Men in power means power makes a mess.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“Women in Power (The Sonnet)

Women in power is power used best,
Men in power means power makes a mess.

For the world to become gender-neutral,
First it's gotta become matriarchal.
Thereafter gender will bear no significance,
Only the capable shall dawn the pedestal.

In patriarchy war and tyranny are the norm,
While peace and equality are exception.
In matriarchy synergy is the norm,
While shallowness is the exception.

Before the world is equalized,
first it's gotta be dehypnotized.
And no world is ever dehypnotized till
the paradigm is mended by the marginalized .”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“You can get away with some amazingly bad behaviour, it turns out, as long as your predecessors were complete shits.”
― Robert Webb, How Not To Be a Boy

“To assume every woman is out to dig for gold,
is not masculinity, it's simian masculinity.
Likewise, to assume every man is a sexist pig,
is not feminism, it's canine femininity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yaralardan Yangın Doğar: Explorers of Night are Emperors of Dawn

“Emotion! demmy, sir! what do you mean by emotion? Am I a man to give way to emotion? Demmy, sir, mind what you say!" roared the old lion, getting up and shaking himself free of all weaknesses.”
― E.D.E.N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand

“when everyone says they can’t even imagine him getting angry, look at her eyes”
― Vironika Wilde, Love and Gaslight

“The Manhandling of Gilbert Gripes by Stewart Stafford

Scrummage in a birch wood,
Pyrrhic rut for an oval prize,
Grinning studs rake my face,
A flayed Garryowen as sport.

Cauliflower ears throb with fear,
Thunderous hooves charging,
Poleaxed by a car crash tackle,
Nosebleed kiss tickles my lips.

The rite of passage staggers on,
A butcher's initiation of brothers,
Cutthroat razors kindly supplied,
Wealthy primates whoop in safety.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Chain the worms, not wombs.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Men are so often made to feel inadequate and stupid for having feelings and problems and expressing their doubts and fears. Fight Club was the pressure cooker that lanced the boil of the pent-up existential crisis in masculinity that continues even more so to this day.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Truth is, I feel obligated to act out a prescriptive performance every day. Some figurative rite of passage into manhood.”
― Tony Keith, How the Boogeyman Became a Poet

“Our everyday exchanges are the foundation for violence. Acceptance of male control in day-to-day conversations is equivalent to acceptance of the dominant attitude the rapist exhibits. Eradicating those everyday violent exchanges destroys the foundation of support that rapists enjoy.”
― Cathy Winkler, One Night: Realities of Rape

“When men feel small they are dangerous.”
― Nina MacLaughlin, Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung