I have a bad feeling about this.
— Han Solo
"Toxic masculinity."
I overhear this phrase in coffee shops, cafés, and restaurants more than any other single phrase.
I don't know why it's on the top of women's minds right now—at least the minds of the women who frequent coffee shops, cafés, and restaurants—but it definitely is.
But, whatever the cause, I think men are soon up for a collective asswhuppin' (defined by Urban Dictionary as an "intense physical retribution involving heavy bruising, put upon a person in need of a life-lesson in civility, politeness, and manners").
The phrase "toxic masculinity" was coined 36 years ago by farmer and writer Shepherd Bliss. He thought it described the authoritarian streak displayed by his absent, career-military father.
That's seems awfully harsh; but I'm not most men's target.
Novelist Norman Mailer, fairly macho himself, believed that contemporary American males were toxic because they were without honor.
"Masculinity is not something given to you, something you’re born with, but something you gain," he wrote in 1962. "And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.
"Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men."
I think Mailer was onto something.
Somewhere on the journey to manhood, American men forgot about honor.