This is the second part of another blog post I wrote on toxic masculinity. You can read that here. Overall, I think I make the points I needed to make on why it's a problem. However, since then, I've had further thoughts and experiences.
I'll start out by commenting on reactions to this blog. There was a group of people I read that blog post for, and one of them highly commended me for owning up to things I did before I was even ten. I confessed to terrible things I did as a child, but I'm not sure if I consider it owning up to my actions. Looking at ways we behaved as children and why is important in dealing with societal issues. There might be women who are extremely goth today, but as teenagers, they might have been major valley girls. At that time, they may have been doing it to try to fit in, but since then, they realized that it isn't them. The same goes for the hurtful things I did to girls during recess. It's just that my actions were hurtful to others, while wearing pink, saying 'like' all the time, and regularly buying new clothes aren't.
Shortly after writing that blog, I realized one major example of a positive version of masculinity that I forgot to include. LeVar Burton. He heavily encouraged people to be excited about reading and learning. He also had an extremely positive attitude and a gentle personality. There's a reason why including him is important. Except for Jesus, all of the men I included as examples were white. Racial diversity is important. Also, black men are given a negative image, and so having a positive example is important.
