Another new phrase is getting ready to join the villa as “toxic femininity” has been making the rounds on social media after one of the episodes of the most recent season of Love Island was called out for “toxic femininity” by a few female contestants and their harsh antics involving sexuality and hypocrisy. TikTok has also seen a rise in videos depicting “pick-me” girls, or women that self-proclaim themselves to be “not like other girls” in order to ‘fit in’. Even Taylor Swift in her song “Anti-Hero,” called out the ‘sexy baby’ idea of changing your personality for male approval.
This made me start wondering about all the other times women could have displayed toxic femininity.
And then I realized, what even is toxic femininity?
According to healthline.com, ‘toxic femininity’ is best defined as “restricting your behavior to fit stereotypically feminine traits that men supposedly find pleasing.” This can include empathy, sensitivity, passivity, and being both sexually or physically submissive. To clarify, there’s nothing wrong with these traits (I cry pretty much anytime I see a puppy); what’s wrong is the societal expectation that is placed upon women and girls to abide by these traits in order to “fit in”.
At its core, toxic femininity is something that upholds the traditional patriarchy while causing men and women to internalize misogyny and some pretty unbalanced gender roles. And, it happens everywhere, not just in the Love Island villa.
After some further research, so many of the phrases and actions that make up our daily life pretty much fly under the ‘toxic femininity’ radar. Just because something or someone isn’t blatantly telling you, “Go put on a dress, you’re a girl!”, doesn’t mean that toxic femininity isn’t something learned or almost ingrained in our society. It’s actually in the small details where toxic femininity crops up. It’s in the things we used to hear as little kids or the suggestions from our colleagues and even our employers.
If you’ve ever had a family member or teacher tell you to ‘sit like a lady’, that’s just one small example of toxic femininity. Small, seemingly unimportant phrases like this are detrimental to the female self-esteem, especially when they’re made to feel as if their worth is tied to their femininity and therefore, feel less worthy if they’re not “feminine” enough. Forcing makeup toys onto girls at a young age can make them feel as though they have to use makeup in order to be desirable, rather than using makeup to boost their self-confidence or as self-expression.
Extreme dieting and health restrictions are part of this phenomenon and have been exacerbated by the rise of social media. Just recently, Gwyneth Paltrow faced criticism for her morning routine of bone broth and air. Other diet-related trends on the internet practically encourage restrictive or disordered eating in order to fit into a narrow beauty standard, mostly put forth by men. Postpartum mothers are pressured to ‘bounce back’ after giving birth and return to a ‘desirable’ state rather than accepting and admiring the fact that they just literally brought a new life into the world. Toxic femininity can prevent women from feeling comfortable in their bodies, all in the name of conforming to made-up beauty ideals.
Toxic femininity also makes relationships a toxic realm for both partners. When raised to believe women are meant to be ‘submissive’, this can lead to women’s boundaries being overstepped to avoid confrontation and keep up the stereotype of desirable women as ‘obedient’ partners. Other aspects of toxic femininity can lead to women seeing a male partner as the only source of income and protection, leading to a co-dependency on her part and stress on her partner to keep providing, rather than an equal relationship. That’s not to say women can’t be stay-at-home wives or moms, but that has to be a career decision a woman makes for herself, not because society expects it of her.
One of the worst examples of toxic femininity comes from women themselves, and it’s something that’s become almost too prevalent in modern society. In a world that almost allows everyone to voice their personal opinion on you, social media has become a place that’s both freeing and hard to proudly show yourself off. Women who choose to not shave or not dress as traditionally “feminine” can face bullying from other women for not fitting into societal expectations for gender and style. On the other hand, women with internalized misogyny sometimes fall on the sword of criticizing women for being “hyper-feminine.” Whether you like pink or blue, wearing dresses or jeans, and going bra-less or fully waxed should be left up to the individual, not because of societal expectations they’re forced into from both sides, but because they enjoy the style, color, or look.
In Love Island, toxic femininity takes form in being more enraged towards a female contestant having two or more love interests at the same time than a male contestant due to the internalized misogyny of women being ‘innocent’ and not as sexually explicit as men, who get to laugh off their sexual engagements rather than admit to the heartbreak they’ve committed.
Toxic femininity and the entire idea of having to conform to an honestly repressing and exhausting societal norm of womanhood is something we need to speak out about just as much as we do toxic masculinity. Men and women should not have to abide by an arbitrary code of “gender” to belong in society. Rather, they should be accepted for their individual personalities and interpretations of gender, even if it means they want to be “traditional.” As long as their choice is respected and respects others in the process, why not let women be happy?
