Wednesday is about books, and writing. And reading. Here’s an academic essay I wrote recently about Hemingway’s role in the mainstream “modernist” birth of Toxic Masculinity
Thank you for this excellent essay on Hemmingway and the toxic masculinity that writers have inherited, loaded, and straddled. It is anchored in his original field, in journalism, and I certainly found it difficult in that arena, as a female journalist in a macho world. I've heard it is still tough now as many managers represent this style and the system was fashioned in its image.
Act like war boys and be accepted, but let the pain seep into your writing just enough. Many of us did not make it out and many still do not - take a look at the death toll of journalists killed in Gaza, more than the whole total of journalists killed in WW2.
I did the side shuffle and turned to fiction where it is easier to tell the truth than it is in the media - a machine that was created by men adept at spin.
Of course many women have picked up the toxic baton and spread the poison. Domination is key that opens doors under capitalism.
The best literature of our era, of any era, addresses the inequity, and speaks from the bottom up, rather than the top down.
What life ever starts neatly knitted together? Most people live trying to do just that, give the baggy woolly monster some shape.
A lot of thoughts in this paper that don't quite knit together either: 'toxic masculinity' is a bit of a Procrustean bed, it seems.
Would like to see more original and braver speculations on toxic femininity and the toxic, stupid, anything-goes liberalism that, for example, applauds females getting into a boxing ring with men, perhaps as drunk as Hemingway and Mailer, and losing their chivalry fast; but, given the biological realities, packing a much bigger punch.
'Toxic' can mean anything the cold-hearted observer doesn't want to deal with.
You want another biological reality? Most women want a man who can look after them. Most drunks can't look after themselves, which makes them unpalatable potential providers. Hence, possibly, the derision.
There's nothing brave about it, but the irony will pass Anton by. Just as his notion of what women really want is rooted, for him, in what I can only assume comes from tradwives fiction and incel propaganda. As you said Simon, incredible, really.
Thank you for this excellent essay on Hemmingway and the toxic masculinity that writers have inherited, loaded, and straddled. It is anchored in his original field, in journalism, and I certainly found it difficult in that arena, as a female journalist in a macho world. I've heard it is still tough now as many managers represent this style and the system was fashioned in its image.
Act like war boys and be accepted, but let the pain seep into your writing just enough. Many of us did not make it out and many still do not - take a look at the death toll of journalists killed in Gaza, more than the whole total of journalists killed in WW2.
I did the side shuffle and turned to fiction where it is easier to tell the truth than it is in the media - a machine that was created by men adept at spin.
Of course many women have picked up the toxic baton and spread the poison. Domination is key that opens doors under capitalism.
The best literature of our era, of any era, addresses the inequity, and speaks from the bottom up, rather than the top down.
'the unraveling of his life...'
What life ever starts neatly knitted together? Most people live trying to do just that, give the baggy woolly monster some shape.
A lot of thoughts in this paper that don't quite knit together either: 'toxic masculinity' is a bit of a Procrustean bed, it seems.
Would like to see more original and braver speculations on toxic femininity and the toxic, stupid, anything-goes liberalism that, for example, applauds females getting into a boxing ring with men, perhaps as drunk as Hemingway and Mailer, and losing their chivalry fast; but, given the biological realities, packing a much bigger punch.
'Toxic' can mean anything the cold-hearted observer doesn't want to deal with.
You want another biological reality? Most women want a man who can look after them. Most drunks can't look after themselves, which makes them unpalatable potential providers. Hence, possibly, the derision.
That’s nearly a brave misunderstanding— incredible really.
Yet underscoring adeptly, all the points you made in the essay.
There's nothing brave about it, but the irony will pass Anton by. Just as his notion of what women really want is rooted, for him, in what I can only assume comes from tradwives fiction and incel propaganda. As you said Simon, incredible, really.
Jack London and Joseph Conrad before Hemingway, fleshed out themes of masculine, white superiority but he did it in Spades
Totally