Women who sabotage other women

Come on, we've all seen it

Artwork: Emilia Tortorella

Come on, we've all seen it

‘Toxic masculinity’ has transcended feminist commentary and made its way into popular discourse. No, the concept is not at all concerned with the presumption that masculinity is inherently destructive, as its nay-sayers might proclaim. 

Toxic masculinity has instead been defined by academics as the imposition and practice of repressive, traditional concepts of manhood — myths based on harmful gender norms, like ‘men shouldn’t cry’, or ‘men should be breadwinners’. As The New York Times summarised it best, toxic masculinity is “suppressing emotions”, “maintaining an appearance of hardness”, and believing that “violence” is an “indicator of power”. It goes without saying that equating emotion with weakness is injurious to all genders, but also for the man who wields those beliefs.

But recently, a new, lesser-known phrase has come to the fore — toxic masculinity’s counterpart.

Enter: toxic femininity. 

The term has been around for at least five years, but exploded in popularity in 2021 thank to a viral Reddit post.

“There’s toxic masculinity,” user u/VysX asked, “but what are examples of toxic femininity?”

Thousands of people responded. Whilst those who answered cited a range of examples, all references pointed to one overarching consensus: like toxic masculinity, toxic femininity is when women conform to damaging gender stereotypes, and judge other women to that standard.

But unlike masculinity, those stereotypes differ; they centre not on stoicism, but submissiveness. Violence is not overt, but covert. Women who are guilty of toxic femininity will often resort to putting her peers down, after learning to see other women as a threat.

Toxic femininity's passive aggression

“When women in workplaces form cliques and cut out anyone they deem to be an outsider,” one user wrote.

“Women [who] minimise other women’s pain,” said another.

Others noted habits such as “body shaming”, “an unhealthy competitiveness about [wedding] ring sizes”, and “thinking that a man can’t be abused by a woman.”

“Some women will feel nothing about letting you know how you are parenting wrong,” one user wrote.

“Women who are able to stay at home will be made to feel guilty for not helping to provide; and women who work are made to feel guilty for abandoning their child. I wish women were more understanding about dealing with differences and letting things slide a bit more.”

Internalised misogyny is at the heart of toxic femininity

What is interesting about the hyper-criticism that defines toxic femininity is that it is far more indicative of the perpetrator’s own beliefs — what researchers might term an ‘internalised misogyny’. These stem from rigid, learned ideas about how women should behave, as well as the desire to establish a moral superiority — of being a ‘better woman’ — that simply does not exist. At the root of this toxicity, from the belittling of other women, to the expression of either envy or condescension about choices others make about their appearances, careers or bodies, is a dishonesty with one’s self. As Nancy Doyle described in Forbes last June about the manifestation of toxic femininity in the workplace: “It’s when we allow relationships and productivity to suffer because we’re not being honest about our own objectives.”

What is clear is that toxic femininity and toxic masculinity stem from the same ideology, which frames gender in constrictive, immoveable ways. Ultimately, Devon Price put it best in his own account, “Sexism is focused on robbing women of status and rights; toxic femininity is about defining womanhood so shallowly that a woman feels de-gendered by basic human acts or neutral preferences."

“Focusing only on the harm done by men — and the insecurities harboured by men — is to ignore the broader, systematic nature of the beast.”

After all, the toxicity of sexist beliefs isn’t only practised by men; that in itself would be a simplistic and harmful perspective. What matters, above everything, is accountability and self-awareness. None of us are perfect. But perhaps we can all examine our behaviour with more scrutiny, and be more critical of the layers behind what we say.