Toxic Masculinity: The Andrew Tate story and the Southport riots
Saturday 24 August, 2024
My attention was captured this morning by a post on X once known as Twitter
I firmly believe that toxic masculinity played a large part in the failure of the UK's Brexit negotiations. our chief negotiators went in for a fight rather than a compromise and simply got outthought. We frittered away our goodwill and soft power because we thought we were hard.
@CaptainSwing666, 24 August on X.
It attracted my attention because I had been thinking about toxic masculinity as a topic worth noting for the next edition of DOL. But my interest had focused not so much on Brexit as on the discussion as to the causes of the outburst of violence in England this month, which seem to spring up unexpectedly, and died down as rapidly. These followed the murder of three children in Southport and which became known as the Southport riots.
Pundits have more than willing to discuss the riots in terms of toxic masculinity (conveniently overlooking some pretty egregious examples of toxic anger also expressed by women at the riots and trending on social media platforms.
The triggering events and attacks on Mosques and the moslem communities seem to have been false claims that the murderer was a young illegal immigrant.
The name Andrew Tate cropped up as an indirect instigator. Tate has risen to international notice a a figure influencing a generation adolescents boys and young men with promises of realising their masculinity by methods involving the humiliation of women.
