[dijit27]

I think the point is the definition of toxic masculinity that you are using differs from that of some of the other posters.

As I understand your definition toxic masculinity is the pressure society puts on people to conform to negative masculine roles.

My personal definition would be people expressing there masculinity in a way that is hurtful and belittling of others.

They both are part of the same problem where society creates and perpetuates and pushes people to toxic expressions of masculinity and that in turn hurts the public in general. Which looks something like:

Society -> Masculine Roles -> The Public

I'd call the negative expression of that chain Toxic Societal Norms and the second part would be Toxic Masculinity. In both cases it's the noun, societal norms or masculinity, that is the source of the toxicity.

[rosser]

> As I understand your definition toxic masculinity is the pressure society puts on people to conform to negative masculine roles.

> My personal definition would be people expressing there masculinity in a way that is hurtful and belittling of others.

It's both. The cultural norms, and people expressing them are both definitive of toxic masculinity.

The belittling is often a product of people internalizing those norms. They then ostracize or punish others who either fail to meet them in the eyes of the belittler, or are evocative to the belittler of the ways in which they, themselves, fail to meet them.

In fact, that kind of behavior is what the term "virtue signaling" is actually about: behavior that is performed to signal affiliation with and enforce the norms of some group. It doesn't actually mean the "you're all talk" kind of thing that it's broadly become.