Future's Music and Toxic Masculinity Literature & Language Essay (Essay Sample)

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Future’s Music and Masculinity
Over the past few years, the popularization of the term toxic masculinity in public discourse has sparked interesting social overview of the subject. Its existential awareness may have popularized the endorsement of the term more than it suppressed it. The appeal of the term has grown immensely especially in the wake of the #MeToo movement. To put it in perspective, Gillette, a major brand of razors, hoped onto the bandwagon of shaming toxic masculinity with a controversial ad video which was not received well by a faction of men claiming it a reach. While the definition of toxic masculinity is yet to arrive at a consensus, there has been speculation and social commentary linking famous American rapper Future to propagating and influencing its existence. Generally, toxic masculinity denotes certain masculine traits like aggressiveness, self-entitlement and seeming disregard of emotion as its driving force. Future’s music is widely cited to be praising these traits which has earned him the title father of toxic masculinity.
Given his genre of music, this is considered a plus since it validates a perception of the kind of people involved in gangster rap. Toxic masculinity came as a controversial subject in the recent years following the #MeToo movement that ominously began on social media platform Twitter. The movement sought to expose sexual harassment of women in the workplace and rape allegations. During this brief moment of an almost all out gender war, notable characters in the entertainment industry lost their jobs and credibility. Feminists and their loyal followers called for the sacking and subsequent cancelling of anyone thought to be involved or endorsing these individuals. While this was a wake up call to the vices women undergo on a daily, there was a notable rift between men and women over the same. A predictable conflict in which a section of the internet rallied against the #MeToo movement. Although not as vocal, some interesting points were raised. For instance, conservatives alleged that use of the term toxic masculinity was detrimental to manhood. The claim is that man has and will always possess these traits, regardless of any prevailing circumstance, it is bound to show up any time as it is woven into their mentality. Therefore, shaming men for something they are born into is an attack of the essence of manhood. On the other hand, the progressive faction of the society claims it a necessity to detoxicate toxic masculinity to achieve gender equality.