toxic masculinity
© The Daily Star
A feminist professor at Occidental College recently argued that men must renounce their masculinity and "denounce anyone who chooses to identify with it."

Lisa Wade, a sociology professor at Occidental, published an essay for Public Books calling for people to "attack masculinity directly" to help the nation survive in the wake of President Trump, who she says perpetuates a "vile enactment of masculinity."

"The problem is not toxic masculinity; it's that masculinity is toxic."

"If we're going to survive both President Trump and the kind of people he has emboldened, we need to attack masculinity directly," she said, clarifying that she doesn't want to see a "kinder, gentler version of it," but that she wants it done away with completely.

Calling masculinity a "dangerous idea," Wade argues that the Trump presidency was caused not merely by toxic forms of masculinity, but by the fact that masculinity itself is toxic.

"We are here in Trump's America in part because we have been too delicate in our treatment of dangerous ideas. The problem is not toxic masculinity; it's that masculinity is toxic," she writes, adding that masculinity is "simply not compatible with liberty and justice for all."

"We can only give masculinity so many modifiers for so long before we have to confront the possibility that it is masculinity itself that has become the problem," she says.

Wade concludes her essay by urging people to "call masculinity out as a hazardous ideology and denounce anyone who chooses to identify with it," saying that doing so is crucial for "gender revolution."

Wade is best known for her book American Hookup (2017), a feminist look into the sexual culture on college campuses, which has been praised by numerous media outlets including The New York Times and The Huffington Post.

More recently, Wade called for fraternities to be abolished because they "hoard power" for "wealthy white men," and noted that she doesn't "think it is a good idea to be encouraging young males to identify specifically as men."

Campus Reform reached out to Wade for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.