Toxic masculinity is best described as a box. It's narrow, rigid, and men have to contort themselves to fit inside it. To fit in the man box of toxic masculinity, a man must live by a particular set of beliefs and behaviors: 1)Suffer pain in silence; 2)Have no needs; 3)Never lose; 4)Show no emotions other than bravado or rage; 5)Don’t depend on anyone; 6)Don't do anything that could be construed as weakness; 7)Never snitch.
The man box also requires that men buy into a rigid hierarchy in which straight men are dominant over everybody else. Furthermore, among straight men, the man box decrees that hypermasculine men are dominant over men who reject or find themselves outside the box.
But this scramble for dominance and denial of emotion comes at great cost. It blunts men's awareness of other people's needs and emotions, drives domestic and sexual violence, makes aggression look like a reasonable way to solve conflict, forbids seeking health care (and even thinking about seeking mental health care), and pours fuel on the fire of drug and alcohol abuse.
