What on earth do you even mean

I personally don't like the idea of the phrase toxic masculinity because I don't believe that the masculine energy is toxic in and of itself. I feel like a more appropriate term would be pseudo masculinity. Because that implies that people are not naturally this way, but they are forcing themselves to act this way in pursuit of some perceived ideal of masculinity.

I mean, humans are frequently guilty of using terms that mean a very specific thing in a much broader sense as a shorthand for clearly communicating what we specifically mean in that instance.

For instance, I have heard people are use the phrase "toxic masculinity" to describe boyfriends that don't want to do the dishes, when the actual correct term is "lazy piece of shit", but for some reason, when communicating this information to other people, it is easier for them to ascribe an issue with the sex of the person than an issue with the choices of the person, implying that the only actual fix is to repair your emotional relationship with your own sex instead of accepting that everyone has a human responsibility to contribute to doing the chores around the house.

Once again, I reiterate that masculinity and masculine energy is not toxic, any more than femininity and feminine energy is toxic, and I also exhort anyone that took the time to read this much to do their best to effectively and accurately communicate using specific language rather than emotional shorthand.

Whatever term you come up with, conservative think tanks will immediately poison. Trying to twist yourself in knots to find the perfect way to express the idea is just failing to understand that the issue is that those who benefit from these systems at the highest levels have every incentive to keep things as they are. They can and will use their captive audience to fuck with any explanation you try to give that's contrary to the system as it exists today. The only concessions they will give will only be to get enough people to pack it in since "we won". And those will only be temporary.

Fact is that as white people in North America, we DO get privileged treatment from the banking system, law enforcement, shopkeepers, bus drivers, random people in the street...

And white people in North America have it their whole lives, and will continue to have it their whole lives for the most part.

Is it unpleasant to be reminded that you'll spend your whole life playing with the White Assist mode, and that every single non white person knows that about you? Yeah.

That there are circles you won't be let into by default because of actions taken by other people? Yeah.

White supremacist ideology is bad for everyone, including white people, but it's bad for white people in an emotional health way, while it's bad for non white people in a life and death way.

fight over the definition of the word privilege. C'mon, let's just ditch the word, ferchrissakes! Keep the concept, call it something more relatable!

I think it's naive to believe whatever terminology you use as an alternative wouldn't eventually end up with the same stigma.

The people who interpret it as "masculinity is toxic" aren't doing it because they have a hearing disability, they interpret it that way as a means to justify their own beliefs.

The same goes for your example of "evil homosexuals". Anyone who is blaming all homosexuals for something does not have to modify them with the term evil for you to know they are being a bigot.

I don't think it's people fighting for social justice who get unreasonably attached to words. I think that describes the people who feign an inability to utilize context or reason when they hear them.

AFAIK there is a term to describe the phenomenon when talking about discrimation : Intersectionality. But I've only read this in German literature so it might not be used internationally.

It describes how discrimination feels is unique and everyone faces different forms of discrimation, but there is some overlap (intersection of circles) between these discriminative experiences. By arguing with Intersectionality your experience is unique to you while still using the umbrella term discrimation. This situation here seems similar to me but instead of the negative discrimination we are talking about the positive privilege. But to me it seems like the concept still applies.

I also hate the term privilege because it implies those people have something they shouldn't have, i.e. they need to be brought down, when really it's that other people have a disadvantage. This makes the ones labeled privileged defensive because it seems like an attack instead of a call for help.

Everyone should be at least at the same level as the "privileged" ones.

Edit: it seems I might not have been clear as the discussion below seems to perfectly encapsulate why I personally dislike the term privilege because of how it frames things. The majority of privileged people aren't getting a leg up, they just don't have the things dragging them down that underprivileged people do. Maybe an analogy will help:

Imagine a grueling and difficult race everyone is forced to run. The actual distance is arbitrary and doesn't matter, you just need to complete it. The starting line is a staggered mess with people starting forward and backwards from each other to varying degrees. Many of the people in the race rightly point out this is not fair and want the starting lines to at least be the same for everyone. Now, which do you think is more beneficial to having everyone agree/work to move the starting positions; saying the people in front need to move back, or that the people further back should be moved forward?

I'm not married to those terms, but I've never heard anyone suggest better ones for what they mean. These concepts must be communicated somehow. Got any ideas?