Is Toxic Femininity a Thing?

Here's the first hit on my Google (it contains a "TRIGGER WARNING"):

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Toxic_femininity

Quote:

Toxic femininity is a term used by Men's rights advocacy activists to construct a False equivalence between Toxic masculinity... There is no such thing as toxic femininity, but Benevolent sexism is a way in which superficially positive beliefs about women harm women and sometimes make it possible for individual women to get away with bad behavior, and Sexism covers the most common ways in which expectations of conventional femininity harm women... While abuse by women aimed at adult men exists, it's exceedingly rare and when it isn't actually self-defense being mischaracterized as an abuse, it happens individualistically, not as part of a patriarchal pattern of political violence. Abuse by women aimed at children is much more common, but the roots of that abuse are also in patriarchy, not femininity. Child abuse is a way in which women can actively participate in supporting patriarchal structure, and Internalized sexism means that women, as well as men, will continue to abuse children as long as patriarchy continues.

OK, that sounds totally fair. I was listening to my NPR affiliate today, and they were discussing toxic masculinity. One guest wanted to steer conversation off-topic to "toxic femininity." I cannot recall his exact definition, but he mentioned women being "manipulative."

My second hit was Bust, which said:

Quote:

If you ask a man about toxic femininity, get ready to hear about alllllll the ladies who couldn’t see what a nice guy he was, and possibly some ******* [effing] disturbing accusations of greediness, stupidity, and shallow ***** [bitchy but with a c] whoreishness from said nice guy.

https://bust.com/feminism/195520-toxic-femininity.html

It's not clear to me that it's necessary to have a term like toxic femininity. Toxic masculinity -- I'm willing to accept that as a thing. Benevolent sexism? Sure, that's real. I think critics of feminism are groping for a term more like "female privilege," or "female entitlement." But those terms have been around for a long, long time.

via International Skeptics Forum http://bit.ly/2S6UaQo