Toxic masculinity… a phrase being thrown around pretty rampantly these days as a general descriptor for learned behavior that’s harmful to society and rooted in theoretical masculine superiority. Despite the innumerable examples of why toxic masculinity is negatively impacting society both on local and grand scales, did you know it’s also making you a super shitty developer who actively pushes bad practice code?
“Life imitates art” and web development
When you’ve been in the accessibility community long enough, you can start predicting the kind of response you’ll get depending on the “vibe” of the person you’re talking to. You’ll even start to notice patterns. Patterns like… why are the developers disinterested (or actively pushing against) accessibility usually male? Feminine and non-binary developers tend to welcome it with open arms, eager to learn and embrace the change for the betterment of user experience. Why do you think this is?
Let’s look at some statistics. Did you know, in a heterosexual relationship, women are significantly more likely to be abandoned in the event of being diagnosed with a disease or terminal illness than if the roles were reversed? In Men Leave Separation And Divorce Far More Common When The Wife Is The Patient, a 2009 study involving 515 patients of various ailments, quotes 20.8% of men left their partners as opposed to the 2.9% of women who left theirs. The study quotes:
Why men leave a sick spouse can be partly explained by their lack of ability, compared to women, to make more rapid commitments to being caregivers to a sick partner and women’s better ability to assume the burdens of maintaining a home and family, the study authors said.
This “ability” IS NOT biological, inherent behavior. It’s learned based on expectations of women and how they’re brought up to be a wife and mother. This expectation is an example of toxic masculinity (and another example of how it’s shot society in the foot). Let’s look at another study. In Marriage and divorce among young adult cancer survivors, 74,433 participants with cancer diagnoses were interviewed. While the study focused on cancer in young adults, the results it yielded were very telling. Such as… young women (particularly when they have a reproductive-based diagnosis) were more likely to be divorced (even more likely than a man with a reproductive-based diagnosis).
In adjusted proportions, only 13 % of male survivors were divorced or separated compared to 21 % of female survivors. A cancer diagnosis, coupled with daily activities that may fall disproportionately on women, such as childcare and housework, may cause a larger disruption in younger families where the female partner is sick compared to couples where the male spouse is sick
Sickness and in Health? Physical Illness as a Risk Factor for Marital Dissolution in Later Life shows that not only are women more likely to be divorced if they fall ill but are more likely to be widowed if their husband falls ill (this study goes into a lot of factors that impact divorce rate and illness, a lot of which will send shivers up anyone’s spine).
So what does this all mean? Well… it means if health issues run in your family, you better hope you’re romantically inclined toward women because the outlook is statistically bleak otherwise. It also means we, as a society, are training men to be coddled and cared for without training them to do any coddling or caring themselves.
Do people who support toxically masculine culture not realize they’re also supporting the idea that grown-ass men should be dependent toddlers? This is learned behavior repeatedly spouted by people who keep using the word “biology” like whose reproductive organs are where has anything to do with whether or not someone can load a dishwasher.
What does toxic masculinity have to do with web accessibility?
Not only does this data imply men are being taught they have an innate lack of independence, it also implies we’re not teaching men empathy. This is a direct result of toxic masculinity, implying anything to do with emotion (unless it’s anger) is inherently feminine and thus weak. This is where the whole “real men don’t cry” bullshit comes from.
So what happens when people lack empathy? They’re unable to see the value in things that do not directly benefit themselves. And to be able-bodied and take web accessibility seriously, empathy is pretty high on the list of requirements. Statistically, a lot of men can’t even get it together enough to take over household duties when their partner falls seriously ill — and we’re expecting them to take aria labels seriously?
Ultimately, the idea of empathizing with and caring for the sick and disabled is something we’re simply not instilling in young men. To drive another “shooting ourselves in the foot” point home, this is also evident in the more well-known statistic that daughters are more than twice as likely to take care of their elderly parents as sons are (When Gender Trumps Everything: The Division of Parent Care Among Siblings).
By teaching people to exclusively be on the receiving end of care, we’re not teaching them how to be on the giving end. The act of caring is not a gendered concept, though that seems to be what we’re telling people. Being passionate about something is a turn-on, but actually caring about it is… what… “gay”? Being the breadwinner is manly and masculine, but holding your wife’s hair back as she barfs post-chemo is just too “girly”? How do people still support these concepts? The more you realistically break them down, the sillier they get.
Also by teaching men to exclusively be care receivers, we’re instilling them with selfishness. We’re telling them they’re never required to put their own needs aside for anothers’ or to compromise what they want for what might be the “right” ethical decision. And, if it’s too hard, it’s not worth it.
Your shit code is bad and you should feel bad
When I review poorly written code that is barely functional for even able-bodied users written by an able-bodied guy, that guy will, more likely than not, push back against all accessibility remediation recommendations. They were essentially taught from birth not to care about the needs of others. Women and non-binary people have been far more likely to be eager to learn and nod enthusiastically and “ooh and ahh” over the benefits of accessibility. But Tucker over there with missing semantic form labels trying to force a <div>
tag to act like a <button>
is going to shrug and ask, “Why should I?” In fact, in my experience, men are far more likely to put more effort into trying to disprove what I’m telling them than the amount of time or effort it would have taken to fix their shit, bad practice code! Why is that? Again, it’s because we’ve tought them to be like that.
Let’s clear some stuff up – these aren’t blanket statements, here. Just like there are plenty of men in those studies who DO stay with their ill partners, there are able-bodied men out there thrilled to learn and implement accessibility. And it’s not like the likelihood of women leaving their ill partners was 0%. While I personally have not met a female or non-binary developer who publically denounced the need for accessibility, I’m sure they’re out there. All this means is there is simply a higher probability of a man being disinterested in its benefits without being able to associate with any direct benefit to themselves.
Obviously, not all accessibility issues are a result of toxic masculinity. However, I would imply that the resistance to fixing issues once they’ve been pointed out often is. And since many accessibility issues are a direct result of bad practice coding, it’s not too far of a leap to say that being a practicer of toxic masculinity probably makes one a shit developer (though I think practicers of toxic masculinity have much bigger issues to be focusing on than the contents of their GitHub repos).