What's your earliest example of toxic masculinity?

[Nooooom]

I'm not sure if it counts but I remember as a teenager around 15, a friend had tried to set me up with an ex of hers aged around 17. He'd 'rated' me as a 9/10 for looks and an 8/10 for personality, according to her.
Being 15 I was over the moon with these 'ratings'. I knew my slightly lower personality rating probably came from the fact that I was a bit quiet and shy.
We had a date arranged for one afternoon after I finished school. My friend said his plan was to meet me, make out with me and then ask me out.
It got to the day of the date and I chickened out. I didn't own a mobile phone then, I had his number so tried to ring him from a phone box but no answer. I ended up just not showing up as I thought it was better, though looking back that was cruel of me.
He eventually got the message, and understandably was pissed off. I apologised to him by msn messenger service, and he told me that his female best friend had been 'absolutely livid' when she found out.
According to my friend, he'd later told her that I had a 'shit personality ' anyway.
Never spoke to or saw him again after that.
He was only 17, but being rated like that is gross, I know women do it to men too though. His pride was understandably hurt, but he then decided to take a dig at me.

I remember at primary school, year 5, so maybe 1987, the boys would make a list of the girls in order of attractiveness. We were 10 years old.

That's shit. I'd call that misogyny (despising women) really. As a student I once had a homeless man narrate myself and a friend's bodies as we walked past him, comparing and rating body parts. Made me see that even some dude living on the streets feels entitled and above women in a way women will never experience.

Toxic masculinity is more like men having to be masculine, 'man up' not show vulnerability etc. Often homophobic too: saying it's 'gay' to show emotion.

At a party my parents were giving when I wasaround for the first part, i remember one of the men giving another one some sort of pornographic lifestyle thing popular in the late 70s - a 'high-class' calender by some photographer probably now known to be a paedophile or something [not envious]

I just remember the men making disgusting noises to each other and chortling. Vom.

Wow, that's terrible 😞 yes, maybe I didn't use the term correctly. I used to work in a care home and we had a male resident with capacity openly discuss which carer had the best body :/
That's sad, at only 10 years old too 😮

Eww that's terrible. So open about it too.

Noting the vast difference in behaviour, atmosphere and activities between the girls' and boys' playgrounds.
One had cooperative games, small groups walking around or sitting and talking, skipping, hopscotch, highly structured games of tag or chasing, hand clapping and singing games and so forth.
The other looked like a widespread and ongoing ragged rugby scrum.

being raped repeatedly from the age of 8.

@ThinWomansBrain I am so, so truly sorry. I hope this person/people responsible have been brought to justice and you are ok.

My grandfather was a violent, controlling man. When he died he left the family business to the sons only, cut his DW my gran out of the will along with the daughters even though gran had started the business and worked there all her life.
Luckily my uncles were better men and made sure gran kept her house and wanted for nothing.

From the very beginning of Infant Schools the boys would play Kiss Chase, where they'd basically chase the girls they rated the prettiest until they either fell over or ran out of breath and they'd pin them down or against walls and kiss them on the lips. I can remember being chased until I vomited, and one occassion of having a boy climb on top of me, slam my head against the concrete floor and knock my two front teeth out, trying to kiss me. Blood everywhere. The game finally got banned by the dinner ladies not long after - "because you could catch germs".

Aged 7 in the St Johns Ambulance cadets. Put in pairs to do the recovery position. Older boy as I was lying on the floor, "urgh, if I had to be with a girl could you at least not have given me a fatty? I'm not touching the fatty, look at that fat belly ewwwww." (I had IBS, it wasn't fat it was a reaction to dinner). The (male) trainer refused to let us swap and be with another partner. The boy refused to touch me, kicking me in the stomach and whispering fatty in my ear.

I never went back and made up my mind that day to not pursue nursing or medicine. I'd been telling everyone since I could talk that I wanted to work in a hospital and make sick children well, had my dolls set up in a "ward" where I'd do obs etc. All stopped that day. The male leader never bothered to ask why I never returned to cadets.

The man my mother married. I learned from age 9 women are only good for 2 things and I needed to learn my place. But the boys could do what they wanted. I haven't seen either of them since I was 18. My mother chose him over me.

If he was in a care home he might have had dementia. It's quite common to lose inhibitions and say inappropriate things.

When I was 18 I had my first ‘proper’ boyfriend who was 3 years older. I went to a college that was local to his house (not to be near him but they were the only one that offered a course I wanted to do). He told he had eyes and ears everywhere and to behave myself. He would know if I hooked up with someone else or did something he didn’t approve of! Stupid, gullible naive me thought that was sooooo romantic and manly! 🤢

My last year I flat shared with a couple who kind of adopted me as their little sister and I saw what a healthy relationship looked like. Once three of us went out to the cinema, then pizza. I left my phone at home and got back to about a million missed calls, furious voicemails and texts. I ended it a week later.

Earliest?! My father.

The earliest one I can think of is at Orlando airport at 11yo in the Disney shop. Wanted to buy a "Dale" stuffed toy because I'd gotten "Chip" on a previous trip. Cue my Dad kicking off because "What sort of man was I going to be if I'm still buying teddy's at 11.

Not as serious as a lot of stuff on here but really crystallised his opinion of me in my eyes, that he was disappointed in this quiet geeky emotional kid who didn't want to play football with him.

It’s also quite common for men in care homes to just carry on being the same misogynistic entitled males they have always been. They don’t get a veil of niceness because of old age.

Earliest examples of toxic masculinity is df going out after work every Friday to sink 10+ pints. Then come home in either a good mood or argumentative - who knew which.
He was a copper in the 70s. There was so much about that culture of toxic white masculinity, it took a good few decades to unpick and challenge the attitudes I was brought up with.

When I was about 13, one of my male friends at the same school (also 13) asked me to go out with him. I liked him as a friend but didn't feel anything more, so said no, I just wanted to stay friends. For weeks afterwards, other boys from my class, his class etc were coming up to me to ask repeatedly why I had said no - they seemed baffled, they actually said 'you won't do any better' (which I couldn't understand because 'doing better' wasn't really the point!)

For those boys, my 'no' wasn't acceptable and my reasons weren't acceptable either (even though it was none of their business and I didn't have to give a reason, as I now realise). I felt awful, like I had done something wrong, and for years afterwards I thought I should have said yes just to avoid that experience. It was only much later than I recognised how wrong it was for them to question me/undermine my decision like that.

When I was about 10, I signed up for an evening karate class. I was really excited about it and I’d begged my parents to let me go.

During the class, I was paired up with a boy around the same age for warm up exercises. We had to cross our legs and push our knees down on the floor. I had hurt my knee in a sports injury a few days earlier but I tried anyway. I jokingly said ‘ouch’ to the boy as I did it.

’Shut up!’ he snarled, then glared at me. He told the other boys there I was a weak girl and they laughed at me for most of the class. I didn’t want to go back and my parents were unhappy with me because they’d paid for a few lessons in advance. They still mention it now sometimes. I didn’t tell them about the real reason I left because I felt weirdly embarrassed about it.