That there is no longer a line that separates feminism from misandry has been obvious for decades, but what is perhaps deceivingly obscure is that misogyny may have been the driving force in feminism for far longer than misandry. Some distinguishing definitions are necessary in order to apprehend this underlying truth.
To a person free of both misogyny and sexist chauvinism, the concept of 'toxic femininity' seems like an oxymoron.
Misogyny is not really the belief that men are better. That is simply male chauvinism; a merely a sexist, supremacist view, of the sexes. Misogyny, properly understood, is the fear or hatred of femininity. Misogyny understood this way sheds a light upon a dark tangle of neurosis and deformed consciousness which has disdain for some of the finest, most graceful, loving, and redeeming qualities found in the human species.
To a person free of both misogyny and sexist chauvinism, the concept of 'toxic femininity' seems like an oxymoron. Femininity, by definition, cannot be toxic any more than truth, beauty, or goodness can be toxic. Femininity is a trait of divinity bestowed upon a privileged sex. Perhaps Helen of Troy, the sirens, prostitutes, Madonna, or Beyonce are an example of toxic femininity, and proves the axiom that the corruption of the best is the worst.
There is something terribly grotesque in a man who fears or loathes the angelic qualities bestowed naturally in women, but it is even more grotesque when these magnificent feminine qualities are despised by women. But little is more monstrous than when these hateful women band together to eradicate genuine femininity by, on one hand, insisting that femininity and gender roles are merely a social construct and therefore a scheme perpetrated by men to oppress women, and on the other hand, shaming the girls and women who embody these qualities with ease and grace by insisting their natural femininity is actually a sign of how victimised they are by the pernicious social construct.
Feminism has evolved into a seek & destroy mission to stomp out, not masculinity, but femininity because, in the veiled parlance of mainstream feminism, femininity is a barometer of oppression. Therefore, today's feminists practice misogyny more thoroughly and more oppressively than even the male misogynists of old.
But to this misogynistic hostility toward femininity, contemporary feminism adds misandry, the prejudicial contempt for men. Let us note that misandry, as practiced by today's feminists, is not a hatred or fear of masculinity in the way misogynists fear or hate femininity. Feminists only despise masculinity when it is practiced by men, but they are quite supportive of masculinity when it is embodied in women. Male misogynists don't try to embody the femininity they despise, but female misogynists adulate women who behave masculine-ly.
There have been occasional outbursts of feminists' underlying seething contempt for femininity, but it is typically carefully concealed or couched in an emotionally blackmailing way so that it is not so widely recognised. Any lady in the last thirty years who happily chose the avocation of homemaker/child-raiser rather than choosing to subcontract at least part of her parental duties to surrogates so that she may pursue a career in the market economy is acutely aware of the hostile shaming that comes with making such a traditional decision.
Feminism's savvy, passive-aggressive, ostracising army of angry acolytes across the spectrum of society from the girl's pre-school teachers and the deans of their universities, right on up to their highest elected officials and the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies which employ them have been hurling scorn and shame upon the stay-at-home mom since Helen Reddy bleated out the song 'I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar'.
However, human nature is a stingy thing. In defiance of feminism's unending tide of scornful sentiment for the traditional home, mountainous research evinces that the vast majority of people―even feminists―prefer to be raised in a two-parent home environment in which mom stays home and dad goes to work.
Somehow we instinctively know that mothers do mothering best. Imagine that! But while feminists may pay gratuitous lip service to the sacred role of mothering, their underlying message insists upon alternative theories which degrade the role of mother to merely a biological function and suggest that young child-rearing can be done just as well by either parent, or even perhaps better by professionals.
Roots of this fallacious thinking stretch back to Plato at his worst, but have begun to bear poisonous fruit only in the twentieth century. The traditional, trans-cultural beliefs about the normative family affirm that children need both the father and mother for different things, things which cannot be simply shifted to the opposite sex. God gave every child who was ever born exactly one father and exactly one mother because both offer something crucial to the development of the human child. Far from affirming this truth, feminism has been insisting that 'Women Need Men Like Fish Need Bicycles', the titled of a horrific book authored by one of feminism's most famous leaders.
What is increasingly clear is that feminism's aims aren't independence from or equality and equity with men, but rather are to emasculate and dominate all men. The supposed patriarchy is not to be replaced with a matriarchy of femininity, but rather by a tyrannical dominance of people born without a Y chromosome but who are quite masculine. This desire is a neurotic amalgam of misogyny, misandry, and sexism. The slogan "the future is female" is blatant female supremacy, but without the femininity. In this drive for supremacy, the feminists are more sexist than most any member of the patriarchy has ever been. Sexism is acceptable so long as you are assailing males. Their aim is not equality. Their aim is vengeance and their driving force is hostile resentment.
While feminists advocate on behalf of only those without at Y chromosome, ironically, it is feminists themselves who insist most strenuously that gender norms are merely a social construct. They attempt to join forces and have an inter-connectivity with the homosexual community as fellow victims of the oppressive traditions. Yet in a comic, cosmic irony, the behaviour of the typical homosexual and transsexual recognise, nay affirm, however obliquely, that gender is a genetic polarity. The typical transsexual man attempts to take on the very traits of normative femininity that feminists would decry as merely socially implanted ideology. The aim of the transsexual is not to stake out an original and unique gender, but rather to embody most fully the opposite sex of the one he was granted by his chromosomes at birth. It is precisely this genetic polarity which the panoply of sexuality pushed by the LGBT movement attempts to conceal, and why 'fluidity' is the buzzword of the day.
Feminists have stopped defending misandry as a regrettable evil, but now encourage it as a justifiable reaction and a necessary tactic in a class war that will liberate people without a Y chromosome from the oppressive patriarchy that supposedly imposes a degrading social construct upon them. From this perspective, misandry is no sin or vice but a veritable virtue. In the minds of such a devotee, reverse sexism cannot exist any more than reverse racism can exist. If you see civilisation as a clash between classes, between the privileged and the oppressed, then the struggle for equality becomes a levelling activity, and can even justify an effort of extreme vengeance. This, however, is the mindset of the terrorist, and we need only mention that Madonna opined to a cheering crowd at the inaugural Women's March that she had fantasied about blowing up the White House.
Oh, how far we have fallen. You've come a long way, baby.