This idea has since been extended to include other behaviours, such as aggressive competitiveness and intolerance of others.
In the late 1980s, Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell described the ways that white middle-class men used their power and positions to suppress traditionally socially marginalised groups such as women, gay men and working-class men. This phrase has long been used by academics to define regular acts of aggression used by men in positions of power to dominate people around them. In contemporary times, in more moderate societies, this has become somewhat tempered, yet it still exists in different forms and has now been given the name “toxic masculinity”.
For centuries, male violence and acts of aggression were often the way that power was understood and patriarchy upheld.
