Taking Aim at ‘Toxic’

When the Oxford Dictionaries named toxic as its word of the year, one’s thoughts might have turned to “toxic masculinity” or the water in Flint, Mich. Poisonous contaminants and a destructive over-identification with the purported privileges of one’s gender? The parallel is imperfect.

We know that animals, including people, die when certain substances are introduced into their systems, but we hope that not all forms of masculinity are toxic. Yet the term, like bad groundwater and men behaving ...