Adolescence: Why Must It Take A TV Show To Discuss Toxic Masculinity-Not The Raging Epidemic Of Violence Against Women?

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I just watched Adolescence — and wow, we need to talk.

First: the performances. The brilliance of the one shot. I mean — incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Now, what I’m about to say is probably going to piss off a lot of people, so hear me out.

While I understand that there is a massive problem with toxic masculinity — case in point: everything we’re looking at in the world right now, and why we’re in this mess — here’s what’s making me insane:

The amount of attention and praise this show is receiving for finally bringing “toxic masculinity” to the forefront, and being hailed as brave, necessary, important — yes, I hear you.

However — was the enormous epidemic of women who have been killed and brutalized not important enough in the first place?
Was that not enough for us to have this conversation?

Does no one see that even in finally addressing this subject, it still had to be through the male lens?!

In Adolescence, a young girl’s life was taken.
There was also a mother. And a sister.
But we didn’t see much unraveling of what that violence did to them.

Instead, the story became about understanding the perpetrator.
A man. A boy, yes. But still — the person who took a life.

The girl, that was dead, was the victim.

While I understand that we are all human, are we now supposed to feel bad for men because of their toxic masculinity?

Are we supposed to empathize to what made them violent?
Are we supposed to apologize… for them killing us?

What do we do now with this “new” information about toxic masculinity?

Focus on the men?
Heal the men?
Understand the men?

Do you see where I’m going here?

Yes, we should all be caring about one another. Unfortunately, one group of those humans — males — are hurting and killing the other group at an alarming rate. Not to mention destroying the country.

The other group — women — are we left asking:
Is it our job to fix this as well?

Yes, it’s everyone’s problem, I get that.

But when I’m watching something like this —
And I see the boy (spoiler alert) kill the little girl —
And then the narrative shifts into unraveling how he got there...

Am I left to sympathize?

When we are, once again, centering his pain?

Much like the conversation around the “loneliness epidemic” with men currently.

Maybe —maybe — men are lonely because women don’t want to be around them. Because they are being killed, brutalized, and dismissed.

And maybe — just maybe — instead of trying to “understand” toxic masculinity after the damage is done, we start by reshaping what masculinity is in the first place.

Maybe we stop putting boys in the same tight boxes we put girls in. As I mentioned in a recent post of mine, Porn, Freedom, and Scones —
Maybe we stop putting boys in boxes too. Telling them to be “strong,” not to cry, to play sports, to suppress, to dominate — as shown in Adolescence.
Maybe we allow them to just be — gentle, emotional, artistic, soft, wild, sensitive — free.
Maybe the baseline definition is what needs to change.

Because right now, everything is still about explaining and understanding why they do the damage they do, instead of preventing it.

I keep coming back to this:

If we keep telling stories that humanize the perpetrators and forget the victims, what does that say about us?

What does it say about the stories we choose to tell, fund, celebrate, and award?
What does it say about who we are willing to empathize with — and who we are willing to make invisible?

When we humanize the boy who kills the girl, but not the girl who never got the chance to become human in our eyes...
When we explore his rage but not her absence...
When we break open his trauma but ignore the destruction he’s left by taking her LIFE...

That’s not balance. That’s not brave. That’s not healing.
That’s more violence through the narrative.

It’s one thing to explore how men are shaped by a culture of suppression, dominance and online indoctrination.
It’s another thing entirely to center that pain — again and again — while the pain they cause goes unnamed.

We are so used to centering the man’s story that we don’t even notice anymore —
When the woman becomes a prop.
A plot device.
An inciting incident.
A corpse!

Yes, I’m yelling!

The fact that I haven’t seen ANYONE talking about this is frightening.

Like so many stories we’ve seen before. She exists in the story so he can feel.
She dies in the story so he can change. She is used as a prop to tell a male-centered story — always.

I know this because I grew up watching mafia films, and the women were non-existent.
They exist. I saw them. I knew them.
Which is why I made my film, Fresh Kills (Hulu), and also why it was pushed aside.

I was literally told by someone involved with selling my film:

“Well, it’s not really a mafia film without, like, a De Niro.”

THIS is where we are.

And we applaud it. Telling his story by using her, over and over and OVER again.

Maybe the conversation isn’t about giving men more room to cry.
Maybe the conversation is about not making women disappear while they do.

And this is not an “attack on men.”
That’s just a gaslighting distraction from dealing with the scary truth:

The war has been on women gaining autonomy and power.

This is not an attack on men. It’s an attack on oppression.

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I’m glad Adolescence was made. It’s a beautiful piece of work. I just wish it didn’t take a male-driven story to finally admit that maybe there is an issue.
The problem has been here — for far too long.

Worldwide: In 2023, approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members — averaging about 140 deaths per day. That’s 60% of all intentional female homicides that year.

United States: On average, three women are killed every day by an intimate partner.

It took a male-centered TV show for us to shine some serious light on this issue.

See a problem?