This article is also available on Academia.edu: Framing Identities: How Labels Like “Toxic” Distort the Way We See Each Other.
In today’s rambunctious and emotionally charged public discourse, language doesn’t just describe the world — it shapes it. It constructs the lenses through which we view our communities, cultures, and people. Think about how often we hear terms like “toxic masculinity”, “radical Islam”, or “woke feminism”. At first glance, they seem like criticisms of specific behaviours. But over time, they do something far more potent – they frame the identity itself.
And framing is never innocent.
When Language Becomes a Lens of Power
Take masculinity, for instance. Once it’s routinely prefaced with the word “toxic”, it becomes hard for the average listener to see it as anything other than a liability — a threat. The deeper essence of masculinity — the kind rooted in strength, responsibility, quiet dignity, and protectiveness—gets buried beneath the label.
Likewise, when “radical” is routinely paired with “Islam,” it doesn’t just spotlight extremism — it casts a long, dark shadow over the faith itself. Even those with no malicious intent begin to view Islam through a tainted lens, often without even realising it.
The same applies to feminism. When “woke” becomes synonymous with feminism — as it often is in today’s discourse — the movement is no longer recognised as a struggle for justice and equality. Instead, it’s reframed as something combative, hyper-ideological, and divisive. The moral clarity and intellectual legacy of feminism are sidelined, overshadowed by a politicised caricature. What began as a principled pursuit of fairness is now too often dismissed as shrill, unreasonable, and overly reactive — a distortion that strips it of its nuance, its history, and its dignity.
The Burden of Adjective Framing
Words like “toxic”, “radical”, “extremist”, or “woke” are never neutral. They arrive fully loaded, carrying emotional, moral, and political weight.
- Toxic masculinity → masculinity becomes dangerous
- Radical Islam → Islam becomes inherently violent
- Woke feminism → feminism becomes aggressive and unreasonable
These labels don’t encourage reflection—they short-circuit it. People stop asking, “What’s really going on here?” and instead react instinctively to the label. This is not just lazy thinking—it’s what philosopher Miranda Fricker might call epistemic injustice: where our access to truth is distorted by prejudice embedded in language.
Masculinity, Islam, and Feminism: A Spectrum, Not a Slogan
Masculinity, Islam, and feminism aren’t slogans to be branded or dismissed—they’re spectrums of human experience, too complex to be essentialised into a convenient narrative. Consider masculinity. Like any living social force, it exists on a spectrum: strength and vulnerability, social pressure and personal instinct. It carries historical baggage, yes—but also the potential for redemption.
To define it solely by its excesses is like judging music by its noise. It’s not only unfair—it undermines the redemption it claims to seek. When young men hear the message that masculinity itself is the problem, they retreat. Some get defensive. Others shut down; fall silent. And in those quiet moments – between shame, confusion, and retreat – something vital is lost: the opportunity for reform.
The same distortion affects Islam. Label it “radical” enough times, and suddenly a 1,400-year-old world faith becomes a cipher for violence in the public imagination. Its history, its intellectual traditions, its inner diversity – all of it disappears beneath the frame. Once Muslims feel consistently misrepresented, what follows is not simply hurt feelings – it’s the erosion of trust, the breakdown of social cohesion, and the collapse of any real possibility for knowing one another.
And what about feminism? Reducing it to “wokeness” silences the reflective, principled voices who have worked for generations to articulate the moral, social, and legal foundations of women’s rights. When we pathologise the loudest expressions, we miss the deeper truths they sometimes point to – and we dismiss the dignity of the struggle they come from.
This isn’t just bad rhetoric—it’s bad sociology. We stop seeing people. We start seeing threats. And when everyone becomes a threat, no one feels safe enough to speak honestly.
The True Pathogen: Toxicity in All of Us
The problem isn’t masculinity, femininity, or faith. It’s toxic behaviour — something that can infect any one of us: male or female, religious or secular, progressive or conservative. When we fixate on a single identity as the source of harm, we distort the truth – and it lets the rest of us off the hook. And that’s the real danger: when we externalise hate, we never confront the shadow within ourselves.
The Irony of What We Don’t Label
It’s weird, weird. We’re quick to critique “toxic masculinity,” but far slower to apply the same scrutiny elsewhere. How often do we hear of:
- Toxic consumerism – with its voracious, insatiable appetite for more, fuelled by the machinations of neoliberal capitalism.
- Toxic liberalism – that brand of performative virtue signalling, coupled with a cancel culture poised to ruin lives over the smallest misstep—even things said decades ago, when we were all still young, fun, and full of—SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
- Toxic secularism – the kind that doesn’t merely advocate for the separation of church and state but insists on erasing religion from public life altogether.
These systems, too, alienate the vulnerable, deepen social divides, and fuel prejudice. They foster scapegoating, entrench segregation, and often target those least responsible—people simply trying to get on with their lives, quietly, with dignity. Yet these frames are seldom applied. Why? Because some terms enjoy linguistic immunity, while others are constantly under interrogation.
And this reveals what framing is really about: not truth, but power. Who gets to define the narrative? Who is given the benefit of complexity, and who is reduced to a warning label?
A Better Way Forward
If we want to move from division to discovery – not distortion – we need to stop moralising identities. Instead, we must:
- Critique behaviours, not people — to quote the Bible: hate the sin, not the sinner
- Separate systems of harm from the people caught in them
- Let people and traditions speak for themselves before we slap on labels
Looking Beyond the Frame
If we truly wish to move forward in earnest, we must look beyond the frame—and allow people to be more than the labels we place on them.
We all need to breathe – especially those quickest to reduce others to caricatures. Masculinity, feminism, Islam – these and others are too often smothered by suspicion, stereotype, or simplification. Whether rooted in faith, gender, or lived experience, these identities carry meaning, memories, and dignity. They deserve the chance to speak for themselves—with their own voices—not distorted by the lenses we impose. Let’s stop turning people into cautionary tales, and start approaching them as human stories: complex, vibrant, evolving, and worth listening to with humility, curiosity, and the courage to understand before we judge.
Language is never neutral. When used carelessly, we don’t just distort meaning—we shirk the moral responsibility to share our stories and hear each other out. This is not a blanket defence of masculinity, Islam, or feminism. It is a call for fairness. For clarity. For the courage to name what is broken without condemning the whole.
We do it with liberalism, conservatism, Christianity. We can, and must, learn to do it with Judaism too. Let’s not confuse this rich, sacred tradition with the political ideology of radical Zionism. The two are not the same. To conflate them is to alienate principled Jewish communities whose moral clarity deserves recognition – not rejection.
If we truly want things to get better, we don’t begin by shouting – we begin by listening. Not with suspicion, but with sincerity. Not with pre-conceived notions about the other, but with curiosity. Not by entrenching ourselves, but by making space for others to speak.
Not with framing—but with seeing; with our eyes wide open.
