Toxic Masculinity  AP Photo/Herald Star, Mark Law  Judge Thomas
Lipps listens to arguments in Jefferson County Juvenile Court in
a case involving two Ohio high school football players charged
with raping a 16-year-old girl.   But rape prosecutions are
argued on behalf of the state, not just the victim, and there’s
a good reason: Rape doesn’t just harm one person. It tears at
the fabric of our communities. And if we treat this trial as
simply the story of what a couple of kids did to another, we’re
missing the point. This isn’t an isolated incident, and the
incident itself didn’t happen in isolation.   This rape is like
most in that it was enabled by a deeply entrenched, toxic
masculinity. It’s a masculinity that defines itself not only in
opposition to female-ness, but as inherently superior, drawing
its strength from dominance over women’s “weakness,” and
creating men who are happy to deliberately undermine women’s
power; it is only in opposition to female vulnerability that it
can be strong. Or, as former N