Exploring Theatre Hot Takes: Stories Miss the Adult Version of Toxic Femininity
by Chris Peterson
Theatre people always have opinions and sometimes those opinions come in hot. Recently, I put out a call on social media asking for your boldest, spiciest theatre takes, and the responses did not disappoint. From thought-provoking critiques to eyebrow-raising declarations, you gave me plenty to chew on.
So here’s what we’re going to do: I’ll be exploring as many of these submissions as I can in this column series. Some I may agree with, others I may not, but that’s the fun of it. Theatre thrives on conversation, and even the most out-there hot take can lead to surprising insights and fascinating discussions.
Think of this as an open forum, where no opinion is too bold to examine. Ready to dive in? Click on the “Exploring Theatre Hot Takes” tag at the bottom to keep up with every installment.
Nick Lopez wrote, “Toxic femininity is real in the adult world and it’s time to start putting it in stories outside of the stereotypical high school culture.”
At first I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. We all know the phrase “toxic masculinity,” which gets dissected constantly, but “toxic femininity” is less mainstream.
And when it does pop up, it usually gets tied to teenage cliques and high school cattiness. The Mean Girls archetype. The Queen Bee running the lunch table. It’s familiar shorthand, but Nick apparently is pointing to something else. He’s saying it doesn’t stop when we graduate. It follows us into the adult world.
If we think of toxic femininity as the use of stereotypical feminine traits as a weapon—passivity, sweetness, helplessness, beauty, nurturing—then yes, we see it everywhere. In the workplace, it might be the co-worker who masks competition with faux support.
In friendships, it might be guilt-tripping disguised as caring. In relationships, it might be manipulation presented as concern. These aren’t teenage games. They are very much adult strategies, and they can be just as destructive as the toxic masculinity that gets more airtime.
But here’s where I have to pause and push back a little. The phrase “toxic femininity” is messy. It’s already being used by certain groups online as a way to dismiss women the moment they show frustration or speak up.
If toxic masculinity excuses aggression, toxic femininity is sometimes twisted into a tool to silence women. That’s dangerous. If writers and storytellers want to explore the concept, they need to define it carefully. Otherwise, it risks becoming just another label to shut down women rather than a way to call out genuinely harmful behavior.
Where Nick and I agree is that stories should not leave this dynamic trapped in high school plots. Life doesn’t suddenly purge these behaviors at eighteen. Theatre has proven this again and again, though we don’t always call it toxic femininity. Think of Violet Weston in August: Osage County, who manipulates her daughters under the guise of maternal care and shreds everyone around her.
Or Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, who turns sarcasm and seduction into weapons that keep George locked in a cycle of cruelty. Or Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes, who cloaks her greed and ambition in charm, dismantling anyone who threatens her control. These women are far from teenage queens of the cafeteria. They are adults, and their behavior is every bit as toxic as the men they battle.
Even musicals have explored this terrain. In Chicago, both Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly use charm, victimhood, and beauty as survival strategies, manipulating image to serve their ambitions.
These examples prove that theatre is more than capable of showing toxic femininity outside of high school. The stories just don’t always get framed that way.
That is why Nick’s point stuck with me. If toxic femininity only ever shows up in locker-lined hallways, we reinforce the idea that it’s something you grow out of, like acne or a bad haircut. The truth is, plenty of people carry those patterns straight into adulthood, they just dress them up in more sophisticated clothing. And when plays and musicals pull back the curtain, the results are riveting.
So I’ll give Nick Lopez credit here. His comment points to a gap in the stories we tell, especially in the way we label and frame them. Toxic femininity is not just a high school problem. It is an adult one. And if storytellers are brave enough to tackle it thoughtfully, audiences might finally see that this isn’t about shaming femininity at all. It’s about shining a light on how power gets played, twisted, and weaponized, no matter who holds it. That is not just a teenage story. That is a human story.