AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Is masculinity a bad thing? According to new guidelines from the American Psychological Association, “Traditional masculinity -- marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression -- is, on the whole, harmful.” The report even goes on to say masculinity could lead to things like bullying, homophobia, sexual harassment, and violence.

...

EARHARDT: Tammy, why is it wrong, why is it bad to be masculine? 

TAMMY BRUCE (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well, it's not, and this is what's so dangerous about this report. It's political theory, it has nothing to do with science, and it's also bigotry, right? There is a suggestion that masculinity, and that would mean all men, because you're dealing with the issue of testosterone, the nature of what it is to be male, are prone to violence, or homophobia, or sexual violence, or sexual harassment. Women involve those things as well, women can be violent, women do sexual harassment. 

It's a remarkable pathology that they're using -- these are guidelines to all other psychologists saying that when you treat men and boys, you should presume that they're suffering from an illness. And it's also interesting that they're using the phrase, “traditional masculinity,” which implies that it's taught, that it's not the very nature of men. And, of course, I would think that scientists would disagree when you're dealing with the impact of estrogen and testosterone, that there is a manliness and masculinity that's involved. 

Let me tell you the things that they are complaining about, if we didn't have men's courage, and aggressiveness, and focus, and determination, we'd still be living --

EARHARDT: And strength.

BRUCE: We would be living in caves right now. So, you have modern world is the result of the male framework of wanting to move forward and create things, and it is, I think, obscene, and everyone should complain that those attributes of men are being determined to be negative and something that is either a sickness, or a mental illness, or wrong, or even artificial. This is the liberal, political ideology of arguing about gender fluidity, and we can have that argument, but it's not a zero-sum game. You don't -- in order to liberate men who don't fit within, let's say, a cultural norm, you don't need to obliterate every other man in that process.

EARHARDT: The irony here, too, because this is a psychological association, and they're saying that if you are masculine, you're homophobic. If you are masculine, you're suppressing your emotions, you're a bully. It could lead to sexual harassment. It could lead to violence. That's a stereotype. 

BRUCE: Well it is, exactly. It's using a gender stereotype, not just in order to accomplish that, but then there will be apparently gender stereotypes on how they're viewing women. They're viewing women in a singular, you know, one road way of how people behave. 

EARHARDT: If you are traditionally feminine, is that a bad thing? That's what's next.

BRUCE: But, I would argue, though, that this argument that our attributes are tradition is absurd on its face. Historically, no matter what country you come from, no matter -- from the beginning of homo-sapiens, there is a framework of what the hormones do in the nature of how we perceive ourselves and how we proceed. Now, in the modern world, we have some flexibility about individualism and our process. By the way, up until -- only in 1974 did the same group remove homosexuality from a list of mental illness and sickness. So, if there's any group in the world that should understand the danger of using some, you know, political framework or theory on one end or the other to determine who's sick and who is, you know, mentally ill, it should be the APA. 

And the gay community especially should reject this because it condemns an entire group of individuals of being sick or not well because of inherently who they are. So it's, you know, the masculinity framework is a natural balance, as is femininity, and I think Americans should reject this, and the psychology associations and psychologists around the country should reject these kinds of guidelines as well. 

Previously:

Fox News contributor slams an 8-year-old as a stalker snowflake who “needed a safe space”

Fox contributor calls homophobia a “different lifestyle choice” that must be tolerated

Fox & Friends and online message boards are distraught by The Hollywood Reporter’s “Beta Male” cover