This question makes me think of what I sometimes said to my son when he was growing up: I love you, but I do not like the way you are behaving right now. haha We always talked about the behavior and looked at how the situation could have been handled differently.
I do think that each of the boys had nice qualities and thought they were good people- -Finn was helpful around the house. He spent time pacesetting for his mother. He included his much younger brother in his business-cheap labor, yes, but he was teaching Kieran too. Toby spent time in nature with Liam, and they watched football together. He respected his wife enough to NOT be the partner to go after the laborer's girlfriend in the bar. On one hand I wonder are ANY of us the same people we were in high school? But on the other hand, the macho stuff was admired- -something to aspire to. It was expected that the nice guys worked hard on the football field and then partied hard too.
The toxic behavior was made more obvious because Kieran represented such a contrast.
I think the environment had something to do with it- -the nature of the town. You know, guys had jobs like deep sea divers and landscapers- -hard, physical labor. They deserved a few beers and laughs with the guys at the end of the day. Women worked in restaurants that the men owned. But I've seen this same behavior in big cities, the suburbs, and obviously in other countries. I guess the big picture for me is that it comes down to who wrote these "rules" in the first place? (And I'm talking long, long before this book was even written.) Who had the money, power, positions to set the tone for how men were going to behave and how women should respond to that behavior? Men did.