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A new "short film" by razor company Gillette has called for men to be the best they can be, sparking a significant backlash
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- Title
- Gillette faces talks of boycott over ad campaign railing against toxic masculinity
- Published
- Jan 15 2019
- Word count
- 812 words
There I thought the "controversy" (we're using quotes for everything now, right?) was about this ad shamelessly using the metoo movement to advertise a valueless product, kinda like the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad. But no. They're mad at the "radical" message, lol. Radical as in telling men not to be assholes.
Removed.
This is not the site to have this discussion. It is far too one sided.
Because men commit the majority of rapes, murders, and aggravated assaults. That doesn't mean all men do it, but women don't rape people at nearly the same rate men do. Doesn't really make sense to tell women not to rape people since they already don't do that for the most part.
That doesn't mean men are bad or all men are rapists.
The commercial is stupid, but getting so twisted up in a knot about it is ridiculous. Could you imagine a elementary school assembly where they were like "You should always share your toys with your classmates", and some kid stands up and screams "WHAT THIS IS SO UNFAIR I ALWAYS SHARE MY TOYS!" Like, obviously the message wasn't directed to you specifically.
Yeah, it's an analogy
I feel like this requires a logical leap or two to be the implication. It's quite clearly talking about toxic men. I don't feel I am toxic, but more importantly, I don't feel like this ad is addressing me because it is not talking about behaviours I engage in (letalone condone), so I do not feel opposed to its statements.
If I claim to not be toxic, but then feel like this ad is referring to me with the stated behaviours, then I'd be wondering if I am toxic after all.
Do you call out these behaviours in your friends and colleagues? Because that's who I feel the main market for this ad is: men who don't engage in these behaviours, but who say or do nothing when they see other men engaging these behaviours. As I wrote elsewhere, there are lots of calls to action in this ad for men like you and me.
I do, indeed!
My Facebook friends list is smaller these days.
Disclaimer: I'm a man, so I'm not particularly biased here.
The problem is that when we examine the issues of toxic behavior in men vs. toxic behavior in women, we have to consider power structures. Men are, by far, the most powerful group of the two, and have been for a very, very long time. As such, many parts of society such as goods, services, different forms of care, expectations, standards, etc. are very much geared toward men. The toxic behavior of women is, at least from my own observations, derived from the way they work around male-dominated standards, e.g. using back-handed remarks and resorting to manipulation because they've been fed the idea that they can't be confrontational (otherwise they may be labelled as "crazy").
In short, toxic masculinity is the toxic behavior that has been most normalized and tends to have a widespread impact on society at large. By tackling it we make it easier to address other forms of toxic behavior, by challenging the status quo instead of focusing on the obvious low-hanging fruit.
Hello? Did you read my comment?
I never said women catcall men. Women engage in different toxic behavior than men, obviously, but both groups engage in toxic behavior at approximately the same rate,. Again, I don't have stats for that, but anecdotally I have seen terrible behavior in people of every race, gender, sex, etc....
The backslash is the dumbest one I've ever seen and kinda proves their point. Should Gillette take the high road, by assuming it's morally superior with P&G committing lots of horrible shit? No.
But as far as advertisments are concerned, it's just an anti-bullying, anti-assault ad telling everyone to try and be better.
Ads have always been emotionally manipulative and I'm a guy and I loved the ad. Yea, would wish it was not used to promote a capitalistic brand but ah well.
And it was different than the Pepsi one which basically said Pepsi will bring world peace. This had nothing related to razors or anything so that's better I guess.
I think that the backlash that this ad receives shows that it failed at its purpose. It didn't spark a discussion, at least among those men who do exhibit some/all of these behaviors. Maybe you might say "They're mad at the "radical" message, lol. Radical as in telling men not to be assholes", but I would say exactly! You can't get a message through to a group by insulting them. (Not to say that everyone who dislikes this message is an asshole. But I'd imagine that the assholes do dislike this ad. A square-rectangle deal.)
This comment on Reddit does a better job at expressing my reservations than I seem to be able to write. Relevent snippet for the lazy.
Edit: '
But we're discussing it, right here, right now. And you linked to a discussion about it on Reddit. And it has certainly been discussed on Twitter. And news media around the world is sharing it, and people are discussing it as a result of that.
The explanation in that snippet seems to either willfully or unconsciously miss the entire point, the message mentions negatives because it is specifically about improving them, not giving the final overall verdict with both pros and cons with regards to the question of masculinity.
Moreover what does it say about a person or a group, when apparently every piece of criticism, must be accompanied by at least an equal amount of praise in order to be taken into consideration? I find that attitude more infantile than I can find this ad infantilising.
Dislikes abound, but I've seen this coming for some time. Remember that women buy Gillette products as well as men. It will be interesting to see how sales go. For the record, I think 'toxic masculinity' is definitely the wrong phrase to use. Thoughts?
What do you think is wrong about it specifically?
By association it vilifies everything masculine. As an alternative example, look at something like toxic femininity, or toxic lesbianism, or toxic homosexuality. Or toxic liberal. Or toxic conservative. You're alienating the same population you're trying to influence. Just my opinion.
I mean, those are all a thing. It just refers to a toxic iteration of the concept. I don't see why "toxic masculinity" should offend the masculine any more than the concept of a "rabid dog" should reflect on dogs as a whole.
Yes, there is a subset that will recoil at any term that suggests they may be associated with and attached to something problematic but. . . that's just the way it is isn't it? Change doesn't happen without tension. Conflict aversion has rarely been a productive route to resolving deeply rooted injustices. There are productive and destructive ways to sparking and addressing conflicts, but there are no comfortable ways of doing so. Growth always requires some amount of pain.
I think the reaction is, to at least some extent, aggravated by the proportionality of the argument.
How often do you see the word "masculinity" not immediately preceded by "toxic"? After hearing "toxic masculinity" bandied around enough times, it's understandable that it might start being perceived (even though we both know it's not the intent) as "masculinity is toxic".
You're right that change doesn't happen without tension, and there are certainly things that our culture would be better off changing, but there's a tendency for the message to degenerate into "masculinity is toxic, you/reader are a bad person because of your maleness" rather than celebrating healthy models of positive masculine traits that we want to encourage.
I often see advice on breaking addictions that it's almost impossible to quit a habit without having something to replace it, like chewing gum instead of cigarettes. I think something similar is true here, in that it's unproductive to allow yourself to be perceived as constantly berating someone without also taking some time to highlight the positive things you want to see more of.
This particular ad (aside from being kind of off-topic for razors, but meh...) starts to get into some of this more positive perspective, but it's a late arrival to an already very heated conversation, and any good in its message is unlikely to reach the people who actually need to hear it.
Honestly this is just the reality of social media. We have to learn to sift out that kind of noise. Formats like Twitter and Reddit are inherently going to descend into toxicity. Can you think of any hot-button issue that does not degenerate this way? We can't even compare iPhones and Androids without it turning into a shit-fest.
In other words: the medium is the problem, not the jargon. Any phrasing is going to be subject to disingenuously malicious misreadings because of the voices who are amplified by the formats we use for discussing them.
We shouldn't be expecting feminists to occupy themselves with this. I would question whether a movement focused on securing respect and rights for women would have the right perspective or orientation to do a good job at developing norms for men that would encourage mens' own flourishing.
It certainly behooves men, who are presumably interested in being good people and care about supporting the women in our lives, to listen to what they have to say. But the details of how to do that falls to us, who else would know?
Is anything "off-topic" anymore? We can't even talk about video-games or Star Wars without this coming up haha.
It is important to separate out the teeming millions of disinterested folks from the passionate arguers on the internet. I don't think most people are quite as dug in on this as the people who argue about it online are.
Also, most people just don't think through their positions much and have opinions that are quite malleable. If not, advertising wouldn't work. Most of people's perspectives on this sort of thing are just people positioning themselves according to the societal view of a "good person." This already has a great deal of buy in from the younger generations.
How is this the case when the phrase "toxic masculinity" implies the existence of a non-toxic masculinity?
I think the difference here might be "Like a Girl" and "Strong is Beautiful" are both positive messages. It portrays good things and urges people to continue to do good things. When it shows people doing something wrong, it is the "other people" who are treating you unfairly. Do good in spite of them. You are already awesome.
This campaign seems to come in at the angle that some men are doing bad things, and other men are just standing by and not helping. It also urges them to do good, but it implies that they aren't doing good to begin with.
I believe the reaction to this is overblown, but I kinda understand where it is coming from.
Toxic behavior. But if toxic masculinity persists as its label, so be it.
If it is behavior that is presented both inherent to the condition of "being a man", ergo being defined as masculinity, and it is toxic then the terms seems more than apt.
I think this advert gets most of this stuff right (though are two kids play-wrestling really an example of toxic masculinity?) but this seems like a cynical attempt to pin the Gillette brand onto one of the biggest societal talking points of the day for the sake of boosting brand reach, and that's where I really take issue with it. I wish that these sorts of companies would stop being sanctimonious and just stick to talking about their revolutionary hydro-blade atomo-shave technologies - but then again, ironically, I must concede that if Gillette had simply made their advert about razors I would never have watched it.
Here I am thinking about Gillette for the first time since I stopped watching television.
What an advertiser decides to put in their time slot doesn't matter to me. If people want to discuss socioeconomic issues, wouldn't it be better to do it outside the context of Proctor and Gamble's commercial interests? They have literally no skin in the game, the motivation for taking one side or another can't be known by non-employees and can only be assumed to have been calculated to yield the greatest financial benefit to the corporation.
Relevant, interesting analysis: "The difference in reaction to the two campaigns shows the limits of 'woke capital,' and helps us see what kinds of social change companies will and won’t be successful at pushing." http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/why-nikes-woke-ad-campaign-works-and-gillettes-doesnt.html
Stepping aside from this exact case this trend of corporations exhibiting more and more political ambitions is something that scares me. I don't remember ever seeing this much willingness from a lot of sizable corporations to peddle certain political agenda, even to a point of hurting their bottomline. Fucking Activision has a nerv to tell the Dutch government that their interpretation of their own law is wrong. And just recently we've seen posts about Amazon wanting to have a key to your house, because spying on you using just a microphone is not enough. So yeah, the future looks interesting
People are leaving tv and using adblockers. Outrage is the new way to advertise.
Very good observation! I'm probably the last to learn of this connection. Even though new venues for marketing have been around for ages, I didn't catch how much pushing controversy/making a stand is a way to achieve virality in advertising too.
Reflecting on this, I realize more and more how pervasive and really sneaky/subtle/manipulative marketing has become. Thanks for helping hone my cynicism, lol.
It's not as nefarious as you make it to be. Corporations all know that they look more attractive to consumers if they have some sort of moral cause behind them. It's the same sham as always.
A friend of mine posted this thread on twitter, and I really think Visa managed to sum up my thoughts on the issue exactly:
a "short film." :/
There's more to Gillette's campaign than just a virtue-signalling advertisement. They're putting their money where their mouth is:
I don't really have a concept for how big a company Gillette is, so I don't know if 3 million is really be a large quantity for them (so I'd take it with a grain of salt - it's a different message if it's a significant portion of their revenue or relatively tiny), but the gesture in itself is good for sure, and hopefully other companies will follow suit as education on these topics is not very widespread
woo hoo tax write off to boot
A tax write-off is rarely a good motivator for a business' financial decision. At most they might view the donations as advertising (internally that is) and so the write-off is a bit of an added bonus since they wouldn't normally write-off part of their advertising budget. However, for that to make sense you'd have to believe that the $3M in donations is more effective than $3M in a direct ad buy, which I doubt is the case.
For those that are not aware, a tax write-off would just reduce your income by that amount, so Gillette would claim $3M less in profit and so would save on the taxes they otherwise would have paid on that $3M. I wanted to point that out because I've found that people sometimes think a $3M tax write-off means you pay $3M less in taxes, which is not the case at all.
My point is that a tax write-off isn't really putting any skin into the game
Sure it is. They still spent $3M. They just don't pay taxes on that same amount of income.
I don't think you can make the statement that you did and really understand what a write-off is so I'll try again. If you "write-off" $1000 and your income tax rate is say 20% (just making that up) then you're not paying $200 of taxes, but you still spent that $1000, so the net expense in that case is $800.
Also, what would you have them do? Donate it and not write it off? How would their shareholders feel about that?
Let's step aside from the idea that all corporations are only pursuing profits and nothing else and consider for a moment the possibility that the CEO of Gillette decided that they wanted to use their position and company to portray a message they found important to them.
How would they go about doing this, aside from releasing an ad like this? What ad would show an authentic belief?
There is the very real and quite probable possibility that this ad is doing exactly what you said, but what if it is not? What if it really is trying to release a message to better the world? Would it not be a disservice to the message to write it off as "lol capitalism"?
It might not change anyone's mind about toxic masculinity, but it might change someone's behaviour when they see toxic masculinity in action.
There are a few calls to action in this advertisement:
Terry Crews saying "men need to hold other men accountable".
The man at the pool party calling out another man for telling a woman to "Smile, sweetie."
The man stopping another man from following a woman down the street.
The father saving the boy from his bullies.
The man at the barbecue stopping one boy bullying another.
These are low-key everyday ways in which men can call out toxic masculinity when they see it.
There are ads like this put out by some governments here in Australia:
Stop it at the Start - Detention
Stop it at the Start - Museum
Respect Women: Call It Out (Bar)
The goal isn't to change people's minds. It's to encourage people who already disapprove of toxic masculinity to change their behaviour - to either stop inadvertently supporting toxic masculinity, or to step forward and call it out when they see it. It's that "be the change you want to see in the world" concept in different packaging.
You're probably right: this ad probably won't change people's minds about toxic masculinity. But it might change some people's behaviour, which is just as important.
This is always a good exercise and I applaud you for trying. Why the fuck should we give them the benefit of the doubt? If they really wanted to make a sincere campaigne with valuble goals and not just a predictable money grab it's actually not that hard and that's why we know this is bullshit too. They just have to show that money isn't their prime goal but they can't so it's not going to happen. Then people will say but that's just capitalism because they have to make money that's just the way it works. Well yeah, but if you want to be taken serious then you have to show us that money isn't the most important thing you care about. I have nothing against the message Gillette are sending but I am not kidding myself and don't for a second believe they are sincere.
Because if we don't, and they were truly trying to send a message, we do nothing but water it down and signal to the world that society disagrees with this message.
Because even if we don't, we're still watering down the message it's sending by dismissing it. Societal norms are reinforced by media - if we send the message not to do this, we aren't going to see this message again for a while and instead we're going to see more of the messages that contribute to the problem.
But they're not and it's so obvious. Just to underline there's nothing wrong with what they are trying to say just the reasoning behind. I'm honestly kind of appalled of the thought that we as a society apparently have a responsibility to corporations to validate their half hearted attempts to high jack a trending topic to make a quick buck. I don't think that signals that we disagree with the message at all just that we think they're being insincere and not in it for the long run. Time and time again so many corporations have laminated that profit is the only thing that matters so fuck them.
I see nothing wrong with sending them a message that says if you really wanted to speak up about something serious and important then put some real money where your mouth is because that's the only language I know they truly speak. And show some heart and not just some emotional drivel.
Are you claiming that all corporations only care about profit and that they can have no other motives?
It's quite possible to state "this is not enough" or "I'm not convinced the motivations were truly altruistic", but that's not what is happening here. All I am hearing in this thread is "they only did it to make money". The message is watered down and lost in a conversation about altruism and "fuck capitalism". The message is dismissed and the tone is hostile.
If the goal is to truly make society better, we need to be careful about how we respond. If our response is "fuck you" to a message we agree with but are unsure of the intentions it sends the response that even if you intend well, we will spit in your face for even implying that this is okay and that intrinsically gets tied to the message itself - it colors the message as unwanted which just contributes to the problem.
okay lol lets just ignore that people create companies for a variety of reasons, companies can be privately held, and companies are run by people and people may have ulterior motives to profit.
I get what your saying I just don't agree. Yes, the message might get watered down but who's fault is that? I blame the people trying to monetize a pretty serious problem with cheap effects and emotional porn and that's why I say fuck them. No, we don't meed these people to make society better but we need to tell these people that every little hot topic isn't theirs to water down to a pathetic commercial. I really think you're giving these people way too much credit.
This is an assumption. We work to the logic of what we should do by assuming that someone isn't just trying to monetize a problem, because that perspective is dismissed when assuming they are.
Evidence points to the contrary. These are still problems today. If someone had been working on this message, they probably wouldn't be problems anymore or at the least they would be reduced in magnitude.
And I think you're letting your emotions cloud your judgement. There's a very real possibility someone wanted to send a social message and do some good. You're not even considering this as a possibility despite neither of us having any true insight into the company or the motivations behind this ad buy.
I'd point out that publicly-owned companies are beholden to their shareholders legally to make money. I find the idea that you or @Rez are proposing that they should have some other motivation interesting given the strong support that capitalism tends to get from the Right.
I know that and I know that it may be wishful thinking on my part.
Seems like a futile thing to wish that a dog is a cat when it's always going to be a dog
Well in this case the dog posses as a cat and wants to be treated like a cat so unless they genuinely are a cat I don't see the point of taking them serious.
So would your preference be that no companies give to charities? That would seem to be the implication of what you've been saying.
I think colbert summed it up nicely when he thankfully stopped it. Because it was so cringe inducingly awful. It was tasteless. The message is good, but the ad was so overbearingly awful.
And at the end of the day, it worked for what it was intended for. Free controversial viral advertising, since we are here talking about it.
It was akin to clorox telling people not to bath in bleach by having a group of mothers say that bathing children in bleach is bad parenting.
How is this an apt analogy at all? No one bathes their children in bleach. This is not a problem that society is facing.
Furthermore, where are the parents advocating that bathing children in bleach is harmless? Or just a part of being a mother? Or just a feminine trait?
In a world where justice and the law are the same. You should be right. I wish you were. That is how this social contract is supposed to work.
If you want to get mad at someone. Look at Gillette. They just got more ad space then a super bowl ad times 10. For saying what we all know to be true. And set back anyone that is trying to raise awareness by a decade of funding. They did a great job, and you are defending a billion dollar company.
I understand. This is not easy. Yet, it changed no one's mind's and only made those that defend beating children have more support.
Maybe. In the short term. This humanity thing is a long game. And I hope you are right.
My issue with the commercial is that it is clearly a PR stunt made in order to stir up controversy. They make these ad's because they know it will get people talking. There's no such thing as bad PR. After an initial response, these freakouts stop being about the ad themselves and about the perceived ideology of the company. All it takes is some a group of cat-calling weirdo's on r/t_d to feel threatened for the twitter fire to start. Then anyone who goes to catch up and watch it, if they do at all, they already have their viewpoint solidified in their mind. If you look at the comments on these sorts of videos, the outrage has literally nothing to do with the video itself. Gilette knows all of this and any marketing department who isn't taking notes on these sorts of incidents is falling behind. Anyone who is still blind to these advertising techniques is doing themselves a disservice because all it does is make people misguidedly angry towards each other. I am 100% down with the ACTUAL message of the ad, but when I see this kind of response to an advertisement for a fucking product, it feels very propaganda-y.
quick edit: Meant to address your point directly. The backlash isn't the ad, and almost never is. It's a manufactured ideology that the public has built around the company. It's very basic marketing. The ad is almost literally saying "guys, don't be a creep, hold each other accountable, don't make excuses" but everyone is attaching #metoo, toxic masculinity, and whatever else to it. It's not a coincidence. Any company that releases ad's like this knows it.
Exactly this. People need to make sure they don't start defending corporations and these kind of actions simply because they people they politically oppose are attacking them.
That's literally what a commercial is though. I think its stupid also, but I think virtually all advertising is stupid and exploitative. It doesn't really make sense to hone in on solely this specific commercial with that complaint.
Advertising and a "PR stunt" are two different things. A normal commercial is created to sell a product using the product itself, advertisements like this are created using political divide and viral marketing to build brand awareness. I agree wholeheartedly that all advertising is exploitative and ads like this take it a step further. Marketing with an appeal to emotion is not a new thing but utilizing viral marketing is and it is a whole new low in my opinion. They know they can depend on internet culture (only reading headlines, outrage blogs/tweets/whatever) and take advantage of the situation to create virtually free advertising that lasts for weeks. I'm not honing in on this commercial because it's been happening for years (eg pepsi, starbucks, nike) and it always plays out the same way. Nike sales went up 31% after the Kaepernick thing. It's a proven method that takes advantage of and strengthens political divides.
Sorry, I don't follow. The ad linked is pretty neutral as far as late 20th century gender roles are concerned. Why would there be outrage?
Just want to be clear: PR stunt is always an advertisement, an advertisement is not always a PR stunt. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the older ad's depicted positive aspects of masculinity ("the best a man can get"?) as opposed to the new ad which depicts the less-than desirable parts of societal masculinity.
Gillette released this ad at a time where the right is ultra focused on a perceived masculine presence in households and society at large. Instead of appealing to positive emotions (ie the old ads and most advertisements in general) they took a stand and condemned what 90% of guys know to be unacceptable behavior. To a normal person, this is not an attack on them personally. However, to insecure weirdo's who have a weird fixation on LGBTQ people and the "femminization" of america, this is saying all men are toxic because it took an honest look in saying not every guy is "the best a man can get."
From there, it's all down hill as i mentioned in my OP. Gillette knew this. They pay millions for these ads. They know they need to make a lasting impression in a world with cable cutters and ad-blocker. They know people only read headlines. Advertisers can't use traditional ad's anymore, it's just not viable and they can't justify spending millions of dollars on an ad that no one sees or hears about.
If this ad had aired the same time as your linked ad, I wouldn't really have had issue because the political climate was much different and internet culture was NO WHERE near what it is today. They are using these two things in order to sell a product while they created a wave that made people angry over something that 99% people would agree on. It's insane and damaging to everyone.
I get it. I don't agree with it, but I get it.
There are men who hold strong opinions about what being a man means and about what masculinity is. And these men feel threatened by the ongoing changes in the world which are removing straight white men from their privileged position and placing them alongside other demographics as equals. They see messages like the one in this advertisement as attacks on them - personally and as part of a group. These messages directly say that the behaviour these men believe in is wrong... and noone likes being told they're wrong. So, like a lot of people do when they feel threatened, they counter-attack.
Sorry but if you define yourself or your gender by behavior that negatively effects others, you're doing it wrong. I have zero sympathy for someone who thinks bullying is a part of "being a man" just like I have zero sympathy for someone who thinks backstabbing is part of "being a woman".
We should never put bad behavior on a pedestal or excuse it. There are plenty of other "manly" things that I'm sure these individuals will agree with. Putting on a strong face in spite of difficult circumstances and providing for your family, for example. That's not being attacked here, because it's good behavior.
I agree with what you've written, but I believe the issue is that they don't see it as negative. It's not "bullying", it's being "strong".
Yeah and raping a woman is just being assertive. 🙄
There is no strength in harming others simply because they do not share your viewpoint, ideals, or because it makes you feel better about yourself.
Catt isn't excusing their behavior, but just trying to explain it. No one is suggesting we should have compassion for the people complaining about the ad, but trying to understand them is important so we can better figure out how to defuse these attitudes.
I understand, it was just a bit triggering to leave it up without explaining why it's wrong, in case someone who thinks that way came by and thought it was a valid "excuse".
I am pretty tired so hopefully this makes sense. I am not defending or excusing this toxic behaviour, but honestly watching the ad, I would not have seen an issue with every scenario shown. Again, not defending or excusing, but pointing out that maybe because I grew up with a very engrained idea of what it was to be a man (or woman), I want to recognized that I definitely contributed to toxic masculinity (and femininity). For example, the two kids beating on each other in the yard, honestly I saw two kids playing. I don't think of myself as a bad person, so when these messages are sent, I don't think of myself as the intended audience. But I should. So I don't think it's helpful equating rapist to anyone that contributes to toxic masculinity.
Here are a few questions that might help you see this differently:
What if that had been two girls beating on each other? Would you still see it as two kids playing?
What if it had been a boy beating on a girl? Would you still see it as two kids playing?
Why does "playing" even include violence in the first place? Is it okay to "play" at beating up another person?
There's a strong culture that boys are expected to be violent when they play because "boys will be boys", but girls are not expected to be violent when they play. This just reinforces the idea that men are supposed to be violent, while women are not.
And we've all grown up in that culture. We're blind to it in many ways, which is why a message like this is important to point out what we normally don't see.
Those are really good questions. I do try to apply them to my own writings and things I read and see. For me, I think the bigger issue is that there are toxic traits that I can't help but feel are "good" too. Penting up emotions is not mentally healthy, but it's guaranteed that I've never cried at work. I know lots of people who've broken down at work or in public and just have issues gaining respect from their peers. Of course, recognizing both my own feelings and that of others as valid is something I am now actively working on, but I'm sure there's lots more in my blindspot.
Well, I think that one is a lot more nuanced than the guy grabbing the woman's ass.
Apologies I may have gone overboard because I was upset.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but I really hope there's not many people on Tildes that would find that a valid excuse. I'm only here because I got tired of all the toxic personalities on Reddit, and I'd hate to feel like Tildes suffers from the same problem.
I mean, if this thread is any indicator, they are here.
I'm reading this thread every way I can and the only toxic behaviour I personally see is coming from you; you keep asserting that others are excusing behaviour when all they are doing is explaining a mindset. Nobody here is excusing toxic masculinity. (If I missed it, please do link it to me)
Being able to dissociate the two, discuss one without excusing it, etc is a critical function of any forum where these discussions will happen. So please, do some introspection here, I'm saying this as nicely as possible.
I didn't mean this comment thread, I meant other places in this post. Apologies for the wording. This comment thread has been civil.
Youre looking at it backwards. Nobody's "defining their identity", men are born into this sort of identity, and things like bullying are innate tools of communities to punish who is a heretic to such identity. Not that I try to imply it can't change (it will, it must, and it is destined to), but to think that these men are arriving at these lifestyles via thinking and conscious decisions is simply wrong.
I am too sleepy to elaborate on this, but I will note that I think things like toxic masculinity are the negative effects of patriarchy on males. I came to hold that patriarchy is not embodies by men, it is a social institution that confines both genders to certain sets of stereotypes, and people need to become conscious of this and of themselves to change.
I watched the ad, and it's nice, but it's also just too little. Only horrible people cat call or watch kids fight or partake in sexual offence. An ad like this will not reach them. In circles of these people, badness is a badge of honour. A person who's horrible enough to grope an unwilling person will not be affected by this. Also, these behaviours are extreme and not the more common versions of toxic masculinity at all. A more common instance of it is shaming a man for not being a womanizer, for example. Making a man's reservedness in relationships into a recurrent joke, or the search for emotional intimacy into a vulnerability. Or the incredibly prevalent idea that most men are ugly, and that male body, aesthetically, is ugly. Or the absurd stigma around men wearing more expressive items or grooming more thab their beard and their genitals. I am a male and have the unibrow, and that I remove it with tweezers and not let it grow is at times stigmatized, and sometimes I have been "accused" of being gay (I happen to be a heterosexual male). Or that I trim my body hair (as a middle eastern guy, I have quite a bit of it). These are just as important as those extreme cases. And the bits about grooming anf self care is quite a good fit for Gilette. The ad is not good per se, but I am a believer in slow gradual change over revolutions, for most people are incapable of the truly honest reflection that'd require. But, instead of this, if toxic masculinity was attacked from more sides than it's quite obvious relation to outright violence and sexual offence, and made unpopular, both in fashion, art and otherwise, that'd be more helpful.
My two cents. I did not read about the backlash, I cannot take the random acts of idiocy of random Twitter users, so I am sorry if I am missing anything because of that.
I think that this is the accepted academic view. It's called patriarchy because it puts men in a privileged role over women generally, not because it's enforced or even because it was created by men.
When a woman tells a guy to "man up" and settle down already, she's enforcing the patriarchy. When a woman bullies a guy for not acting masculine enough, she's enforcing the patriarchy, and when a woman tells another woman she's a slut because of what she's wearing or who she has sex with, she's enforcing the patriarchy. It's a societal problem, not a men problem; although to be fair, men have historically been the perpetrators of the majority of the most extreme and egregious tendencies that it encourages.
Thanks, that's nice to learn! I'm quite ignorant of feminist philosophy and academics, generally judge based off of what I see on the news. That's a major problem with me, I'm aware, but lack the time to really fix that for the coming bunch of months.
I'd totally fancy a serious intro / overview of feminist theory in the context of it's diversity and history, btw. If anybody has suggestions, I'd really appreciate if you could tell me a few!
Very good points especially about the more common instances of toxic masculinity which are the so important. I'm also glad you just ignored the backlash and twitter bullshit - we need to do this more.
Thanks! I am more than glad to not use Twitter. The platform is made for this sort of absurd "old man yelling at cloud" style interactions.
I'm kinda using Mastodon, but even there I quite quickly learned to stay away from the global timeline (being on the SDF instance, the local timeline is fine, mostly hackers babbling hacky stuff). I wanted to use Twitter for following local events news from a few groups and theatres & stuff, but none of them are about announcing new stuff. It's constant publishing, same thing many times plus unrelated BS.
Both platforms have a totally useless character limit on your messages which obstructs constructive communication. Mastodon should really remove it, you write three proper sentences and it's over the limit. The meaningless limit forces one into laconic self-expression, which is almost always misunderstood.
What I don't get is that the ad still shows fairly specific examples of men being assholes. Like, it's not about how you can't drink beer and watch football or whatever. It's very, very, specifically about bullying people, being inappropriate towards women, etc. So I don't get the excuse that this is "an attack on men" when it's, in fact, a very specific attack on very specific behavior.
You have to stop looking at this from your point of view, and look at it from their point of view. They think differently than you do.
They believe that men are aggressors - violently towards other men and sexually towards women. They believe this is natural and healthy behaviour for men.
So, when an advertisement like this starts criticising so-called natural and healthy male behaviour, and telling men they need to behave more like stereotypical women, those certain men see this as an attack on themselves and their beliefs and masculinity as a while.
Remember: those people are different to you. They do not think like you. You have one set of values and beliefs because you were raised a certain way and taught certain things. They have another set of values and beliefs because they were raised a different way and taught different things.
This is why I hate naturalistic arguments. They're always the weakest, flimsiest appeals to emotion. Sure, (some) vegetables are natural. That's not why you should eat them though. You should eat them because they're good for you.
Murder is natural. Rape is natural. Dying of brutality, famine, disease and poisoning are all natural as well.
Flying in planes, using modern medicine, and wearing clothing are all "unnatural". Saying something is natural says absolutely zero about its morality or whether you should do it or not.
Because the people complaining view bullying and (what we see as) inappropriate behavior towards women as part of what defines a man. They, ridiculously, view any attempt to stop these behaviors as an attempt to "feminize" men.
Some of the outrage can be partially explained by Gilette showing unconditional support for the #MeToo movement. Don't get me wrong, it has done wonderful things and given victims a voice. But there are justified concerns that it can ruin someone's reputation by baseless accusations. The thinking goes that a career built up over a lifetime can be torn down in an instant, solely by someone deciding to accuse a man of sexual harrassment, regardless of it its true. The court of public opinion does not care about innocent until proven guilty, and we would do well to consider that.
Can you point out when in the ad it does this? I'm struggling to find this "unconditional support" but maybe I'm just missing it.
The opening of the ad starts with fictional covering of a #MeToo movement. It's also being reported as supportive of #MeToo pretty much everywhere. (Business Insider, Forbes, WSJ) Maybe Gilette hadn't intended to link themselves so closely with #MeToo, but starting with a newscast and being reported as such does just that.
Edit: ()
So simply mentioning the movement is "unconditional support"?
It's not like they simply namedropped #MeToo partway through. Their commercial started out with it. This shows Gilette views it as a core part of the message their trying to get across.
It was in the beginning when a few men were staring contemplatively into a mirror with expressions on their face showing that they were upset. It was stated alongside other troubling "men" behavior such as bullying (clearly framed as newscasters reporting on these troubling behaviors, I might add).
Just because there are some bad actors out there who use the #metoo movement maliciously doesn't mean that it's supporting them; I'm sure there are bad actors out there who claim they are being bullied when they are not. Why are we singling out #metoo?
Furthermore, why is the simple fact of it being mentioned early in the ad make it a 'core message'? The rest of the ad clearly explains (at least to me) that it's about poor behavior - all of the kinds of poor behavior are quite literally acted out in front of the viewers eyes over the course of the ad. The behavior that metoo is referring to expounded upon by men cat calling women, slapping asses, etc. One of the instances of bullying, for example, is just two kids fighting during a barbecue - it's not clear that bullying is going on, but a physical altercation is bad behavior that is thought about or associated loosely with the term bullying. Can not #metoo be used to make the viewer think about what kind of behavior shouldn't be done? Why must the simple mention of the words "me too" signify "unconditional support" of the message?
Can you point to any actual instances of this happening?
See above comment.
Edit: Also see Algernon_Asimov's comment. It has a lot more examples.
Conor Oberst is a perfect counterexample to your point.
Kevin Spacey (actor) lost a high-paying steady job in a high-rating television series, because of an accusation of sexual assault which has not been tested in court.
R Kelly (rapper) has had some of his work pulled off streaming services by artists who collaborated with him on those songs, because of accusations of sexual assault which have not been tested in court.
Craig McLachlan (actor) was removed from his lead role in an Australian television series, because of an accusation of sexual assault which has not been tested in court.
Harvey Weinstein (movie producer) has been sacked from a number of high-profile professional organisations, because of accusations of sexual assault which have not been tested in court.
A lot of men have been judged guilty without being convicted of any crime.
I'm not supporting those men: I'm saying that they're not being presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The thing about being fired or blacklisted is that it rightly has a much lower standard of evidence than a criminal case.
In the vast, vast majority of cases like this, you will never be able to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt that it happened. That's not because it didn't happen, it's because the nature of the crime is such that it tends to leave very little evidence. Sexual assault typically happens in private with two people, both of whom are impartial. So going to court would prove nothing, because these guys would never be found guilty. It's an unreasonable standard to set.
If an employer hears an accusation which they thing is credible, they should by all means fire the guy. The standard of evidence is far, far lower. If I'm about to hire a guy and a few people tell me he smokes crack every day, and I look into it a bit, and it seems like that could be true, I'm not going to hire the guy. Is that unfair to him? I don't know, maybe. My job isn't really to be fair though, my job is to prevent crackheads from working in my office.
Are some of these people being blacklisted without proper background research? I don't know, maybe, I haven't really looked at all these cases. It's not really the job of the casting director to launch a CSI investigation about all of these claims though. Their job is to provide the right person for the job and prevent all the other workers at that job from experiencing a hostile work environment. If there are enough credible people saying the guy is a scumbag, he's not going to get hired, and that's ok in my book.
That's fine but don't be surprised that men across the spectrum feel threatened by these attitudes, even if they agree with the intentions of said attitudes.
That's ok, because what's the alternative? You're not allowed to fire someone unless they're found guilty in a criminal court? That would be an obvious breach of rights.
As unfair as it can be sometimes, people aren't entitled to being successful and famous, even successful famous people.
I would say the alternative is a case-by-case happy medium. I think people are entitled to benefit of the doubt, especially when It concerns tearing down a career and probably personal life. I'm not just talking about privelged people, I'm talking about anyone.
That wasn't the question I was answering, though. The question was "Do you have any examples of a career being torn down in an instant, solely by someone deciding to accuse a man of sexual harassment?" So I provided examples of this. Right or wrong, this has happened, and I provided examples. I wasn't defending or attacking the practice, merely showing that it happens.
However... seeing as you've decided to start a different discussion...
Let's assume you have a job. Let's assume a woman you work with goes to a newspaper (not your boss!) and accuses you of sexually harassing her. Your boss reads the paper, and sees her accusation. Should your boss fire you on the basis of that article?
Because that's what happened to those men. There was no internal investigation to determine the credibility of the accusation. There was no police investigation to obtain evidence for the accusation. A woman went to a reporter, accused a man of sexual assault, and the man was fired on the basis of that.
Would you be okay with that happening to you? Or would you like your boss to make at least a token attempt to determine whether you're guilty before they fire you?
Would you fire an existing employee on the basis of these rumours?
EDIT TO ADD:
There is a larger issue here. The legal system in our western society has a presumption of innocence. People are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. If we start acting on mere accusations without proof, we are undermining our own legal system.
That's a generalization. I know in some of these cases, there had been investigations by well respected journalists and internal investigations. Regarding your second point, there was no police investigation in most of these cases because they were outside of the statute of limitations, or the victims knew there was virtually no point in bringing it to criminal proceedings since there was a very remote chance of a guilty verdict based on the nature of the events.
You have to realize that in almost all of these cases, especially in the entertainment industry, there wasn't some concerted, overarching mandate that these people get blacklisted. It was individual production companies, casting directors, and content producers deciding on their own that there was too many credible accusations against someone.
Would I be ok with it happening to me? No, of course not. That doesn't mean that these people didn't make the right decision though.
If I was an investor thinking of funding a new movie, I would absolutely not give it to Harvey Weinstein, lack of criminal proceedings be damned. The guy isn't entitled to my money or a job, and every person who gets fired for negative allegations certainly isn't entitled to a criminal trial before that happens.
Regarding your edit, you're once again conflating standards of evidence in criminal proceedings to individual judgements of character made by people. People don't, and shouldn't be required to have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to judge someone's character. If I invite someone over to my house and he shits on my floor and throws trash at my wife, I'm not going to have a court case to determine whether he's a dickhead or not. I'm just going to not invite him back to my home.
Wrinstein, picking him out b/c it is the only case I know of among these, is most probably guilty as heck, but personally I find it quite disturbing that all these accusations are made in public and the decisions are made by the masses, by the media and by thr employers. That's primitive in the most fundamental sense of the word.
This is one of my favorite articles about this topic: We live in fear of the online mobs
Probably my favorite section:
Here's an article about a Swedish man who committed suicide after facing repeated accusations of sexual harrassment (and worse). The city had later done an investigation into these claims and "found no evidence of sexual misconduct by Fredriksson".
It's also apparently common enough for a law firm to dedicate part of their website to it. (Of course, that deals with officially being accused of the crime alongside a public accusation.)
In regards to the public's reaction to this video, 57% of adults have said that the "#MeToo movement has made them equally concerned for young men facing false accusations".
Edit: )
People have been getting their lives ruined by false accusations long before #MeToo. I don't know why #MeToo is now the thing to blame when it happens now. Accusations and false claims are not the territory of the #MeToo movement at all, and ascribing them to it is a deliberate corruption of what the movement is actually about.
One small legal outfit has a webpage advertisement about it? Big whoop. You'll find all sorts of wild shit if you take a survey of every law firm's website in the US. This isn't a good citation—you can find all sorts of wild shit in US legal firm webpages. And what does this have to do with invalidating the #MeToo movement? That page is basically just an ad for legal defense services, it's not pointing to it being a common occurrence or an actual result of the #MeToo movement. It's just bringing up the name for what basically amounts to marketing purposes.
Also, that poll isn't good enough for the amount you're leaning on it. It's more interested in finding the difference between GOP voters and Dem voters, based on a sample size that is significantly smaller than the numbers the Gilette video is courting for likes, dislikes, and total views. And that's not even getting into the context of the poll, which is explicitly done in the post-Kavanaugh media blitz that was intentionally created to stir the sentiments of "but it could be false!"—which explains why the poll is so interested in tracking specifically how GOP members responded.
Source. Keep in mind this is for official police reports. With social media, where there's far lower barriers and a disconnect with reality, it is very very hard to argue that this would be lower.
You asked for an example of this happening. I gave a well documented and confirmed example where someone's livelihood was destroyed by repeated false sexual harassment claims from multiple people, and you say that's not enough? How many more do you think go unreported? Not everyone is a famous theater director. The ball is in your court, not mine.
And besides, my original comment is talking about the public's perception and why it would cause such a backlash. I've shown that 57% of adults have reservations about the #MeToo movement, and as such why they might have similar reservations about a commercial that paints it in a positive light without acknowledging the potential pitfalls.
Edit: Phrasing. I can never seem to type these right first try.
The weird part is that most of this stuff doesn't even benefit straight, white men in general. It gives you a theoretical leg-up, but at the cost of forcing you into an extremely restrictive mold for behavior and subjecting you to infantilization and domination by the structures you have to curry favor with. It is only ever a minority that truly gets to call the shots under this regime.
One of the threads you see in all the various professional #MeToo cases is the extent to which the abuse and harassment of women was witnessed and not commented on by all the people around them. Everyone relied on "whisper-networks" advising each other about the abusers, but they were all too afraid for themselves to stand up to the abuse directly.
It seems pretty clear that bad treatment of women is just a canary-in-the-coal-mine for a host of lesser abuses and toxic behaviors that were being heaped on everyone in these places. It's hard to argue against removing systems that allow people to act with impunity and violate other peoples' boundaries. Even if the worst of it isn't hitting you directly, it is definitely hitting you indirectly, probably in ways you can't even see.