By David Futrelle
Gillette’s new ad challenging toxic masculinity has got a lot of people talking. Unfortunately, most of them seem to be angry dudes attacking Gillette for challenging them to be “The Best Men Can Be,” and using the ad as an excuse to call other men “soy boys,” cucks, sissies, pansies and f***ots.
The ad, which took on an assortment of related issues ranging from bullying to sexual harassment, has gotten 5.6 million views on YouTube since it was released Sunday. It’s also gotten more than 400,000 “dislikes,” nearly four times the number of likes.
If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is. I have mixed feelings about giant corporations trying to position themselves as progressive entities, but the ad itself is pretty good, as these things go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0
So what are the online, er, critics saying? I spent a while reading through some of the reactions on Twitter, where the video was also posted, and, well, let’s just say that, just as comments on any article about feminism prove the need for feminism, Tweets about videos challenging toxic masculinity prove the need for videos challenging toxic masculinity.
Let’s start with Jeffrey here, who conveys some of the flavor of the response with this weird attack on Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks, who appears briefly in the video as an example of a journalist talking about the #MeeToo movement.
But most of the attacks weren’t misogynist attacks on women; they were, rather, misogynistic attacks on the allegedly insufficient masculinity of the Gillette executives behind the ad, and on those the ad was designed to appeal to.
Did I say men? I meant “soy boys.” Or at least that’s what the commenters meant.
Apparently, all the excess testosterone in these manly men’s systems has rendered them incapable of original thought. These aren’t the most creative of people.
Still, some eschewed the “soy boy” insult in favor of assorted old-school insinuations of inadequate manhood.
Others mixed-and-matched old and new school insults with gleeful abandon.
Others descended into straight-up homophobic attacks:
Others went with everyone’s favorite transphobic slur.
Such an inventive play on Gillette’s famous slogan “The Best a Man Can Get.”
And it’s not like anyone else thought of that joke. Oh, wait.
Yes, I’ll have the combo, please.
On second thought, I’ll have one with everything.
But perhaps the strangest contribution to this whole debate that I ran across while, er, researching this piece by bumbling around on Twitter came from our old friend Stefan Molyneux, the culty Canadian “philosopher” and YouTube blabber, who had this observation about the ad:
Stefan is suggesting, in a sly if not-quite-plausibly deniable way, that the ad is somehow going easy on Jewish men and exempting them from the “toxic masculinity” accusations, almost as if there were some big Jewish conspiracy on Madison Avenue to go along with the one in Hollywood.
How do I know this is what he’s getting at? Molyneux is an increasingly open anti-Semite who pretends to oppose anti-Semitism; he regularly tweets regurgitated anti-Semtiic talking points and, in a tweet the other day he explicitly denied that he has any Jewish blood in him. Which is evidently a big concern in the circles he hangs out in these days.
My question, of course, is how he can tell that none of the guys in the ad are Jewish. I mean, there are a LOT of boys and men in the ad, and it kind of seems statistically likely that at least a couple of them are Jewish. But evidently Stefan’s Jewdar is better than mine.
Turns out Stefan wasn’t the only one thinking about Jews. So were these guys, and they weren’t quite so subtle as Stefan in their tweets.
(I’m not quite sure how this fellow decided she was Jewish; I found no indications as to her religion online. “Gehring” is a German name but as far as I can tell not one specifically associated with Jews. Not that anti-Semites are big on accuracy.)
So I guess the problem isn’t just that a lot of men are poisoned by toxic masculinity. I guess a lot of them are also Nazis, who turn every discussion into an opportunity to talk shit about Jews.
I mean, we knew that already. But how convenient to be reminded of both facts so colorfully in this little collection of tweets.
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Definitely not in the minority.
Dear, oh, dear. Rhuu – apparently an illiterate, have you read Crip Dyke’s recent post? Now, there is someone coming in “half cocked and lookin’ for a fight”!
C.D., would you be so kind as to refer me to my posts in which I said, “Fuck this ‘toxic masculinity’ crap. It doesn’t mean anything specific enough to prevent its misuse, so all y’all should stop using that phrase, even if you’re using it and not misusing it. I don’t care how careful you are, if the term isn’t defined well enough so as to prevent it’s misuse, y’all should stop talking about it,”
And
“Wait, this term has a specific definition? Jeez, okay, maybe. The problem is my eyes glaze over when you talk about things using their actual definitions. I mean, I care enough to yell at you about the words you use, but not enough to learn their actual definitions.”
I mean, I’m assuming I musta posted them. After all, if we were in court, you would never dream of mischaracterizing my statements!
@Kupo: I’m very sorry I hurt your feelings. I was thoughtless, and I apologize.
Oh, goody – a new chew toy! Spillover from the JP thread, perhaps?
Don’t need to go to the comments policy for that, mate. To the right of the headline on this very page there’s a mammoth picture and a mission statement that reads
Yes, not in the minority.
Ambrose, here’s a good article to read: https://www.alternet.org/2015/06/masculinity-killing-men-roots-men-and-trauma/
There are plenty of masculine men who aren’t toxic. I’m a millennial, so my personal favorite was Mr. Rogers.
“That’s some pretty tough talk from someone who doesn’t even know what an adjective is.”
What the everloving fuck are you jabbering about?
“Anyway, no one gives a fuck if you were looking for a fight or not.” Ah, yet another spokescreature who magically knows what everyone thinks!
“#notallmen responses will never go down well in a group of feminists.” Well, what can I say? You don’t give a fuck about my feelings, so why should I care about yours?
Either you want to discuss or you want to fight. Ultimately, it makes me no nevermind, though discussion is much more productive.
Talk amongst yerselves. When you decide, let me know.
@PocketNerd
Do you mean in Discord? I just needed to mute the channel to avoid a resurgence of my ED. I know it wasn’t personal and it’s my trigger to manage, not your fault. ❤
@Desperately Grasping at Straws
You do realize we’re on Crip Dyke’s side, here, don’t you?
And she merely paraphrased your points. Not a mischaracterization at all.
Also, way to be super condescending in the way you addressed Rhuu. ?
She’s pretty damn magical, but she doesn’t have to be to know the commentariate well enough to speak from experience.
And we should treat you as wanting to discuss this in good faith because?
Kupo said:
Yeah, on the Discord. I’m sorry to bother you again about it — I don’t have any right to demand explanations or forgiveness — but it has been gnawing at me ever since. Nobody there was anything but kind to me, and I still managed to screw it up. Again, my sincere apologies.
I’m a man and I don’t get the objection to the term “toxic masculinity”. I’m glad it is part of the discourse now and I wish it had been when I was younger.
I don’t getvhow someone can think it refers to all masculinity unless you want to see it as an attack on men.
This
You seem to not understand what an adjective is. See my helpful poisonous berry analogy to gain an understanding of what an adjective is and how “toxic masculinity” does not describe “all masculinity.” We can’t really have a sensible conversation until you grasp the basics of language use.
@PocketNerd
Seriously, it’s ok. I know my limits and I removed myself before it affected me. You didn’t screw up. Apology accepted (though not needed).
Edit: also, I hope uou didn’t leave the server! I enjoy your contributions.
I doubt we’re going to have a sensible conversation with him anyway.
@Specialffrog
Agreed. I should have said it that succinctly. The approach I took, though, seemed to make him reveal more about perhaps deeper assumptions and beliefs.
@Kupo
Thank you. You are very kind.
I did. I felt terribly ashamed of myself and I didn’t know what else to do.
@Desperate Ambrose:
Well, let’s look at your first comment in this thread. In fact, it’s your first point in that comment which you helpfully labeled “First”:
You hate the phrase but advocate its continued use? Of course not. You are objecting to its use, which is the same as advising people not use it. You are objecting to its use on the page of a specific blog, thus it is to that page’s readers you are directing your comments.
Thus the substance of your first point is that you advocate discontinuing the use of the phrase “toxic masculinity” because of the potential for its misuse by ignorant skrull-babies insufficiently versed in how the grammatical “adjective noun” is used to specify a subset of those things which be described by that noun – rather than just using “noun” to indicate all things that can be denoted by that noun.
In deference to their misuse, you have decided you must “hate” the phrase “toxic masculinity” and rather than keeping such hate to yourself, you post about it here, implying that others should stop using it. I added colorful language, e.g. “fuck”, because in addition to your rather ill-conceived objections, you also have a boring writing style and I thought others might be more likely to read to the end of my accurate summation of your thread-contributions’ faults if I made an effort to be slightly less-boring-than-thou.
You also request a source for my paraphrase:
This is derived from another specific comment of yours, which you in all likelihood don’t need pointed out to you, but since you pretend to be so fucking ignorant you can’t remember what you said, I shall play along.
The referrent was found here:
After initially objecting to the potential for misuse, and thus implying its use should thus be limited or discontinued, you have now been confronted with a specific enough definition that misuses can be identified and thus blame placed squarely on the mis-user, rather than on some vagueness in the term itself that “too easily lends itself” to misuse.
How do you respond? With gratitude for a tool with which you can now confront future misusers of the phrase?
No, of course not. That would imply that you were wrong to blame the phrase itself in the first place, and that might make too plain that your original criticism was based on ignorance. instead you take the tack that definitions are wasted on you as “sociology shop-talk leaves [you] bewildered”.
But why, then, protest about the sociological term (perhaps more accurately described as anthropological, but it is true that the term does cross disciplines with sociology, psychology and gender studies) in the first place if you would never be able to understand sociological discussions?
Whatever could be your purpose in coming here? It couldn’t be to provide a rational critique of sociological terms, because you already are quite aware that you don’t understand them, that they leave you bewildered! Certainly you would never consider a discussion “rational” if it involved a person who was admittedly ignorant barging into a thread to tell others that a specific term was wrong or vague or “lends itself to misuse”?
I mean, what rational argument can you make about the deficiencies of a term you admit you don’t understand and that leaves you bewildered?
Still, you chose to come to this thread and to critique something you admit you don’t understand. Then, when given an explanation, instead of engaging productively with it and at least trying to understand, you dismiss such efforts as a waste of time, given your inevitable bewilderment. Your reference to legal nomenclature is out of place here, but perhaps is best explained as a pride-saving device: “Well, no, I can’t know what you’re talking about, but I know things that you’ll never understand, so it’s not like you’re better than me.”
You probably didn’t know you would get your ass handed to you if you pronounced upon a subject without actually understanding it, and yet it seems like you should have, and that anyone with a modicum of wisdom might have refrained. It certainly is a mystery, this impulse impulse that drove to you comment disdainfully about a term you didn’t understand -and, if you are to be believed, still do not.
Why would you do that?
Hmm. Certainly a brain-teaser that. Well, whatever might make you do such a thing, I’m sure you had a very, very good justification.
I notice that the people you thank typically have male coded names, Ambrose, and those you ignore or mock have female coded ones.
Might this particular performance of masculinity you are doing (barging into a space with an established group of commenters, picking a fight, being disrespectful of those who weren’t really gentle with your feelings, elevating the perceived males while denigrating thw perceived females) be… Oh, what’s the word…
Toxic?
HMMMMMMM.
Re: Crip Dyke’s post – look, if you see a fight in progress (and you are able to), you help out, right? You have your friends or compatriots backs?
You realise we have Crip Dyke’s back on this, right?
HMMMMM.
You know, as a neurotypical AFAB person, you might have a glimmer of a point here. I, like many AFAB people, was socialised to detect conflict and smooth it over or a avoid it all together.
Your being unable to see how your comments would read to (say) the man on the street might be because i had much more focus put on social relations that someone who was AMAB.
And could that be another manifestation of… Oh god, there’s a perfect term for this, it specifies the behaviours that hurt both the individual as well as society as a whole…
Or, perhaps some people have a shorter fuse when it comes to “toxic masculinity isn’t a good term! It demonises all men! Think of my manfeels!”
Than others. There is a wide range of personalities and experiences here, as well as ages, nationalities, specialities, interests, education… The list goes on. Kind of like we are all separate people.
Also, discussion assumes the other person can google “toxic masculinity” and read the definition, so we can have a damn starting point.
For example – “I read X definition, and i don’t understand Y part of it. Could someone either explain or direct me to some links?”
That is asking for a discussion. You would have got a much different set of replies, with links. Maybe even an offer of a chair (hard) and a candle (scented).
You didn’t though, because you assumed we were just waiting for you to come in here and start a discussion. Maybe with bated breath?
Anyway, we weren’t. If you want to drop the attitude and stay, that’s great. Maybe hearing and reading from a group that understands that all masculinity isn’t toxic, only the toxic parts that hurt people are, you will learn something.
It doesn’t have to be about you, my dude.
@PocketNerd
Aww, I’m sorry I made you feel bad. Please come back. hugs
Specialffrog: To the extent that the term encompasses such vileness as murder, rape, assault and suchlike things, I am on-board 100%. What I object to is its use as an amorphous shorthand for “stuff about men I don’t like”; much as “political correctness” has become right-wingnutspeak for “stuff about society I don’t like”.
And, yes, I have seen it used that way. Until we can come to a widely-accepted definition, or at least some parameters that can contain it, all the talk in the world won’t get us anywhere.
I cannot understand why the mere desire to reach a consensus on a term’s meaning so that it isn’t subject to the user’s whim is such a problem here.
I would not have others misinterpreting me, so for those who may have given some credence to Desperate Ambrose’s characterization, please be reassured the description is tragically false.
I came no-cocked and fully strapped-on, looking for a fight.
Possibly in either a tuxedo or a cheerleader’s uniform, though I admit I change my fetish wear too frequently to be certain.
Says the guy who doesn’t know what it means, to the people who do have consensus on what it means.
@Desperate Ambrose: please cite an example of it the term being used in the manner you find objectionable.
@Kupo:
That’s very kind, but I can’t. It’s not an open-invite server.