“We” meaning “we men”, since it’s an ad about men by a company marketing a product for men to men. Toxic masculinity is a thing than men may display – it’s right there in the name.
It’s a real thing and I’ve really seen it. It’s called Queen Bee Syndrome.
It has fuck-all to do with this ad, though.
The Dove campaigns do, as have other conscious attempts to pick models which don’t look like models. Those women in the Dove campaigns don’t just have sizes in positive numbers: they have cellulite and hair which hasn’t been frozen in place! And yes, women do love the ads, and because we love the ads we do prefer to try their products over similar ones whose ads still tell us we need to be size minus-something, milk-skinned, and have hair that looks like it’s been CGId rather than growing where your mother placed it.
Now if we could get ads for pads to stop trying to make periods sound like kindergarten, that would be really nice. Cos really, if you have your period in kindergarten and you’re not the teacher, something is real fucked up.
If you truly believe that, I’ve got some beachfront property you may be interested in.
The Dove ad was meant to present the idea that ordinary women are also appealing, not just models. This advert assumes the accuracy of offensive stereotypes and hectors men on those grounds. These seem to be polar opposites.
Imagine the advert was portraying black people robbing, dealing drugs, stealing cars, you know, “toxic blackness” stuff, and then telling the black people to knock off the old excuses and asking if this is really the best black people can do. Would your interpretation be that it’s about some black people, and is really a positive message? Or would you recognise that for what it is, and what this is, which is an intentional attack on a demographic group?
Is it? I was bullied mercilessly by my brother when I was growing up, and it was our mother who handwaved it away as if it didn’t matter. I’ve had women tell me what men are like and how we think. I don’t know the gender of all the posters in this thread, but I suspect there are men saying they feel offended by their portrayal in this ad and women explaining to them why they’re wrong.
I saw a great tweet from some woman about this, paraphrased: As a woman, I can’t imagine how it would feel to see an ad that implies I could improve.
(For the sarcasm deficient, many, many commercials geared toward women exhort them to improve themselves)
Your brother was displaying toxic masculinity and your mother was handwaving it away with “boys will be boys”. She wasn’t displaying toxic masculinity. Jeez.
The commercial has two messages – stop being an asshole and stop ignoring asshole behavior. This isn’t that hard.
No, the commercial has one message “If you buy our products, you are a good person.”
She wasn’t? That exact line is used in the commercial as the kind of thing that we should stop doing. If ignoring bullying and saying “boys will be boys” isn’t toxic masculinity, what is?
I disagree, and I think it’s odd that you say that no ad can have a positive message. Is it your position that no ad can have a negative message as well? Very strange.
I thought I was pretty clear in my reply, but I’ll try again and then give up. The bullies are displaying toxic masculinity and the bystanders are excusing and enabling it. In the ad, there’s a guy who starts catcalling some woman walking by – toxic masculinity. Rather than ignoring it, the other guy says, hey, that’s not cool. Had he not said that, he wouldn’t have been displaying toxic masculinity himself, but he would be ignoring and enabling the TM on display by the other guy.
It’s saying that we guys should stop doing that crap and we should stop ignoring it when other guys do that crap. It all seemed perfectly clear to me.
Anyway, I’m out of pocket for a while.
Wow.
Yes. There has been progress, but if you think this culture “disappeared decades ago”, then you really haven’t been paying attention.
I don’t want to take lectures about “toxic masculinity” from this company.
Also, Gillette make money off the so-called “pink tax” by charging women more for its razors than men.
Also, Gillette’s parent company, Procter & Gamble, buy cheap palm oil from Wilmar International, a company which uses 8 year old child slave labor.
Gillette can fuck off.
I don’t want a fucking razor company to tell me to stop being an asshole. Especially since I know for a fact that that same company would tell me to be an even bigger asshole in a heartbeat if they thought doing so would have a 0.001% chance of boosting their bottom line. It’s not the message, it’s the messenger.
That’s a pretty narrow distinction to draw. If turning a blind eye to bullying isn’t toxic masculinity, why does the ad show only men doing it? It shows a line of men standing behind a line of outdoor barbecues (stereotype much?) all saying “boys will be boys.” The only maternal figure in the ad is a woman holding a young child, presumably comforting him after all the insults he’s suffered. One of the outdoor chefs does come forward at the end to break up a fight.
You may think that turning a blind eye to bullying doesn’t fit some strict definition of “toxic masculinity”, but the ad portrays it as something men do and women don’t.
Also that “it used to be the case that if you bought our products, you were an asshole, but now you should buy our products to show that you’re not an asshole.”
The problem is that I don’t care if Gillette thought I was an asshole before, or thinks I’m not an asshole now. I just want a nice, close shave. I didn’t bully people or harass women then, just because I was nicely shaven. So it didn’t work before, so it is not likely to work now.
PSAs on toxic masculinity from a razor company. Maybe I should grow a beard.
Regards,
Shodan
So, does Male Chauvinist, Male Chauvinist Pig, and Toxic Masculinity all mean the same thing?
MCP became such a common phrase that it got shortened to initials.
The phrase even earned a place in Merriam Websters dictionary. Although their definition seems a bit simplistic.
No. Toxic masculinity doesn’t necessarily assert superiority of the male gender. Although I imagine the Venn diagram is pretty much a perfect circle.
Toxic masculinity is just promoting or enforcing stereotypes of what it means to be a man that are harmful. So, for example, suppressing emotion would be an example of toxic masculinity but not chauvinism.
Thank you.
Often, when women stand up against it, they are accused of “being too sensitive” or “not getting the joke”. If they don’t stand up against it, it becomes a victim-blaming exercise of “why didn’t you say/do something?” ignoring the fact that if you are already in a position of less power, it can be almost impossible to make a difference.
No. Men are not the only ones that turn a blind eye, but when men step in on behalf of victims, it is often more powerful.
Toxic masculinity - using narrow stereotypes (like the BBQ scenario) to define men - is grossly unfair to men. Why wouldn’t anyone want to whatever they could to stop it? If it bothers you to see it portrayed, then there is a reason.
Men are so much more than BBQs and “boys will be boys”. It should make you angry to see it narrowed that much. And it should make you want to do something about it.
When you put it this way, it seems like Gillette will do whatever they think will sell more products/make more money.