3 Reasons Why Gillette's 'Toxic Masculinity' Ad Is Incredibly Stupid And Degrading

noise said:
So long, masculinity, you're a relic of unenlightened times
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news...nqI2Ac6LabEtyjvFd_Fj42Q20Qv7JRVIY0YkSucVRZtUk

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Heather Wilhelm

This week, the American Psychological Association delivered some sad news for fans of “traditional masculinity.” According to the organization’s new “Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men,” the “harmful” ideology of masculinity — marked by “stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression” together with “anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence” — has got to go.

Here I imagine a mournful, windswept cowboy — preferably Val Kilmer from “Tombstone,” or maybe Harrison Ford from “Indiana Jones,” but wearing a ten-gallon hat — riding off into the sunset, slumped and grim, dragging a sad cache of uneaten rare steaks and unused power tools behind him. Farewell, traditional masculinity! You are too toxic! The APA told us so! Don’t let those swinging Old West barroom doors hit you on the way out, causing the old-timey piano music to abruptly stop and all the dust-strewn poker players who may or may not have tuberculosis to turn and stare at you in shock and dismay!

Reader, I don’t know how you feel about all this. I, for one, find it very upsetting, for one simple and selfish reason: Who is going to kill all the spiders that make their way into my house?

I am now reminded of the movie “Annie Hall,” in which Diane Keaton’s character phones Woody Allen’s character in a panic at 3 a.m. Her big emergency, as a disgruntled Allen discovers after stumbling over to her apartment, is the existence of a spider in her bathroom. Seeing her copy of National Review, and being no fan of conservatism, his indignation flares into a shout: “Why don’t you get William F. Buckley to kill the spider?”

Buckley, as we all know, would have done an unparalleled job of killing the spider, but that is neither here nor there. Also neither here nor there, it turns out, are the APA’s loopy masculinity guidelines, which are the equivalent of 1,000 detached human hands nervously wringing themselves in the corner of a dark maze of fun house mirrors accented by occasional annoying bursts of extremely woke strobe lights.

After reading the report — and if you ever question what opinion columnists do for America, one example of our lionhearted public service involves reading goofy quasi-academic “reports” so you don’t have to — I must admit that I questioned the very necessity of its existence. After all, the very idea of “boys” and “men” is quite gendered and outdated, is it not? As the APA’s own new guidelines remind us, “It is critical to acknowledge that gender is a non-binary construct that is distinct from, although interrelated to, sexual orientation.” Gender, argues Ryon McDermott, a psychologist who assisted in writing the guidelines, is “no longer just this male-female binary.”

So why even bother writing a report supposedly targeted at only boys and men? Who knows? Who cares? Oh logic, you feckless, roaming tumbleweed! In any case, the guidelines aren’t really designed to discuss boys or men at all. Their main intention, it seems, is to hammer home the belief that everything gender-related is a social construct, that biology doesn’t matter until we want it to and that we are all bound like helpless mummies under intersectional layers of oppression that are primarily generated by — surprise! — patriarchal men.

Here is a sentence that actually exists on the APA’s website, paired with a summary of the new guidelines: “Indeed, when researchers strip away stereotypes and expectation, there isn’t much difference in the basic behaviors of men and women.”

There is no direct or encompassing citation for this impressively sweeping statement, probably because it a) is untrue, b) is unscientific and c) likely makes God laugh. How is it that we can live in a civilization so advanced that we can propel a rocket 33 million miles through the cold abyss of space to successfully land on a largely unexplored planet, but still manage to publish insouciant nonsense sentences like this? Never say life isn’t mysterious, friends. It is mind-boggling.

In any case, I will not leave the new “Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men” without a bit of positive affirmation.
Amazingly, it is correct a few times. For instance, it is not good to box people into rigid gender roles, nor is it good to teach boys to suppress their emotions just because they’re boys. I don’t see a whole lot of people doing that these days — everyone’s too busy lavishing kids with enthusiastic praise for spending six hours a day watching some guy named Ninja play “Fortnite” on YouTube — but whatever.
Also, violence is bad, except against spiders, and it should not be glorified or celebrated. This is true whether it is a man or a woman threatening to unceremoniously punch you in the often-terrifying and anarchic line for the Walmart pre-Christmas sale.

But what about bravery? What about risk? What about, well, testosterone? What about the wild idea that there might be a natural, nonsocially constructed difference between women and men? The APA’s summary report admits that some emblems of “traditional masculinity” might be worth keeping: “courage,” for instance, and “leadership.” Moreover, an APA-affiliated team is now working on a “positive-masculinities scale to capture people’s adherence to the pro-social traits expected from men.” Oh, boy. I can’t wait.

Just kidding! I can definitely wait. Luckily for me, it took the geniuses who wrote the current guidelines 13 whole years to put them together, so time might be on my side. In the meantime, people, keep your eyes open — and get your spiders killed while you still can.
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I am not going to place much weight on an opinion article written by some dude I have never heard of.

I don't know what world you live in, but I cannot recall a single girlfriend, a single female relative, or a single female colleague in my life giving me an expectation that I needed act like a sissy, more feminized, or to tone down my initiative, drive, and competitiveness.

I am not a big fan of buzzwords, aka "virtue signaling", et al. but we all know exactly what is meant by toxic masculinity in real life and in tangible ways. One cannot spend any time on this board, on the internet, or in real life without knowing in a profound way that there is a segment of the male population that act like complete dicks, misogynists, and sexists. Hoy crap man, that is what 50% of the Trumpist movement is all about. (p.s., yes there are women sociopaths, psychos, and jackasses as well, that goes without saying)

Just because I know some dudes act like dicks, does not mean I internalize it and take it personally. A racist white man means exactly what it says. A racist man. I do not internalize it and assume it applies to me.

Trying to not be a dick to women, to gays, to Muslims, to Jews, and to other men is really not that controversial of a topic. In my experience, I cannot say I am aware of any concerted war on Men, wars on Christmas, or Wars on Easter. I just don't see it happening in real life. You know here I mostly see it happening? That's right. On Fox News, and in opinion columns mostly written by dudes.
 
Cypress said:
I am not going to place much weight on an opinion article written by some dude I have never heard of.

I don't know what world you live in, but I cannot recall a single girlfriend, a single female relative, or a single female colleague in my life giving me an expectation that I needed act like a sissy, more feminized, or to tone down my initiative, drive, and competitiveness.

I am not a big fan of buzzwords, aka "virtue signaling", et al. but we all know exactly what is meant by toxic masculinity in real life and in tangible ways. One cannot spend any time on this board, on the internet, or in real life without knowing in a profound way that there is a segment of the male population that act like complete dicks, misogynists, and sexists. Hoy crap man, that is what 50% of the Trumpist movement is all about. (p.s., yes there are women sociopaths, psychos, and jackasses as well, that goes without saying)

Just because I know some dudes act like dicks, does not mean I internalize it and take it personally. A racist white man means exactly what it says. A racist man. I do not internalize it and assume it applies to me.

Trying to not be a dick to women, to gays, to Muslims, to Jews, and to other men is really not that controversial of a topic. In my experience, I cannot say I am aware of any concerted war on Men, wars on Christmas, or Wars on Easter. I just don't see it happening in real life. You know here I mostly see it happening? That's right. On Fox News, and in opinion columns mostly written by dudes.
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LOL OK...You have to open mouth and insert foot here Cypress. The article was written by a woman. ;)
 
tinfoil said:
LOL I don't recall seeing you calling out your fellow liberal posters here when they make horrible comments about conservative women. You're full of it
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Whatevs, virtue signalman.

PS--There is a huge diff. between banter about politicians on a POLITICAL website, and in-person bullying.
 
Cypress said:
I am not going to place much weight on an opinion article written by some dude I have never heard of.

I don't know what world you live in, but I cannot recall a single girlfriend, a single female relative, or a single female colleague in my life giving me an expectation that I needed act like a sissy, more feminized, or to tone down my initiative, drive, and competitiveness.

I am not a big fan of buzzwords, aka "virtue signaling", et al. but we all know exactly what is meant by toxic masculinity in real life and in tangible ways. One cannot spend any time on this board, on the internet, or in real life without knowing in a profound way that there is a segment of the male population that act like complete dicks, misogynists, and sexists. Hoy crap man, that is what 50% of the Trumpist movement is all about. (p.s., yes there are women sociopaths, psychos, and jackasses as well, that goes without saying)

Just because I know some dudes act like dicks, does not mean I internalize it and take it personally. A racist white man means exactly what it says. A racist man. I do not internalize it and assume it applies to me.

Trying to not be a dick to women, to gays, to Muslims, to Jews, and to other men is really not that controversial of a topic. In my experience, I cannot say I am aware of any concerted war on Men, wars on Christmas, or Wars on Easter. I just don't see it happening in real life. You know here I mostly see it happening? That's right. On Fox News, and in opinion columns mostly written by dudes.
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Agreed but that doesn't change the fact that the term is pejorative and offensive. It's also a bunch of psuedoscientific nonsense and I'm saying that as a biologist. Masculinity is a biological state of being. It is an objective fact of reality. It is neither toxic or non toxic. Those are value judgements and in this case a pejorative one.

Sure, there are Saints and Assholes on every street corner but this doesn't change facts or reality. Just as there are lots of manipulative, hateful, catty women out there calling them "Bitches" is offensive in the very same way as calling Masculinity, manhood, the male state of being, "toxic" is offensive.

As I keep saying over and over again. Two wrongs never make a right.
 
Cypress said:
I am not going to place much weight on an opinion article written by some dude I have never heard of.

I don't know what world you live in, but I cannot recall a single girlfriend, a single female relative, or a single female colleague in my life giving me an expectation that I needed act like a sissy, more feminized, or to tone down my initiative, drive, and competitiveness.

I am not a big fan of buzzwords, aka "virtue signaling", et al. but we all know exactly what is meant by toxic masculinity in real life and in tangible ways. One cannot spend any time on this board, on the internet, or in real life without knowing in a profound way that there is a segment of the male population that act like complete dicks, misogynists, and sexists. Hoy crap man, that is what 50% of the Trumpist movement is all about. (p.s., yes there are women sociopaths, psychos, and jackasses as well, that goes without saying)

Just because I know some dudes act like dicks, does not mean I internalize it and take it personally. A racist white man means exactly what it says. A racist man. I do not internalize it and assume it applies to me.

Trying to not be a dick to women, to gays, to Muslims, to Jews, and to other men is really not that controversial of a topic. In my experience, I cannot say I am aware of any concerted war on Men, wars on Christmas, or Wars on Easter. I just don't see it happening in real life. You know here I mostly see it happening? That's right. On Fox News, and in opinion columns mostly written by dudes.
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to the bolded.
no we do not "know" - particularly since the APA now conflates masculinity to "toxic masculinity"
I won't even go into the Trump part..but at least I read your rants
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Agreed but that doesn't change the fact that the term is pejorative and offensive. It's also a bunch of psuedoscientific nonsense and I'm saying that as a biologist. Masculinity is a biological state of being. It is an objective fact of reality. It is neither toxic or non toxic. Those are value judgements and in this case a pejorative one.

Sure, there are Saints and Assholes on every street corner but this doesn't change facts or reality. Just as there are lots of manipulative, hateful, catty women out there calling them "Bitches" is offensive in the very same way as calling Masculinity, manhood, the male state of being, "toxic" is offensive.

As I keep saying over and over again. Two wrongs never make a right.
Click to expand...

I was accused of "mansplaining" the other day on a neighborhood forum. So I mansplained why that accusation was so offensive.
 
Mom arrested, accused of cheering on child’s fight

https://www.abqjournal.com/557673/woman-cheers-on-middle-school-daughter-in-fight-deputies-say.html

Video: CNY mom caught cheering on 2 teen girls to fight; woman charged

https://www.syracuse.com/crime/inde...unty_mom_cheering_on_fight_between_teens.html

Charges filed after shocking video showed a mother cheering as her son was thrown off bridge

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-bridge/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f4eb7149a3bb

Day care teachers accused of organizing preschool-age fight club

https://abc13.com/day-care-fight-club-teachers-cheer-as-kids-beat-each-other-/4587189/
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
Whatevs, virtue signalman.

PS--There is a huge diff. between banter about politicians on a POLITICAL website, and in-person bullying.
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When Havana stops spouse baiting, that’s when my responses to him stop. The ball has always been in his court, but he can’t let it go.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
In the same vein:

"WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan. 17, 2019) -- As many women across the U.S. prepare to march for women's rights this weekend, Gallup polling finds a record-low 46% of U.S. women are satisfied with the way women are treated in society. This marks a 15-percentage-point decline since the summer of 2016 before the #MeToo movement exploded in the U.S."

https://news.gallup.com/poll/246056/record-low-women-pleased-society-treatment.aspx
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Look what happens when you fan the flames of sexism. Exactly mirrors what happened when The Obama fanned the flames of racism.
 
Dark Soul said:
I was accused of "mansplaining" the other day on a neighborhood forum. So I mansplained why that accusation was so offensive.
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Well that should have been easy.

#1. Who the hell does Gillette think they are to lecture me when I'm shaving and before I had my coffee? That's not only morally repugnant...it's uncivilized.
#2. The term "Toxic Masculinity" is an offensive pejorative phrase as bad as calling a hormonally emotional woman a "Bitch". They are both wrong and should not be used in polite company.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Well that should have been easy.

#1. Who the hell does Gillette think they are to lecture me when I'm shaving and before I had my coffee? That's not only morally repugnant...it's uncivilized.
#2. The term "Toxic Masculinity" is an offensive pejorative phrase as bad as calling a hormonally emotional woman a "Bitch". They are both wrong and should not be used in polite company.
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"Toxic masculinity" is nothing more than a rebranding of "macho" or "machismo," terms used to describe men who behave like jerks in order to somehow demonstrate that they are more manly than regular guys.

Only those who see themselves in the mirror should be pout-raging over the words.
 
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