Dear Mr. Dad: Have you seen that new television commercial that aims to get men to treat women better? I think it’s great and even recorded it and am playing it for my husband and son. What do you think?
A: For those who missed it, the ad in question is from Gillette—a Procter & Gamble brand—and essentially invites men (and boys) to shave away their “toxic masculinity.” It’s a take-off on the tagline that the company has used for decades: “The best a man can get.” Personally, I’m disgusted by the ad and the bigoted thinking behind it. Why? Because it strongly implies that masculinity, by definition, is toxic, and that ALL males—or at the very least, all the ones who can shave—are jerks who need to change their behavior.
While there’s no question that some men—a tiny minority—behave in a toxic way, there is nothing inherently toxic about masculinity itself. The far bigger problem is a general SHORTAGE of masculinity. The overwhelming number of men who are involved in violence, gangs, drugs, and so on, have grown up without a positive male role model in their lives and have had no one to show them what it means to be a man or how to treat women.
We fault men for not being more actively involved with their children, but we pigeonhole them into the role of provider/protector (and yes, that’s still what most men and women expect from men) and rate them based on how much money they make. We criticize men for not expressing their emotions, but when they cry or express a softer side (such as being a stay-at-home dad), we make fun of them, call them wimps (or worse), and tell them to “man up.”
We knowingly laugh when women complain about men’s shortcomings and failings, but in my experience, for every woman who’s had a bad experience with a man, there’s a man who’s had an equally bad experience with a woman. But when those men complain about the way they’ve been treated by women, they’re criticized as being misogynist.
In general, when men—especially White men—raise legitimate issues, such as the fact that our life expectancy is five years shorter than women’s or that two-thirds of opiate overdoses and three-quarters of suicides are male, we’re accused of having “angry male syndrome.”
Imagine the outrage if Gillette (or any company) would have come out with a commercial questioning whether women today are truly “the best they can get” and asking them to shed their “toxic femininity.” They’d have to talk about the “mean girls” who bully, demean, and terrorize their (mostly female) classmates—sometimes to the point of suicide—and the female teachers who prey on teenage boys. They’d have to talk about the women who falsely accuse men of rape or domestic abuse or who commit “paternity fraud,” getting pregnant in order to either entrap a man into marriage or to collect child support. They’d have to talk about the fact that women, not men, commit the vast majority of physical abuse and murders of children. And they’d have to talk about the very real yet rarely discussed problem of females who physically—and sexually—assault males (and other females).
Yes, some men have used masculine characteristics to bully and mistreat others or benefit themselves—just as some women have used feminine characteristics in the same way. But neither masculinity nor femininity is inherently “toxic.” When it comes to racial and ethnic minorities, members of religious groups, and women, we recognize that negatively stereotyping, bigotry, and blaming all the members of a particular group for the bad behavior of a few of its members is wrong. It’s about time we applied the same logic to men.
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Previously published on Mr. Dad
Photo: IStock
Thank you. I loved this.
Armin, an excellent article. Well written.
I would also add that while a lot of male abuse is physical (and reprehensible at that) I wonder how much female abuse of men is in the emotional realm and so harder to track. Physical abuse may be much easier to notice or track as well as being a criminal offence if it amounts to some sort of assault. But continuous emotional abuse will not be as easy to follow.
No disrespect here but there are far more than a “tiny minority behave in a toxic way”. I’m not sure where that stat came from. Social conditioning itself promotes toxicity even subconsciously. Many do not even know what they are doing is toxic. I suspect that maybe you haven’t dated more than 100 men. Aside from personally, professionally I know that isn’t accurate either. Maybe the issue is rather that belief that it is a tiny minority that causes it to be shoved under the rug. Then again we haven’t ever really defined what a “good man” is and it… Read more »
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. This seems a bit defensiveness, though. It is, after all, a fact that men are responsible for the vast majority of violence in this society. That men ought to be engaged in collective self-examination seems obvious. Moreover, like other defensive reactions to the Gillette ad, you end up agreeing with its premises. You say we (society?) pigeonhole men,” “make fun of them,” “call them wimps,” and tell them to “man up.” Those are the definition of toxic masculinity. Moreover, we (white men) are only accused of “angry male syndrome” when we insist on blaming women… Read more »
Gregory , I have to take issue with some of your points. How is this excellent article defensive? In what way would you want someone who disagrees with the ideas of the advert to write? I think … puts forward some very well argued and important points. People are saying that toxic masculinity is not being in touch with our feelings, but if we voice opinions on this topic, which have annoyed us, we are now being told that we are either wrong, don’t have a right to disagree or are being defensive. Surely voicing an opinion in a thoughtout… Read more »
I agree with your assessment: defensive. But I kind of understand it, too. I think many men are just tired of being the scapegoat for feminism, because the prevailing dogma fails to understand that men are not solely responsible for their failings in social justice: society, and women in particular, go unrecognized for their role in the social injustice equation. So when you suggest that men should never blame women, well, that’s not entirely fair while women are continually blaming men, for almost everything. Yes, the defensiveness is not constructive, but I do think it’s understandable.