Happy 2019, readers! I hope that your new year is off to a great start! I’m back to rant, as usual, about something that is making me crazy this week. I’m not usually the type who gets emotional about advertisements. I don’t have cable and so I rarely see TV ads, so unless something goes viral, it is likely that I haven’t seen it. So when a trusted friend told me last week that I should really check out the new Gillette commercial, I had no idea what to expect.

Cut here to a video clip of me, sitting at my desk, getting a little emotional. I thought that the ad was well done, despite some flaws, which I’m not going to list out here. And, in reality, this blog isn’t about the ad content. It is about the backlash that followed it on social and traditional media. In fact, if you Google the commercial right now, your top results will be about the backlash against the ad and how men do not need to be told what to do by advertising.

Cue every woman in America rolling her eyes. Telling women what to do in advertising is a staple of the modern world. Just this week, there was a campaign by Avon cosmetics, telling us that dimples are cute on our faces, but not on our thighs. This is just one in a long line of ads that tell us to be thinner, prettier, more natural, happier, sexier, smoother, and full of smiles. And yet women manage not to lose our mind every time another one of these advertisements comes out.

So, why the backlash against this ad? Honestly, how can you get mad at an advertisement that supports not grabbing women on the street? Well, if you are the Internet, you can get super mad. The reasons range from thinking that the ad is “man-bashing” to ranting about how “toxic masculinity” is a concept made up by women to punish men for being successful. Oh dear. Let’s unpack some of this.

First of all, let’s talk about toxic masculinity. The Good Men Project has a great discussion about this topic. In a nutshell, it boils down to the idea that associating violence and aggression with masculinity does men a disservice because it restricts the definition of masculinity to strength through lack of vulnerability and emotion and that this harms men in the long run. We can see examples of this when men are mocked with “feminine insults”, like “pussy”, as a way of attacking their manhood. We also see this in the excusing of dysfunctional behaviors of boys with the phrase “boys will be boys”. The idea that boys can, and should, misbehave because that is what is inherent in boys does a disservice to our boys and men. Furthermore, rigid definitions of what it means to be a “man” or a “tough” guy often impede men’s willingness to seek medical attention and may be tied to earlier deaths in men. Lastly, the levels of domestic violence in the United States should serve as a siren to us that there is something wrong with masculine culture in the United States.

At this point, you may be thinking to yourself, “I know lots of good men. I think this is offensive to them.” I know lots of good men too. I have a spectacular father and wonderful male friends. There are many, many good men in the world. I know that, every day, they do what they can to evolve as allies and to help make the world a better place for women and men.  But I also know that, based on the behaviors that I perform every day and by the thousands of women who have written and shared their pain as part of the #metoo movement, that there are men who have a long way to go. Maybe you know some of them. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you know some who you think are good who might also have some work to do. Either way, we can acknowledge that not every man is good. And so encouraging men to do better, and telling good men “thank you” for the work they are doing every day to make the world better, seems like a fair thing to do. Do you like getting that push from your razor company? Maybe you don’t… which brings me to my next question.

Do you rage against the ads that tell women to be thinner? Or the ads that tell women what their make-up should look like? Or what shoes would best impress their man? If you aren’t getting upset about all of these, then ask yourself what is different about telling a man something in an advertisement? Why does that bother you more than the numerous ads for women? In thinking about the answer to these questions, maybe you will find that the problem with the commercial isn’t what it is trying to say, but rather the group that it is trying to say it to.

-Amy