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Proctor and Gamble Corporation's Gillette division launched a campaign aimed at sparking conversations among men about toxic masculinity and about raising boys, in conjunction with an announcement of at least $1 million USD donated each year for three years to non-profits to aid in raising better boys.
Unsurprisingly, a significant amount of the self-described "manosphere" and their allies reacted to the campaign with vitriol and calls for boycotting the Gillette line. Including some of them dismissing the advertisement entirely because it was directed by a woman.
There's something to be said about an advert campaign talking about toxic masculinity as a way of selling more product, but to call it "virtue-signaling" is, at best, reductive. That implies the campaign is there for corrupt, cynical, or non-heartfelt reasons, solely there to be seen as people who hold particular political and cultural values, and is trading on a person's desire for greater change without making any commitments toward engaging in that change. (There's one of those things where when I say that description seems to fit a lot of the holier-than-thous throwing the term out far better than the people who are supposed to be struck by it.) I think that $3 million USD over three years is not nearly enough money from the Proctor and Gamble corporation to really engage with the question and provide assistance in stomping out toxic masculinity. If there were no money involved, it would be a nice advertisement all the same, but much less likely to be seen as genuine anything. (Even then, I wouldn't use "virtue-signaling" as the phrase involved, because that has all sorts of "stick it to the SJWs" associations with it and who uses it.)
It's a good video, and it wouldn't be out of place as a parody or commentary video made by a nonprofit or an activist group trying to, say, shame P&G for decisions they've made or ridiculing them for pushing the idea that masculinity is inexorably tied to capitalist consumerism. Or to just point out how much toxic masculinity we let go by in our regular days without people who look like men calling it out in other men and in boys. Had it been released that way, or created and then given to such nonprofits to release for their own work, it might be a different conversation that we're having now about this work.
In concentrating on the corporate origins and the sincerity of the Proctor and Gamble corporation in this campaign, we miss something very important, though. It sneaks past us because this is the sort of thing that moves at a very slow pace, where even if we stare at it for a long time, it doesn't seem to move all that much, until we realize that it started over there somewhere.
The last few years have seen a marked uptick in the visibility of discussions about masculinity, consent, feminism, gendered expectations around work and pay, and other issues where the consensus used to be (at least in my provincial upbringing) that those topics were the province of brassiere-burning harridans that nobody wanted to talk to, much less engage in any sort of sexual activity with. And those came on the heels of many conversations about the L, G, and T parts of the acronym, and a small but running conversation about the other letters, being led by A and B at the moment. The window of what's an acceptable topic to discuss in public has widened significantly, and there's plenty of blame for that to go around in the increased visibility and storytelling of the bad behavior of men (almost always men) who would have otherwise been exempted from the baleful eye because it wasn't "news" enough to be run in the mass media outlets. If you record someone saying a terrible thing, it can be in the hands of hundreds of thousands of people very quickly, and then from there, if the investigation substantiates the thing, then the news picks it up and runs with it. They're late instead of being in control. (For good reasons involving libel, slander, defamation, and the like, mind, but still, Mira Grant is entirely correct that social media posts will be the first sign of the zombie apocalypse.)
There's still a significant portion of people who think the opening of the conversation has been terrible and almost always directed in a baleful way at them, being able-bodied cis white men of some form of Protestant Christian. Their intersection of several axes of privilege makes it nearly inevitable that they're going to be spoken of poorly, because if you're going to punch up, that's the direction you're going to be moving in. They see it as a zero-sum idea, where if anyone else is going to win, they're going to have to lose. (For a lot of those things they're right, because they've set it up to be zero-sum so they could take from others to enrich themselves.) I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are the kind of people who yearn for a Past That Never Was, a kingdom of peace and prosperity ruled firmly but benevolently by white men, or dispensationalists, ready to hurry along the end of the existence we have for a new world where they imagine they will be looking on from Heaven on Earth while the rest of us cry and wail in hell because we didn't say the magic words. (There are things that the Christian Foundational Writings say about who gets in and who doesn't, and at least one of them says very little about what you profess for belief and a lot more about what you do and who you do it for.)
As a small-ish, a sign about the fictional "National Organization for Men Against Amazonian Masterhood" was possted in a classroom and went without comment from anyone. I had to ask what the acronym meant, and from whence it came, because that particular television show was not part of my household. (Good.) This was the same sort of place that suggested the more vocally openly feminist persons used improvised dildoes for sexual pleasure because of the underlying assumption that no man would be interested in doing that for her. I don't remember either the out (ish?) gay man or the out (ish?) lesbian getting quite as much flak from anyone, but that's probably me not knowing enough then to be able to tune to the toxic radiation in the background about such things.
I can imagine someone doing the same thing today, but I also imagine that there would be a much louder response about the inappropriateness of the sign and inquiries as to whether it had been endorsed in any way by the teacher of that classroom, depending on where the classroom was. (A sibling teaches high schoolers, and in at least some of the places they've taught, that sort of thing would be right next to the "Team Jesus" sign.) It's not universal progress everywhere about these issues, but the conversation is sufficiently part of us that an ad campaign is incorporating those themes. That's significant. The corporation thinks their reputation (and, presmuably, sales) won't be hurt by making donations and cutting a two minute ad that is both about stoppping toxic behaviors but also suggesting that rampant consumerism is not a sign of success at being a man. (Okay, I might be adding that part in, because the change is from "The Best A Man Can Get" toward "The Best A Man Can Be" for the campaign.)
I suspect there's a lot that's pretty icky and hinky in Proctor And Gamble's history and actions that undercuts the message they're trying to put out. Because P&G is a big corporation and has been around for a while. But they're saying it. And they're cutting the ad and making the donations and inviting everyone to have these kinds of discussions in their space. Even if they did it for cynical or exploitative reasons to start with, they've invited in the conversation and it's not going to go away if they want it to later.
Which means the idea of toxic masculinity and what to do about it has become sufficiently part of the mainstream that there are ads about it. Same sort of thing with Nike's decisions last year to endorse Colin Kapernick. These positions, these ideas are becoming sufficiently mainstream that they're now potentially in danger of being co-opted to sell shoes and razor blades. It's terrible if that happens, but it's also fascinating and, in it's own way, a triumph.
Here's to even more mainstreaming. Preferably with corresponding action to scratch out toxic attitudes and dismantle structural inequalities.
Unsurprisingly, a significant amount of the self-described "manosphere" and their allies reacted to the campaign with vitriol and calls for boycotting the Gillette line. Including some of them dismissing the advertisement entirely because it was directed by a woman.
There's something to be said about an advert campaign talking about toxic masculinity as a way of selling more product, but to call it "virtue-signaling" is, at best, reductive. That implies the campaign is there for corrupt, cynical, or non-heartfelt reasons, solely there to be seen as people who hold particular political and cultural values, and is trading on a person's desire for greater change without making any commitments toward engaging in that change. (There's one of those things where when I say that description seems to fit a lot of the holier-than-thous throwing the term out far better than the people who are supposed to be struck by it.) I think that $3 million USD over three years is not nearly enough money from the Proctor and Gamble corporation to really engage with the question and provide assistance in stomping out toxic masculinity. If there were no money involved, it would be a nice advertisement all the same, but much less likely to be seen as genuine anything. (Even then, I wouldn't use "virtue-signaling" as the phrase involved, because that has all sorts of "stick it to the SJWs" associations with it and who uses it.)
It's a good video, and it wouldn't be out of place as a parody or commentary video made by a nonprofit or an activist group trying to, say, shame P&G for decisions they've made or ridiculing them for pushing the idea that masculinity is inexorably tied to capitalist consumerism. Or to just point out how much toxic masculinity we let go by in our regular days without people who look like men calling it out in other men and in boys. Had it been released that way, or created and then given to such nonprofits to release for their own work, it might be a different conversation that we're having now about this work.
In concentrating on the corporate origins and the sincerity of the Proctor and Gamble corporation in this campaign, we miss something very important, though. It sneaks past us because this is the sort of thing that moves at a very slow pace, where even if we stare at it for a long time, it doesn't seem to move all that much, until we realize that it started over there somewhere.
The last few years have seen a marked uptick in the visibility of discussions about masculinity, consent, feminism, gendered expectations around work and pay, and other issues where the consensus used to be (at least in my provincial upbringing) that those topics were the province of brassiere-burning harridans that nobody wanted to talk to, much less engage in any sort of sexual activity with. And those came on the heels of many conversations about the L, G, and T parts of the acronym, and a small but running conversation about the other letters, being led by A and B at the moment. The window of what's an acceptable topic to discuss in public has widened significantly, and there's plenty of blame for that to go around in the increased visibility and storytelling of the bad behavior of men (almost always men) who would have otherwise been exempted from the baleful eye because it wasn't "news" enough to be run in the mass media outlets. If you record someone saying a terrible thing, it can be in the hands of hundreds of thousands of people very quickly, and then from there, if the investigation substantiates the thing, then the news picks it up and runs with it. They're late instead of being in control. (For good reasons involving libel, slander, defamation, and the like, mind, but still, Mira Grant is entirely correct that social media posts will be the first sign of the zombie apocalypse.)
There's still a significant portion of people who think the opening of the conversation has been terrible and almost always directed in a baleful way at them, being able-bodied cis white men of some form of Protestant Christian. Their intersection of several axes of privilege makes it nearly inevitable that they're going to be spoken of poorly, because if you're going to punch up, that's the direction you're going to be moving in. They see it as a zero-sum idea, where if anyone else is going to win, they're going to have to lose. (For a lot of those things they're right, because they've set it up to be zero-sum so they could take from others to enrich themselves.) I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are the kind of people who yearn for a Past That Never Was, a kingdom of peace and prosperity ruled firmly but benevolently by white men, or dispensationalists, ready to hurry along the end of the existence we have for a new world where they imagine they will be looking on from Heaven on Earth while the rest of us cry and wail in hell because we didn't say the magic words. (There are things that the Christian Foundational Writings say about who gets in and who doesn't, and at least one of them says very little about what you profess for belief and a lot more about what you do and who you do it for.)
As a small-ish, a sign about the fictional "National Organization for Men Against Amazonian Masterhood" was possted in a classroom and went without comment from anyone. I had to ask what the acronym meant, and from whence it came, because that particular television show was not part of my household. (Good.) This was the same sort of place that suggested the more vocally openly feminist persons used improvised dildoes for sexual pleasure because of the underlying assumption that no man would be interested in doing that for her. I don't remember either the out (ish?) gay man or the out (ish?) lesbian getting quite as much flak from anyone, but that's probably me not knowing enough then to be able to tune to the toxic radiation in the background about such things.
I can imagine someone doing the same thing today, but I also imagine that there would be a much louder response about the inappropriateness of the sign and inquiries as to whether it had been endorsed in any way by the teacher of that classroom, depending on where the classroom was. (A sibling teaches high schoolers, and in at least some of the places they've taught, that sort of thing would be right next to the "Team Jesus" sign.) It's not universal progress everywhere about these issues, but the conversation is sufficiently part of us that an ad campaign is incorporating those themes. That's significant. The corporation thinks their reputation (and, presmuably, sales) won't be hurt by making donations and cutting a two minute ad that is both about stoppping toxic behaviors but also suggesting that rampant consumerism is not a sign of success at being a man. (Okay, I might be adding that part in, because the change is from "The Best A Man Can Get" toward "The Best A Man Can Be" for the campaign.)
I suspect there's a lot that's pretty icky and hinky in Proctor And Gamble's history and actions that undercuts the message they're trying to put out. Because P&G is a big corporation and has been around for a while. But they're saying it. And they're cutting the ad and making the donations and inviting everyone to have these kinds of discussions in their space. Even if they did it for cynical or exploitative reasons to start with, they've invited in the conversation and it's not going to go away if they want it to later.
Which means the idea of toxic masculinity and what to do about it has become sufficiently part of the mainstream that there are ads about it. Same sort of thing with Nike's decisions last year to endorse Colin Kapernick. These positions, these ideas are becoming sufficiently mainstream that they're now potentially in danger of being co-opted to sell shoes and razor blades. It's terrible if that happens, but it's also fascinating and, in it's own way, a triumph.
Here's to even more mainstreaming. Preferably with corresponding action to scratch out toxic attitudes and dismantle structural inequalities.
