Men React to a Gillette Ad with Not So Quiet Desperation
While cultures are far from unanimous about the characteristics – and number – of sexes and genders, there is a surprising level of correlation across societies about the precarious nature of manhood. Ethnographers from diverse backgrounds have surveyed thousands of cultures, and in most, we have found the cultural phenomenon of the “test of manhood." (Nanda and Warms 2011, 225) It is a near-universal struggle for anyone who is claiming manhood in any society, to justify that claim.
While the academy hotly disputes the anthropological reasons for this around the globe, I think the origins in western culture have a great deal to do with power politics. Men inherit an unearned privilege of power in our culture, which means that by claiming manhood, a person is justifiably subject to some scrutiny as to their worthiness of the claim. As philosopher Hannah Arendt notices, “Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together.” (Arendt 1970, 44)
Now let me be emphatic in expressing my opinion that, again, the power that men have over women in our society is unearned and detrimental. But here I just want to use the fact that there is a category called “manhood” onto which, in reality, a lot of power is bestowed. We need to work hard to undo this power structure, but in the meantime, I wonder if we can improve that title. Can being a “man” mean something better than it has meant.
A week ago, you probably noticed, Gillette released a YouTube short-film that asks this same question. (Gillette 2019) I found it to be well done. I acknowledge that Gillette is a flawed source, but I respect that organizations, people, and ideas change. They also seem to be willing to materially contribute to the change that they are advocating by “distributing $1 Million per year for the next three years to non-profit organizations executing . . . programs designed to help men of all ages achieve their personal best.” (Gillette The Best a Man Can Be 2019) With their first partner being The Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
So, that’s that. Very simple, simply positive.
However, the response on the internet has been overwhelmingly negative. I mean “overwhelmingly” from a statistical standpoint, as much as I mean from a rhetorical one. In the 7 days since its publication, 23,882,929 people have watched it as of this writing, with 650 thousand “up-votes” and 1.1 million “down-votes.” I would speak to the quality of the 335,363 comments on the video, but I strongly urge you to not review it.
Instead, in my next few posts, let’s take a look at an article published on The Daily Wire written by Denise C. Mcallister. I intend to do a point-by-point engagement with this text, and then maybe we can put it into the context of a new test of manhood. (Mcallister 2019)
For now, I want to say that I believe that Gillette’s short-film does present something new and exciting into the popular discussion of toxic masculinity. It makes the test of manhood a moral issue, instead of the myriad competitions of machismo.
I am a flawed messenger too. I have exhibited toxic behavior and toxic beliefs in my past toward women. I do feel, though, that because of that journey out of misogyny I have a perspective that both sides of this fight may find useful:
It is undeniable that men in our society sustain an unfair and unearned power over women. I hold it, however, to also be true that individual men do not feel powerful. We feel like we are imposters.
Men are fighting against this video because they worry it will expose them as the emasculated being that they think themselves to be.
Because manhood is a fluid position, in which one’s belonging is constantly in question, men fear toxic masculinity too. We feel the need to make a masculine pretense like a desperate hunger, but we each suspect that others are manly. We pick those who are passing and mimic them. This I hold to be true of the most toxic misogynist that can be imagined. There is a reason that the quintessential figures of manhood are all legends.
I know myself to be, and I suspect most who gender themselves as men are, with Yeats, “One that ruffles in a manly pose for all his timid heart.” (Yeats, Coole Park, 1929)
Please don’t think I am saying that I, or men in general, are equally the victims of toxic masculinity as are women. I shudder every time I read the terse summary that Vicki Noble made of the findings of her survey of thousands of men and women. She asked what we fear most and found “women fear most that they will be raped or murdered. Men responded that they were most afraid of being laughed at.” (Noble 1992)
If you cannot find the horror and imbalance in those fears, please seek to do so.
If you doubt my hypothesis that all men suspect they are unmanly and fear exposure, please consider whether you think Michael S. Kimmel is right (and please excuse the long passage) that:
I can walk onto any playground in America where 6-year-old boys are happily playing and by asking one question, I can provoke a fight. That question is simple: ‘Who’s a sissy around here?’ Once posed, the challenge is made. One of two things is likely to happen. One boy will accuse another of being a sissy, to which that boy will respond that he is not a sissy, that the first boy is. They may have to fight it out to see who’s lying. Or a whole group of boys will surround one both and all shout ‘He is! He is!” That boy will either burst into tears and run home crying, disgraced, or he will have to take on several boys at once, to prove that he’s not a sissy. (And what will his father or older brothers tell him if he chooses to run home crying?) (Kimmel 2003)
Bibliography
Achebe, Chinua. 2006. Things Fall Apart (1930). Vol. 2 The Enlightenment through the Twentieth Century, chap. 4 The Twentieth Century: Modernisms and Modernity in The Norton Anthology: Western Literature , edited by Sarah Lawall, 2416 - 2507. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Arendt, Hannah. 1970. On Revolution. New York: Viking.
2019. What is a Man? A Response to Gillette. YouTube. Performed by Egard. https://youtu.be/x_HL0wiK4Zc.
2019. "Gillette The Best a Man Can Be." Gillette.com. January 20. https://gillette.com/en-us/the-best-men-can-be.
2019. We Believe: The Best Men Can Be. YouTube. Performed by Gillette. https://youtu.be/koPmuEyP3a0.
Kimmel, Michael S. 2003. "Masculinity as Homophobia (1994)." In Reconstructing Gender A Multicultural Anthology , edited by Estelle Disch, 103-109. New York: McGraw Hill.
Kupers, Terry A. 2005. "Toxic Masculinity as a Barrier to Mental Health Treatment in Prison." Clinical Psychology 61 (6): 713-724.
Mcallister, Denise C. 2019. "Can We Talk About Toxic Femininity?" The Daily Wire. January 18. Accessed January 20, 2019. https://www.dailywire.com/news/42376/mcallister-can-we-talk-about-toxic-femininity-denise-c-mcallister#disqus_thread.
Nanda, Serena, and Richard L Warms. 2011. Cultural Anthropology. 10. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Noble, Vicki. 1992. "A Helping Hand from the Boys." In Women Respond to the Men's Movement . San Francisco: Harper Collins.
Yeats, William Butler. 2000. ""Coole Park, 1929"." In Yeats's Poetry, Drama, and Prose , edited by James Pethica, 106-107. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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