My thoughts about the Gillette Commercial
I’d like to share some thoughts I had about the Gillette Commercial.
For those of you that have missed it: Gillette recently released a commercial in which they call out toxic masculinity, which I’ve included below.
I know that toxic masculinity is somewhat controversial term among some people, drawing responses along the lines of “it is not toxic to be a man!”.
For clarity’s sake, let me define toxic masculinity here as I understand it: it is the set of harmful expectations placed on men, about how they should think, act and feel. Basically, any time you have been told by another man to “man up”, “don’t be a pussy”, “don’t be a little bitch”, etc… (you get the point); that’s toxic masculinity in action.
It is a mould that men are pushed into, which actively harms them by not allowing us to be full human beings with the full range of human behaviours and emotions.
Responses to the commercial.
As I write this, the commercial has 793,000 downvotes and 385,000 upvotes on Youtube. When it first came out the numbers were even more strongly skewed as people flocked en masse to downvote it.
Twitter has been filled with pictures of people breaking their razors, throwing them down the toilet and generally showing that they are now done with Gillette. The intensity of the reactions show that a lot of people feel attacked.
Personally I think a lot of this has to do with the sunk cost fallacy.
The sunk cost fallacy
The sunk cost fallacy is often worded as “throwing good money after bad”. It’s a mechanism where the more we have invested in something - be it time, effort or money - the more we become attached to it and the less likely we are to abandon it, even if abandoning it would be the rational thing to do.
This can often lead to situations where people actively act against their own best interest simply because of past investment.
How does it apply to the commercial?
I personally believe that very few men embrace toxic masculinity completely naturally. Sure, some aspects of it will come more easily to some than to others, but at the end of the day I strongly believe that every man that embraces it (and let’s be honest, we’ve all internalized it up to some point) had to force himself to do that.
Every man has memories of being told to “man up”, and then gritting his teeth and shoving his emotions down. Of not showing pain, of trying to put on a strong front because “boys don’t cry”.
This effort is then what becomes the sunk cost… You embraced something at great personal expense, changed yourself to fit an image. Then someone comes along and tells you that this image you have worked so hard to conform to is actually a bad thing. They even use the word “toxic” to describe it! Of course you’re going to be defensive, it’s just basic human nature.
So, what to do?
This is the part where I’m supposed to conjure up some solution. Honestly though, I don’t know either. The best I can say is that for a large part toxic masculinity is something we men do to each other. This means that it’s up to us to be gentle with ourselves and other men. To stop holding each other to this frankly ridiculous standard.
It’s hard though, since you open yourself up to ridicule. When I saw the commercial, it brought tears to my eyes. It reminded me of being bullied as a boy, it reminded me of all the times I had been told I was “less than a man” for being small, geeky and studious. I shared this sentiment on Twitter, but I was scared to do so. Hell, even as I’m writing this paragraph in my mind’s eye the ridicule that I could face for it takes shape. I’m writing it anyway, and I will post it. Promise.
So, here’s another promise from me: when someone close to me reacts to this commercial in a way that defends toxic masculinity, I will call them out on it. I won’t be confrontational, I’ll be gentle instead. I will say that I understand how they feel, but try to explain my feelings and reasoning.
I realise this might leave me open to yet more toxic masculinity, but I’ll try.