Posted on 01/24/2019 4:29:34 PM PST by daniel1212
I saw this ad on Twitter and was a little taken aback, so I naturally shared it with my family. That includes my dad.
My dad’s an incredible person in many ways. He’s smart, funny, and kind. He’s a man’s man. He wrestled and was all-conference in football in high school. He won a college scholarship to play football, but messed up both his knees senior year, so he went to tech school instead and learned to run heavy equipment.
That’s what he was doing when I was born - running dragline, digging ditches, building roads. Union work.
He decided it was a tough life for a family, so he went back to college during the winters and earned a degree in chemistry. Then he went on to get a PhD in physical chemistry. He’s worked as a chemist for many years now in a sugar beet refinery.
It’s not a cushy job - factory work. He’s up and down huge flights of stairs, on the concrete floors, going between boiling and freezing temperatures. He works with people who might have anything from a high school diploma to business degrees, to farmers. He’s in his mid-sixties, and he still works 12 hour days in the factory.
Working as he does in industry, he oversees employees all the time. He’s had to manage employees for over thirty years. He’s earned the respect of his company because he treats everyone - male and female, with respect 100% of the time. He demands everyone treat each other the same way. Sexual harassment simply isn't tolerated.
He has had a large hand in the way his company’s policies have been shaped over the last decades. I know this more than most daughters would because we’re from a small community. My friends worked for him. I worked at the same company for awhile, though not directly under him, I got to observe the results of his management style. I couldn't be more proud.
My dad is an incredible storyteller. My favorite story as a kid was about how his dog Tag chased the town bullies, the Nockamoose boys, out of the park once. He didn't like bullies, and neither did we, and I loved having a dad who was brave enough as a kid to do something about that.
My dad and mom bought our family a TI-99/4a when I was only 5 years old, even though it was a huge financial sacrifice for our family. This was a big discussion between my parents, but my dad won because he thought it was really important that my sister and I be comfortable with computers. I surprised him by writing a program on it only a couple of weeks later.
He brought me to the lab when he started teaching. He taught me how to conduct experiments. When I started working in a research lab, he encouraged and mentored me. He encouraged my sister and me to learn other skills as well. He taught us to change tires, to fix ball bearings, to repair windows, to change oil, drive a stick shift, and go hunting. Is it any surprise I became a chemist and my sister an aerospace engineer?
Last year, after his 13 year old springer spaniel died, he adopted a 5 year old dog from the shelter that wasn't even housebroken because it looked terribly happy to see him, and because the dog had been there for two years.
My dad is the kind of person who buys something from every kid who comes around selling anything. His chosen charity for Amazon Prime is the women’s shelter. He built a ramp for his mom when she needed help getting in and out of her house. He visits his great-aunts, especially the one without children.
He teaches Sunday School and pays great attention to how he is a role model to the boys and young men at church. He spends time every night reading his Bible, and reflecting on how he can be a better person as well. He says living your life well isn't about you - it’s about how you serve God and you serve others - the two great commandments.
He will drive 3 hours to help his sister install a toilet, three hours home, and then come home and get down on knees that are getting arthritic and wrap my mother’s legs tenderly, like he does twice a day every day, because she has lymphedema.
Did I mention that? My mom’s disabled - and I've never once heard him complain about it, even though her disability has demanded significant compromises and sacrifices on both their parts. She’s been in a wheelchair completely now for seven years, but has been unable to work for over thirty. She spends weeks in the hospital every year, sometimes more. We've been through doctors all over the state, and some of the best specialists in the nation.
Sometimes she gets down about it, and you know what he does? He never, ever agrees with her. He brings her roses.
My dad is EVERYTHING that a man should be.
He is all the best things a human being can be - but moreover, he is all the best things a man can be. He embodies the best of masculine strength. He has sacrificed a great deal for our family. He is tough and determined and embodies perseverance.
He’s EVERYTHING that the ad supposedly encourages men to be.
When I showed the Gillette ad to my dad, he tensed up. Halfway through, he told me to turn it off. “I've seen enough. I don’t need to be insulted any more.”
So - do you want to know why this ad lost my dad? Do you want to know why such an AMAZING man - a fantastic role model - was disgusted? Really?
Let’s start at the beginning.
“Bullying” “The #MeToo Movement” “Toxic Masculinity”
Is this the best a man can get? Is it?
Right about here. Gillette lost him here.
Right here the advertisement framed the rest of the piece in terms of opposing patriarchy and set itself up in the far left feminist and Marxist camp.[1] Gillette implied the best of men is bullying, rape, and toxic.
They asked “Is this the best a man can get? Is it?” Challenging. As if that’s what anyone ever thought “the best” was. As if that’s what most men were in the first place.
But of course, no one’s allowed to say that anymore. It’s a “sexist argument”. It’s “derailment[2]”. You can’t say “Not all men[3][4][5][6][7]” Even though it is true - not even MOST men bully. Or rape. Or are toxic. On any objective standard. Yes,there’s too much bullying. And rape, and toxicity.
Yet this argument has already set itself up that all men behave in this manner - and if you don’t, kindly shut up, this argument isn't about you. Now any defense of men has been declared misogynist. Any defense of any particular man is misogynist. The standard is collective guilt.
Everything that follows is now poisoned. Because Gillette poisoned it. My dad recognized what those lines were invoking. He understood the ad was invoking a far left Marxist oppressors/oppressed framework of thinking about relationships.
It’s been going on far too long
We can’t laugh it off, Making the same old excuses >> Boys will be boys / boys will be boys / boys will be boys
You know this is ridiculous. Very few people laugh off bullying or rape. Oh - it’s been dismissed, all right - but “boys will be boys”? Really? Putting this again in the context of #metoo which was explicitly about sexual harassment and rape - and again, the first sentences framed it that every man was guilty.
Every man, in every community, no matter what his record, no matter how his business handled things, no matter how he conducted his private life, bears this collective shame. The wall of men barbecuing, mindlessly repeating the mantra proves the point.
And of course, we know this is inherently wrong with any other group - but for some reason, it’s fine when the target is men. Because “power”. Those are THE RULES™ . (Helen Pluckrose has written an excellent rebuttal to this)
I've been raped. I've been harassed. I've been offered a quid pro quo in a professional capacity. I've been fired for being a whistle blower. I've had a campus police officer BLAME ME for being stalked. Heaven knows I’m 100% aware of exactly how many people out there view other people as things to be used.
But I also had men stand up for me, defend me, help me, teach me, and protect me. Including my father. And those men are the majority. The bad ones - they are too frequent, but they are not the standard. This way of thinking about men - categorizing them as a group - it’s inherently evil.
But something finally changed >> allegations regarding sexual assault and sexual harassment >> toxic masculinity
And we’re back to “Toxic Masculinity”. The APA issued a report defining “traditional masculinity” as harmful. The psychologists behind the report, unsurprisingly, discuss the harmful role of the Patriarchy, again going back to far left.
“Traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.”[8] It also eschews “stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression”.
You know, my dad is very stoic[9], sometimes to the point of being frustrating - but he wept when his father died. I was with him then. He’s found a few other occasions that emotion overwhelmed him. Masculine strength isn't from some twisted self-denial. It comes from discipline, faith, and love, and the support of family as well.
And there will be no going back Because we? We believe in the best in men >>>> Men need to hold other men accountable
Well whoop-de-doo. Pat yourself on the back. That’s what moral men have been doing for millennia.
Oh, right, a lot of people don’t do that whole God and church and Bible and Jesus thing do they? So I guess they need their razor company to tell them this.
To say the right thing To act the right way
Some already are In ways big and small
But some is not enough >>> that’s not how we treat each other, ok? Because the boys watching today Will be the men of tomorrow
The sad thing is he never even got to this part. This part he’d agree with - this part is completely uncontroversial. This is the part he’s lived his entire life by. This is what his dad taught him. His mom, too, for that matter. Because real men treat other people with respect.
If you asked him, my dad would tell you His strength comes from discipline and his faith in God.
And if you’re really hungry for knowing how to live a good life, there’s a Good Book he can recommend. https://www.bible.com/
On the spiritual plane, which I commend her for including, the work of both inciting men into acting abusive as well as using that to demasculinize men - along with the blurring of the uniquely compatible and complimentary distinctions btwn men and women - is from the devil, who seek to pervert what God has ordained.
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13. KJV)
The ad strongly implies men are not like this and they need to change.
Bad men are the exception.
Simple. No “man” should question another man’s manhood. Unless the clown being questioned is a bona fide ass muncher..
Let me mansplain something to you: boys will be boys. To ask them to stop grabbing random women from behind is like asking them to grow up. Without a moral system centered on God and the Bible, you can’t grow spiritually. So without it they need to be constantly reminded what grown-ups are not supposed to do.
Real women don’t want beta males.
You know what?
I am 72 years old and I have never even once seen a guy grab a random woman’s derriere.
She says she understands it’s turn off and then rationalizes it.
I’m not bothered by the Gillette commercial. I’m just never ever going to buy any Gillette projects again because of it.
Of course, they’ll keep advertising and selling it, and I’ll keep not buying it.
I may sue them though for not showing a trigger warning before the actual commercial, because I was deeply offended it by it.
It’s called piling on. I don’t have a problem with it. Just their motives.
Back in the 50s, my dad was stern about never, ever, hitting a girl. Ever. And no name calling. No racist words. No stealing. Work hard cause the world doesn’t owe me a thing. Be responsible. And, even at 11, I better not miss a house on my 5 a.m. paper route. And never loan my bike to anyone.
“so many?”, I thought the exec said there were only a few complaints.
Be patient, just wait, the wheels of justice grind slowly.
“Boys will be boys” has always been said with affection in my family.
It never did mean any of those negative things because the boys don’t live negative lives.
“so many?”, I thought the exec said there were only a few complaints.
Be patient, just wait, the wheels of justice grind slowly.
Sorry..
I read that Steve Spurrier had a rule.
Hit a girl and you are off the team.
A lot of coaches let them beat, rape etc. and stay on the team. Tom Osborne comes to mind.
Cuz ain't NONE of THOSE gonna happen, except in a few lib households. If recognizing that boys behave like ... boys ... is somehow offensive, then things acting like the things they are must be offensive. And since most things act like what they are, there's a whole lotta offense goin' 'round.
I've never once seen this actually happen. Except maybe in some movies.
Hear, hear.
Wimpy guys in skinny jeans are such a turn off.
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