Looking in the Mirror

This week Gillette published an advertisement that made the polite suggestion that men should consider working toward being better people and treating everyone with dignity and respect. And while I'm sure that someone at the corporation crunched numbers and concluded that aligning themselves with current social trends would be good for the bottom line, I also don't have any reason to think that the sentiment on display wasn't a genuine reflection of the company's values. Many people seemed to like it; one friend of mine called it, "Powerful." But of course, the video also got some (rather predictable) people so upset they had to complain about it on the Internet.

I thought I might write some sort of impassioned response to this backlash. Perhaps I would describe how I'm raising my sons to be strong men, and what I mean by that phrase. Maybe I would write about the implications of "courtesy" being the first tenet of the martial art I've practiced for over two decades. Or I could dive into the fundamental insecurities and paranoia of "men's rights activists" (a phrase I continue to find hilarious), or discuss how those fears make them easy targets for manipulation.

The more I considered it, however, the less I found I had to say. If you find an advertisement that gently suggests men should treat women as equals offensive, perhaps you're part of the problem. If you are enraged when a company states that it would be a good idea to teach your kids empathy, perhaps you have more problems than your choice of grooming product. If you find that society continuing to move (however slowly) toward more inclusion, respect, and equality is a scary prospect, you should take a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror and consider why that might be. Perhaps you could do it when you're shaving.

In the end, my reaction to anyone offended by this advertisement was a mix of two things: contempt for those who consider their ability to engage in ignorant, misogynistic behavior a central part of their identity, and pity that they are unable to find the courage to change when it's pointed out.