DOES INTERSECTIONALITY PROVIDE THE LONGEST ROAD FROM BOURGEOIS MANNERS TO BOURGEOIS MANNERS?

Gillette recently ran a commercial that invoked contemporary sensibilities, and in so doing, they stepped in a big pile of shaving cream.

Yes, Common Dreams columnist Julia Conley approved of the message, based on the people who took the greatest umbrage.  "So-called 'men's rights activists' are mad that the shaving razor company has started a campaign calling on men to not be misogynists, jerks, and bullies."

She continues,

In fact, the ad shares a positive view of how men are capable of acting respectfully, while the company accepts responsibility for its own role in promoting images of toxic forms of masculinity in decades past.

In light of the #MeToo movement and the current political moment, the narrator says, now, "We believe in the best in men. To say the right things, to act the right way."

It being a Common Dreams column, however, there will be some unusual perspectives on what that right way is.

"Gilette should be commended for its positive message and the good it will do, but we also need to simultaneously recognize the unhealthy affect [c.q.] corporate messaging has on us and disentangle ourselves from that manipulation," wrote journalist Jared Yates Sexton, author of an upcoming book on toxic masculinity.

Cool your jets, everyone, suggests Reason's Robby Soave.

Yes, the ad invokes "toxic masculinity," an ill-defined concept sometimes deployed by the campus left in overbroad ways. But most of the ad depicts men deciding not to bully each other, harass women, or commit violence. Are these really "leftist social priorities"? Do conservatives really wish to portray them as such?

No, but his essay relies heavily on a Ben Shapiro column that notes the absence of gentlemen might be the proximate cause of men behaving badly, which the intellectualoids have turned into toxic masculinity.

We’ve maligned masculinity as a society because men are likely to do the greatest harm to others. The vast majority of violent criminality comes from males; the vast majority of sexual misconduct comes from males. But we’ve made a mistake in blaming the presence of males for that issue. It’s a massive mistake to blame “toxic masculinity” rather than recognizing that toxic masculinity is often the result of a dearth of genuine masculinity — the kind of masculinity that leads men to stick around and father their children in the first place. The alternative to masculine presence is no masculine presence — and lack of masculine presence leads to toxic masculinity, deprived men acting out of hurt and anger.

Mr Soave summarizes, "Young guys need to learn from men who treat women well and act as protectors rather than victimizers, which...is exactly what the Gillette ad called on men to do."

Fine, but let's rediscover the ancient verities, which Mona Charen notes have been deconstructed by ... the intellectualoids who brought us toxic masculinity.

By reflexively rushing to defend men in this context, some conservatives have run smack into an irony. Imagining themselves to be men’s champions, they are actually defending behavior, like sexual harassment and bullying, that a generation or two ago conservatives were the ones condemning. Sexual license, crude language, and retreat from personal responsibility were the hallmarks of the left. It was to épate la bourgeoisie that leftists chanted “Up against the wall, motherfu**ers” on college campuses. Liberals were the crowd saying,“Let it all hang out,” “If it feels good, do it,” and “Chaste makes waste.” Feminists were the ones eyeing daggers at men who held chairs or doors for them, and insisting that a “woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

The Left won that cultural battle. Standards of conduct for both sexes went out the window. Whereas men had once been raised to behave themselves in front of women — “Watch your language, there are ladies present” — they were instead invited to believe that women deserved no special consideration at all.

As I’ve written many times, the Me Too movement may conceive of itself as a protest of “traditional masculinity,” but that’s only because memories are short. It’s actually a protest against the libertine culture the sexual revolution ushered in. Some men are behaving really badly — harassing women, bullying each other, and failing in their family responsibilities. Some women are too, though the Me Too movement doesn’t acknowledge that aspect of things. But these behaviors are not “traditional.” They’ve always existed, of course, but they went mainstream with the counterculture, which is now the culture. In any case, everyone, left and right, who values decent behavior should be able to agree that encouraging men to be non-violent, polite, and respectful is not anti-male. It’s just civilized.

Yes, exactly as we have noted for years.  She concludes,

Conservatives should applaud that aspect of the Gillette message. Progressives, in turn, should grapple with the overwhelming evidence that the best way to raise honorable men is with two parents. We may wish it were otherwise, but fathers — as disciplinarians, role models, and loving husbands — are key to rearing happy, healthy, and responsible sons as well as self-confident, happy, and high-achieving daughters.

Power Line's John Hinderaker is less disposed to be conciliatory.

[I]t seems that the more liberals yammer about sexual harassment, rape, etc., the more harassment and rape they commit. On the whole, I would guess that men of the 50s were more honorable, on the average, than men today. For what it’s worth, the forcible rape rate per 100,000 [people] is several times higher now than it was in 1960–the golden age, I take it, of “toxic masculinity.”

Nor should militant Normals back down, all this talk of Gillette implicitly celebrating gentlemanly behavior notwithstanding.  Here's Glenn "Insta Pundit" Reynolds.

Men are used to being treated badly on TV shows and in ads, because women control most discretionary spending. But now men are even being treated badly in ads for the products they themselves buy. Advertisers thinking they can get away with that is a pretty open expression of contempt. And the contempt is being returned.

Gillette, therefore, is in a difficult place, as if they're explaining, they're losing.

Gillette is in a pickle here. They have needlessly offended customers, but apologizing for the ad would probably just make the situation worse. In the unsubtle world of corporate messaging, an apology would be read as a wholesale abandonment of the message. “Actually, we changed our minds. Sexual harassment isn’t that big of a deal. As you were!”

What Gillette can do is learn from this incident. It might even be possible to do some damage control if they think through their next step more carefully. I don’t really expect a shaving company to teach boys how to be men, but positive messaging for boys is so sorely needed right now that I’d cheerfully accept it from almost anyone with a platform.

That's Rachel Lu writing in The American Conservative, and she's apparently young enough that "restore a state of good repair" isn't in her lexicon.

Young men need discipline, today as ever, and sometimes that does call for policing of a #MeToo variety. Especially in our time, though, young men also need to be assured that they have the potential to be more than just barely controlled reprobates. It shouldn’t be too hard to send that message, because manly excellence is appealing to almost every audience. (That’s why movies and television dramas are generally well-stocked with brilliant, brave, and brawny men.) Even if it’s just corporate virtue-signaling, I’m prepared to applaud anyone who successfully persuades American boys that “you too can be excellent!” It’ll have to be better than this though. After a century of manufacturing men’s products, Gillette should know a little bit more than what it’s shown so far.

You'd think a lady writing in a conservative forum might understand that in the four thousand or years or so of human interaction we might have had a few things right before the 1960s came along.