As to toxic masculinity, I have an essay about that floating around if people are curious, but, suffice to say, I think there is such a thing as "toxic masculinity", but it is a result of the progressive movements of the 20th century esp. the the Sexual Revolution, and the conflicts surrounding it are due to the conflation of traditional family-oriented masculinity with post sexual revolution sex-oriented masculinity.
It's literally the most common symptoms of depression in men, that's what "toxic masculinity" is.
OTOH, calling for guys to be careful of not letting things get toxic, of not ignoring the boy pushing another one down and just calling it "Boys will be boys", I don't see that as "we're all a part of the problem", I see that as encouraging people to not be complacent about these things. There is such a thing as toxic masculinity, and it should be watched for.
That is just me, of course, and clearly others felt the video was being condescending to them.
If Gillette made an ad telling
all black men to stop murdering people (seeing as they are roughly committing
50% of murders in the U.S. every year despite being like 6% of the population, and responsible for a little under 30% of rapes), which of these three things could it be perceived as attacking: black men, "toxic blackness", or black crime?
I mean, the message is not simply "This is a bad thing, don't do it.", but "
Most of you are doing these bad things, start doing these good things."
Which is a curious message, since it doesn't explain
why the bad stuff is bad, which implies the creator believes the audience already knows it is bad, something that shouldn't be possible if "it's always been like this" like the ad claims.
An interesting assumption to make, given that men raised in single-parent households(80% of which are single-mother) account for 70% of prison inmates, and it probably is no coincidence that over 50% of black children are living in single-parent(again, predominantly single-mother) households while black men commit roughly 50% of murders(and violent crimes in general) in the US.
But maybe they get infected with "toxic masculinity" by male authority figures
outside the home? Like for example, School, that bastion of machismo where an entire quarter(one fourth!) of the teachers are male.
...
Maybe they get it from all of those male counselors(almost 30%), or assorted types of social workers(18%)?
Someone can say to a demographics "Stop raping and pillaging all over the coast while wearing your stupid horned helmets! You're setting a bad example for your kids by engaging and condoning this aspect of your culture!", and if you were to reply with "Raping and pillaging is indeed bad, and horned helmets are not only stupid, but impractical! So this is definitely a message the demographic should hear!", most people wouldn't see anything wrong with it, until someone notices that members of the demographic raised by the previous generation of said demographic are considerably less likely to rape, pillage and wear horned helmets, as opposed to those members that have been raised without the influence of said demographics' previous generations in their personal life.
The message of the ad rests on the premise of there being an issue with current masculinity that men should not pass to next generation, when the issue seems to be that men aren't being passed current masculinity in the first place.
This is the opening to the ad:
*overheard by men on the radio while they do things, or by watching TV*
"Bullying"
"The #MeToo movement against sexual harrassment"
"Toxic Masculinity"
*Narrator*
"Is this the best a man can get?"
*Skipping a little, after a bunch bullying and abuse happening to the backdrop of 'traditional families' as envisioned in thr 1950s *
"Something finally changed."
This seems like it's blaming almost all men for the problem.
Which is bullshit, since it's not most men's fault that boys without decent masculine role models in their personal lifes turn to the delusions peddled by the maladjusted drug-addled perverts in entertainment media for examples of proper masculine behavior.