Me Two (Gillette)

Herein my two cents worth on the debate over the Gillette 'the best men can be' ad...

I know it's a little last week but I've been a bit caught up with other things and it's never too late to discuss razors, I feel. Plus I need to get my January blog tally up to a towering two before the month's out. So two is the word of the day.

The Gillette ad popped up fairly promptly in my orbit via an online women's group I follow. It received mostly favourable commentary in response, though some women thought it didn't go far enough to address men's 'unmanly' behaviour, and a few thought it as well a shameless attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the Me Too movement and make some money - probably for men - same as it ever was. And as it got me and other women in the group and no doubt other groups besides to watch an ad that we would have otherwise steered well clear of, then share it, discuss it and even blog about it, there can be no doubt that the ad worked to extend Gillette's market reach, which does stink a bit of the appropriation and exploitation of politics and pain - women's pain - for commercial (probably men's) gain.

Then again the old problem of gender politics being sidelined and trivialised as a 'women's issue' was not going away on its own without men stepping up, with whatever ulterior motive got them to do that if that's what it took, to own the challenges of gender politics as theirs too, and I think for that reason the ad, for its definite weaknesses, does quite well. At least it's a start as far as the world of advertising goes, which is a pretty big and historically far from feminist-friendly world.

However I do have one concern about the ad, I regret that its main message, the call to arms for men to step up and be better in their behaviour towards women was diluted and distracted by the inclusion of a segment on very young boys play fighting and their fighting being broken up by a gently-spoken man. In my experience having raised two boys and seen many more raised, play fighting amongst boys is natural and has nothing to do with boys developing toxic attitudes in adulthood about male superiority and the entitlement to dominate, demean and abuse women, a connection that is implied in the ad. And if the main issue is fudged in this way it not only lessens its political potential to actually change minds and behaviour for good, but it is likely to aggravate those men who are most reluctant to accept that change is needed, as indeed it appears to have done in this case.

If we are serious about challenging toxic masculinity and creating a more gender just world, as increasing numbers of people are, the focus needs to be on changing what boys are taught about girls and women through the role-modelling of their fathers and other men they know and see on their screens, teaching that to date, sadly, has been generally encouraging of sexist attitudes and behaviours, with females consistently treated and represented as sexy and or stupid and invariably secondary to men. And the ad fails a little here too, because women are hardly in it.

Still, it's a start and it gets more right than wrong, which in the fraught world of gender politics is to be commended. And therein is my two-cents worth. Now I'm off to shave my chin.

Really, Sarah Silverman?

Don't be a silver man, Silverman, be a golden woman...

'I heart you, America?' Really, Sarah? I can think of another h-word more fitting than heart for a woman living in the US today. And it's no surprise to me that the show on Hulu was cancelled after one season, even if this was, according to some, because it was too left-wing and PC.

Rubbish I say; it just wasn't funny (I never saw it but that's the word on the street) and I am not surprised, because Silverman seems to have come to politics a little late and with a degree of naivety that is frankly disappointing and very unfunny.

Her choice in 2016 to be an outspoken advocate for Bernie Sanders (he was apparently a guest on her show; enough said) before coming round to support Clinton too little too late, being a case in point. She did nobody any favours with that first major public political decision of hers, in my opinion.

I like her comedy, generally, and think she's pretty sharp and daring too, which is good in a comic. But since the election flip-flop and then more recently her decision to tell the world that she sometimes used to like watching Louis C.K masturbate (though sometimes not too) and that it was different for her than it was for those other women who very much did not like being pressured into watching him masturbate because she and Louis were 'equals' and he had 'nothing to offer her', I kind of have a last-straw feeling about her comedy and character now.

Her long friendship with Louis obviously put her in a difficult position since he was exposed as a serial masturbater and pervert, but deciding to attempt to support him in this way that clearly added insult to injury for the victims of his perversion by implying that these other women were victimised because they weren't Louis' equal, is hard to reconcile with a person who actually understands or cares anything about the seriousness of the endemic sexual abuse and harassment of women by men, especially men in positions of power. It's so not reading the room, which is something a comic should be good at.

Perhaps they should get a room (do a show together).

Sure she has a right to 'speak her truth' and see the world her own way and not empathise with women victimised by men because she personally hasn't suffered it. But I don't have to like it. It's just so fucking old to be confronted by yet another influential, successful woman whose first reflex is to support and defend a powerful man (indeed men) rather than the less powerful, some of them career-ruined, people of her own gender who have been victimised by that man and had to hide their wounds for years or risk losing their careers.

Her apology when one of his victims stood up to her comment was genuine enough, but the woman, who was clearly re-victimised by Silverman's cocky assumption that it was different for her, did not seem to think it was enough.

And she is right. If we want true gender equality, it's not enough for one or two of us to get it at the expense of the rest. Indeed that minority success of a few women has been a major obstacle to real equality for women for centuries. What we want is an equality where we all get to live with a sense that men (and other women) recognise our shared and equal humanity. No one who makes another person watch them masturbate, clearly against their will, cares about that person's humanity. That's the bottom line, and the top line too, and Louis needs to own it and apologise for that and explain it in full. What was he thinking? Was he thinking? If not why not? Let's have it out either way. It's your turn to squirm, Louis.

So I say don't be a silver man Silverman, be a golden woman and get Louis to apologise and explain himself properly and humbly. Never mind feeling the Bern, get Louis to feel the squirm, as he got all those women to squirm, and you might just redeem yourself. Now is not the time for naive politics and patriotism. Now is the time to get them to feel the squirm.

Happy New Year...
(This was developed from an earlier unpublished post of mine but seeing that Louis is still making mistakes in his ill-judged attempted comeback, I figure it is topical enough).