Go back and read part 1 if you haven’t yet.

It ended with:  “This doesn’t call for abolition, it calls for wisdom.”

Later in the conversation about the ad, I wrote:

I know that I cannot know the motives or internal workings of the company… maybe they meant it to be shaming or scolding or even politically progressive, but these are generally messages that I have been teaching for years. Of course, there are appropriate times to say, “boys will be boys” (rough and tumble play*, messy, kinetic) or “walk it off” or “toughen up”, and of course there are times when those are the incorrect messages (bullying, foolish, abusive). There are times to be angry and violent and times to be tolerant and still.  Wisdom is not antithetical to strength.

This, like anything that is a conversation about power, can be related to fire.  Is fire toxic?  Is it bad? Well, it certainly can be!

So, is the solution to stamp out fire?  Put an end to fire?  Demonize fire?  Yeah, good luck with that.  We need it to survive as a species.

We don’t need to criminalize or diagnose fire.  Of course, that doesn’t mean we need to let it loose in our homes… We need fireplaces.  Powerful things need to be expressed in healthy ways rather that merely avoided.

Anytime there is power, there will be people afraid of it.  But wise people will seek to understand and wield it wisely and maturely.

The third error is in thinking that society doesn’t NEED men (and sometimes women) to at times be stoic, aggressive, etc.  Notice that even in this ad, all of the good men at the end, who step up, do so physically.  Do you think they might be afraid to step up?

Having done it, I can answer.  Yes, he is. His adrenaline is surging.  Confronting an unsafe person is not easy even if you are a man.

Predatory men are not safe and they sometimes snap.

The man in the ad is smiling, but the truth is that he might be in a fight in the next few seconds.  He had better be stoic enough to act despite his fear, aggressive enough to stand up to another man, dominate enough to go face to face with him… he needs courage (perhaps the most traditional trait of traditional masculinity, incidentally).

What does a man risk to step into a bullying situation?   Humiliation, defeat, disdain, and pain.  We had better not tamp or tame down the traits that allow a man to have the will to act.

The man who stops the other man from disrespecting the woman walking past… what do we call his expression of masculinity?  Certainly, I would say it isn’t toxic (I wonder if more progressive feminists would agree – is he not “rescuing” a woman?  Isn’t it offensive to think that a woman would want him to help? – honestly, this was the audience who I thought would be offended by the commercial).

If his masculinity isn’t toxic, what is it?

Wholesome?

Potent?

Healthy?

Robust?

Flourishing?

Sound?

(all antonyms to “toxic”)

The problem isn’t masculinity, it is toxic masculinity.

In my opinion that is the message of this ad and why I wasn’t bothered at all by it.

And this brings me to the point of this article.

Of course, there is such a thing as toxic masculinity.

It is the enemy of real men.  NOT masculinity.  Toxins. Men protect.  Especially we protect from things that hurt and kill those weaker.  We might call those things toxins.

The problem isn’t masculinity.  It is toxicity that is the problem, not matter what the word modifies!

There is also wholesome masculinity.  Like fire, or anything else powerful (consider femininity as another example) it can be powerful and toxic or powerful and healthy.

This ad felt like it understood this difference to me.  I am not sure why it didn’t to other men.  Maybe they were reading into the motives of the shaving company.

My one issue with the ad.

My one issue with the commercial is this:

It seems to imply that something changed about masculinity because of the recent “me too” movement. That men were now starting to make these changes.

Let me break it to you: this battle between Toxic masculinity and Wholesome masculinity has been going on for thousands of years.  I consider that I have been a part of fighting it since middle school when I stood up to a boy older, faster and stronger than me who was bullying other kids… or maybe it was in elementary school when a friend and I stood up to bullies at swimming lessons… or in the marriage and individual counseling with men and boys or maybe when we started programs to help boys learn to live as godly men… the battle is ongoing and almost nonstop.

This is not a new battle to most of us men – and that doesn’t even include the internal battle of defeating the self-absorbed, scared, defensive tyrannical boy inside of our own souls (which toxic men embrace rather than battle).

The population at large is being exposed to this war in new ways in the US.  I hope that ends up being a good thing.

In fact, I would have said “traditional masculinity” is marked by chivalry, nobility, strength, generativity and responsibility.

I think the APA should have called the problems “toxic” and not “traditional.” That error shows the APA’s bias toward anything progressive and disdain for anything “traditional” more than anything else.

The reason that this was not enough to make me dislike the ad was because it admits that “some” have already been doing it.  But that “some” is not enough.  We need to train up, with words and actions, an even stronger generation of men.

I agree.

Reference:

APA Article:  https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner.aspx

(*Incidentally, with kids, if everyone is smiling, it is probably play.  When someone stops smiling, it is probably not play for them anymore and an adult may need to step in, like in the commercial.)