<rant>
Attention men that are publicly objecting to the Gillette commercial!
You do realize that this is like waving your arms in the air and yelling that you don’t want men to be held accountable for sexual abuse, harassment, and bullying, don’t you? I know, I know, you don’t see it like that but, trust me, that is how the rest of the world sees it. I hope you never have to come to a guy like me to ask for a job. If Gillette can see your post, so can the future employers ofthe world. I don’t know, maybe you are wired differently than I am, because this actually makes no sense to me, and I have been struggling to get my head around how anyone could possibly be offended by this ad.
The only possible reasons I can come up with are these:
1) you don’t believe these things happen
2) you don’t want to hear about these bad things
3) you think they are blaming all men, and you
4) you used to be one of those men and you are afraid of your past
5) you ARE one of these men and you hate that they are calling you out.
6) I guess it could also be one of those stupid bro-code things. It had better not be, as that would be very disappointing, and we would have to kick you out of the man club.
Try as I might, I can’t think of a single other possible reason.
1 & 2 are for the truly stupid amongst us, and I won’t even bother responding to them.
3) If you are worried that they are blaming all men, and you in particular, for the actions of a few, well, they aren’t. Don’t worry. Just continue to prove to the world that you aren’t one of those men, like you have been doing all of your life. It isn’t hard. Every person that knows you, and loves you, knows that you aren’t one of these men. You are safe. Gillette is just trying to encourage other men to be more like you. Feel good about yourself and sit the hell down.
4)If you once did some stupid stuff, and you are worried that it is going to come back to haunt you, well, that is tricky. I don’t know what to offer for advice, but don’t you really wish that some of your friends had been around at the time, and had helped you to NOT do whatever it was that you did? I sure hope so, and so does Gillette.
5) If you ARE one of these men, well, whatever, it sucks to be you dude. Trying to stop the ennobling of the minds of men and exposing more vulnerable people to lifelong damage, for the sole purpose of covering up your transgressions, is an absolutely enormous act of cowardice and selfishness. Man up. Just man up, using the good man version this time.
6) It had better not be number six, you wankers…
</rant>