Welcome back! This week was an interesting week. We did something I definitely did not expect to do in a university- arts & crafts.
We were supposed to do a little project on what we thought feminism was in 2020. Our original idea was from the prevalence of maid agencies in Singapore. We felt that while the word is not necessarily gender-bound, we have very feminine connotations about the term “maid”. We immediately assume a maid is a female, and we assume certain traits about them- maternal, being agreeable, etc.
So, with the help of an Ikea catalog and a kitchen magazine, we plastered this together. We created what a regular maid agency poster may look like, however we put a male on it (dude looks pretty happy to be there). We also plastered more female-assuming terms on there to drive the point home.
It was great working with my group mates, and I’m not just saying this because they’re forced to comment on my blog. For a brief moment I was mindful of how many gender-assuming adjectives we use. Sometimes it’s not a big deal, sometimes it adds to an unhelpful stigma.
Feminism in the public sphere
The video is one that has made it’s rounds. You’ve probably seen it, actually. A short film by Gillete about men calling other men out for toxic masculinity. I felt this video was very relevant, and especially to my group, since we were trying to convey gender-assuming words that can be harmful. The video tells men to do better and to call out others when they display toxic masculinity, like for example, using female-slanted names as derogatory words.
For the record, I think Gillete razors are trash. But the short film is great. It also triggered the regular hyper-masculine crowd. Below is an example:
Of course, the hyper-masculine crowd still have wallets, and Gillete did lose $5 billion USD in the following quarter, according to a summit.news article. That said, the support for the campaign was impressive, and drove a few great arguments into common discussion.
According to Cerón from a thecut.com article, the Brand Ambassador of Gillete said “We expected debate. Actually a discussion is necessary. If we don’t discuss and don’t talk about it, I don’t think real change will happen.” I think that’s great, because it really did bring discussion into the mediated public sphere. Better yet, it showed the public that misogynists don’t really have that good of an argument, they just cling to values that aren’t really relevant.
That is a great pro of the mediated public sphere. We can all decide and debate with nuance and individual thought, rather than let people who may not represent us properly do it. I would assume 20 years ago, something like this would be swept under the rug, since we’d have people who represented us as a whole but maybe not really care about topics like this debate about it.
Anyway, that’s all for this week! See you guys next time!
References:
Cerón, E. (2019). MRAs Outraged After Razor Company Asks Men to Show Common Decency. The Cut. Retrieved 5 March 2020, from https://www.thecut.com/2019/01/gillette-the-best-men-can-be-commercial-backlash.html.
Watson, P. (2019). Procter & Gamble Loses $5 Billion Dollars Following ‘Woke’ Gillette Ad Campaign. Summit.news. Retrieved 5 March 2020, from https://summit.news/2019/07/31/procter-gamble-loses-5-billion-dollars-following-woke-gillette-ad-campaign/.
shern.health.blog 
Hey Shern, a very interesting post you have today. As men that have served NS we are very familiar with the toxic masculinity culture that exists in it. We are told about what men should be like and how NS is about being tough like our fathers. Your example was intriguing as it got me thinking about how men treat other men. And even though its not the same as feminism there are still similarities like social norms as well as expected behaviour. In the age of the Internet we are also free to discuss such topics online with others. I believe that such toxic masculinity will be reduced given enough time, as more people pour their opinions and life experiences. I hope that people learn that men do not need to be the masculine male figure that has been portrayed in movies, as that is both unrealistic and narrow minded.
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