We live in interesting times. I see both sides of it. Part of my wants to say that this is no different than when a man tells a woman to smile. This is women saying “calm down." or “be more sensitive and peaceable.".
I don’t believe for a second that this message wasn’t crafted by people I don’t want the message to come from…but that’s just negative confirmation bias, right?
In fairness, it’s not a bad message, if taken as honest, straight forward, with no ulterior motives….but there’s the rub. We’re convinced there’s bad intent here.
It’s the kind of message we want to get from our fathers – and many of us do. We want to get these messages privately because of shame and pride.
How many times has someone sat in a Sexual Harassment training seminar complaining about the reasons and motivations for why he had to be there, since he wasn’t the problem in the company? Our lashing out at this message comes from a similar place. Some of us can’t relate to it because we’re not shit-bags….but some in our society can.
Another part of me likes the ad because it’s empowering men, men with good and ethical instincts, to speak up and be heard. We let too much slide in our society saying that confrontation is bad, to let people live their own lives, and that someone else will be responsible for making things better. We let dog-walkers continue with their day when we see them leave a pile of dog-shit on city or HOA property, we see litter on the side of the road and leave it to city maintenance. We tolerate impatient customers in the check out lane at the retailer, or have crazy incidents at a 7-11 that show the clerk isn’t taking his job seriously. I’ve taken a lot, stayed silent, and chalked it up to patience. I’ve also blown up and acted irrationally. Life is simply a rough balancing act.
But yeah, if there’s one message I do like from this ad, it’s the “don’t be silent." message….good men should be heard from too.