jam40jeff

Sure, but there's a huge difference between acting irresponsibly (and in turn harming yourself) and harming others.

I would say bullying is an activity which women and men both take part in, but then it clearly isn't tied to masculinity or femininity. Plus, we already have a First Lady who has pretty much stamped out all bullying already with her tireless efforts. Be Best!

Are there as many societal problems caused by "ladylike" behaviors? Is there an epidemic of violent crime among women who are too feminine? Is there a culture of harassment in the workplace among women aimed at men? Do women regularly get men drunk and rape them because the men were wearing tight shirts showing off their biceps and "asking for it"?

2%? I'm pretty certain it's significantly higher than that. Regardless, the ad makes it very clear that they aren't talking about all men. Any man who watches that ad and thinks it is about them is doing so because they engage in those behaviors themselves. If they then say the ad is "attacking all men" it's likely because they've rationalized their behavior by telling themselves "all men do it."

@YABO713 I should also add that I think you're still right in a way. Groups that are perceived as being disadvantaged are less often publicly criticized. I think this probably has to do with the fact that many people feel they are already criticized privately more than other mainstream groups, so they shouldn't be publicly criticized as that would seem like piling on. (I'm not sure I'm getting my point across correctly, but I guess I mean that people feel the need to "even things up" and that criticizing the disadvantaged group doesn't work toward that goal.) I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it just seems to be the way it is.

I feel like I have seen things (maybe not an ad, I don't recall exactly) urging women to have respect for themselves and their bodies. However, these issues are not really comparable to the ones brought up about men. In these instances, women are potentially hurting themselves, not others.

Good point. I read the first post and ran with it, never really paying attention to the title of the thread.

Taking a break from all this back and forth over things like terminology, I think it's kind of depressing how something like this ad, which seems fairly innocuous, obvious, and non-controversial, can be made into such a point of contention these days.

Well, there are much greater biological differences between sexes than between races, so I think it has always been much more acceptable to group people that way. Do you not find Colored and Whites Only restroom facilities to be more offensive than Mens and Womens restrooms? The ad also isn't placing any responsibility on the good men to help "those others". It's using those men as examples of what the others should aspire to be.

The commercial displays specific behaviors (bullying, harassing women, violence) as being unacceptable. It mentions that many men do not exhibit these behaviors and even step in to stop them, and praises them for it. It then implores more men to join the side they are displaying as "right." It surely doesn't implicate all men, so I'm not sure why you keep mentioning 3/4+ billion men as being the targets of the ad.

Good point. If the child accurately relayed the comments to his mother, then I think we'd all agree she's wrong. But more than likely, he told her something like "Coach YABO says I need to stop being a wuss when I get hurt and man up." Either way, YABO isn't at fault here.

We have definitely moved away from simply discussing the Gillette ad by now as they don't even mention "toxic masculinity," but I think that's fine. I agree with what you're saying for the most part. I stated above that I don't know how to feel about the term. I get the point it's trying to make, but I also get how it can be construed as combative and therefore unproductive. However, for anything to be persuasive to the general population, it seems it needs to be put into a succinct, palatable, accurate phrase that people can latch onto. That's why we have campaign slogans and trademarks and taglines, etc. "Toxic masculinity" surely isn't perfect for the purpose of raising awareness of (and hopefully helping to improve) these behaviors, but I also haven't heard any better suggestions. "Stereotyped behavioral patterns of groups of people" surely isn't it. ?

I was joking about the "elections" part. I was just trying to say that if we are using a term with the goal of improving undesirable behaviors in certain males, it needs to be a little more...approachable?...than "stereotyped behavioral patterns of groups of people." (Not sure that's the word I'm looking for, but hopefully you know what I mean.)

That's not going to win any elections! ?

I get what you're saying, but then what better term do you have for (what I hope we can agree are) undesirable behaviors that are almost exclusively perpetuated by males. (Notice I didn't say that all males exhibit these behaviors, but are we really going to argue that unwanted sexual touching, workplace discrimination, catcalling, violence, etc. aren't all behaviors that are mostly male-oriented?) One thing I think that helped this term come about is that many of the worst male offenders are proud of these behaviors and self-ascribe them to be "manly" in nature. And now I'm not even sure "self-ascribe" is a word. Can somebody who has a better command of the English language help me out here? ?

I suppose some people use it that way, but that was not the original academic intention of the phrase, and I surely wouldn't say it's "clearly" always meant that way.

This conversation is weird. What is so hard to understand about the term "toxic masculinity"? Toxic is an adjective. It modifies the noun masculinity. It doesn't mean that all forms of masculinity are toxic any more than "red car" means all cars are red.

Good to hear. I've never been there, but I really like Aladdin's. And TIL...Taza and Aladdin's are both owned by the same people. I had no idea. I'm probably one of the few weirdos that actually likes Aladdin's better than Taza.

Yes (although it was called Seneca St. at the time). It bent to the left after the first bridge to continue over the second bridge (a swing bridge) onto what is now West 3rd in the flats.

Just in time for Zion!

Ditto, and my wife loved it because she has Celiac disease and they had gluten free pancakes and waffles.

It's not even close to 50,000. Here are the numbers: Cleveland - (58,900) Akron - 11,900 Canton - 22,700 Thus, if you only take Cleveland, Akron, and Canton into account, the surplus is 24,300 jobs. I would bet that Ashtabula, Youngstown, and Sandusky would account for most of that. (Youngstown alone has 18,500 more people in the labor force than jobs, but their residents who work outside the MSA are likely split between multiple MSA and non-MSA areas.) Sources: https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_cleveland_msa.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_akron_msa.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_canton_msa.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_youngstown_msa.htm

I think these numbers show that Cleveland is a much bigger draw for jobs for people living outside the MSA than vice versa. For instance, Ashtabula is not part of the MSA anymore. But I personally know many people who live in Ashtabula and work in either Mentor or Cleveland. I don't know a single person who lives in the Cleveland MSA and works in Ashtabula. As mentioned before, I'm pretty certain many more people living in the Akron MSA in areas we consider to be Cleveland suburbs work in the Cleveland MSA than vice versa. Places like Erie and Huron counties also likely contribute substantially more workers to the Cleveland MSA than jobs to workers that live in the Cleveland MSA. This all adds up to numbers that make it look like there are 60,000 unfilled positions, when likely almost all of them are probably filled by people living outside of the Cleveland MSA, with very little jobs outside of the Cleveland MSA filled by residents of the metro area. This phenomenon is probably more pronounced here than it is in other cities because those cities don't have an Akron 40 miles away which contributes more workers than jobs.

And people do that everywhere. Otherwise, Cheesecake Factory wouldn't be located everywhere. The difference, and I think neil's posts are highlighting this, is that for some reason if you do that in Ohio it's because you're culturally backwards. It's a double standard.

I don't know enough about Cincinnati to be able to say whether your perception of the suburbs there is wrong or if they are in fact quite different to what I am used to in Cleveland and Columbus, but there are plenty of ethnic food options in the suburbs of both cities. Besides, why are we talking solely about suburbs? It's not like the suburbs ANYWHERE are known fro their culture. When people say there's less culture in Ohio, they're thinking of the cities as a whole.