CNN Panel on Gillette Ad Attacking ‘Toxic Masculinity’: ‘What’s Controversial About Saying Those Things’

EXCERPT:

BERMAN: “Let me read you two people who don’t like the ad so that people know what some of the criticism is out there. And this is Piers Morgan writing from the U.K., apparently where he shaves. He says, 'I’ve used Gillette razors my entire adult life but this is absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity. Let boys be damn boys. Let men be damn men.' Now, the other side of that is from Vox, from Kaitlyn Tiffany, a Vox reporter who writes, 'This ad is a misfire, in that it is blatant attempt to make money off a painful and ongoing collective action that has not even an indirect relationship to face razors ... it is inherently nonsensical to use feminism to sell men's grooming products.' So, Kristen, where do you fall on the Vox/Piers Morgan spectrum?
POWERS: “I like the ad. Actually I thought it was great. And I think that the issue of privilege which I think a lot of people don't understand means that you here in a position to — as a man for example, male privilege — you’re in a position that a woman is not in in certain situations, especially because you might be there when the inappropriate comments are being made about a co-worker or another situation that you could be out with your friend and he’s misbehaving towards a woman, and you can actually intervene in a way that women can’t intervene. And so I think this ad is really about telling men, you know, to use that privilege to -- to step in when you see other things that are happening that shouldn’t be happening, to be aware of it on your own. I think — I guess people are outraged because they don’t want to hear that men sometimes behave in a toxic way. I don’t think it’s saying all men behave this way, I don’t think anybody believes that. But the fact is men have behaved for a long time in a lot of ways that even some of my male friends during Me Too started saying to me, like, I’m looking back, I’m reflecting on my life and I can see there’s some times that I probably crossed the line and I didn’t realize that. And that’s the kind of reflection you want to have.”