The Daily Signal - #376: Women Are Hurt By Abortion, the Sexual Revolution

Episode Date: January 16, 2019

Ignore the Women's March: women are actually hurt by abortion and the sexual revolution. Lila Rose of Live Action joins us to discuss that, why she has hope for Gen Z, and how you can change peoples' minds on abortion. Plus: Jarrett Stepman joins us to chat about the controversial view of masculinity in a  new Gillette ad.We also cover these stories:--A federal judge orders the Trump administration not to ask a question about citizenship in the upcoming 2020 census.--The Pentagon has decided to keep troops on the border through September.--There’s a new caravan starting in the Honduras, with hundreds headed to Mexico or the U.S.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the Nissan Black Friday event where you can... Wait, wait. Isn't it like a month long now? Nissan Black Friday Month? Does that work? It's the Nissan Black Friday Month event. On remaining 2025 Rogan Centra, get 0% financing. Plus, get $1,000 Nissan bonus on kicks models.

This Black Friday, you've got a whole month to catch all the exclusive offers waiting for you. See your local Nissan dealer or nisson.ca for details. Conditions apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, January 16th. I'm Kate Trankow. And I'm Daniel Davis. Well, if you only listen to pro-choice groups, you might think that women's rights really boils down to abortion. But Lila Rose has a very different take.

She says that sexual revolution actually hijacked women's rights and turned it into something it never should have been. We'll have her unpack all of that in today's episode. Plus, Gillette makes war on toxic masculinity. But could there be a deeper monetary fit? factor at play we'll discuss. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Today is the second day of confirmation hearings for William Barr, President Trump's pick for Attorney General and himself, a former Attorney General during the first Bush administration. Here's one exchange between Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and Barr. A number of my colleagues on both sides

have asked and I'll bet you'll hear more questions along the line of what would be your breaking point, When would you pick up and leave? When is your Jim Mattis moment when the president has asked you to do something which you think is inconsistent with your oath? Doesn't that give you some pause as you embark on this journey? It might give me pause if I was 45 or 50 years old, but it doesn't give me pause right now. Because I had a very good life. I have a very good life. I love it.

But I also want to help in this circumstance. And I am not going to do anything that I think is wrong. And I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president. I'm going to do what I think is right. Barr also was asked about the Russian investigation, including by Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. When directed by President Nixon to fire the special counsel, the prosecutor investigating Watergate, Richardson refused and resigned instead, as we all well know. If the president directed you to change those regulations and then fire Mueller or simply directly fired Mueller, would you follow Richardson's example and resign instead? Assuming there was no good cause?

Assuming no good cause. I would not carry out that instruction. Well, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration not to ask a question about citizenship in the upcoming 2020 census. Trump administration had been planning to add a question about citizenship status, but U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said that the question ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act, and he called the question arbitrary and capricious. Experts expect the case will be appealed all the way to. of the Supreme Court.

GOP leadership in the House has taken Representative Steve King of Iowa, a Republican, off the judiciary and agriculture committees following controversy over remarks he made in an interview with the New York Times, which quoted him as saying, White Nationalists, White Supremicist, Western Civilization, how did that language become offensive? End quote. King issued a statement in response saying, quote, The decision to remove me from committees is a political.

decision that ignores the truth. Anne said his quote was completely mischaracterized. King says he was only referring to Western civilization as language that had concerned him about becoming offensive not to white nationalism. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican

of Texas, weighed in on the controversy in an interview with NBC Sunday. What Steve King said was stupid. It was stupid. It was hurtful. It was wrong. And he needs to stop it. I think all of us ought to be united. regardless of party and saying white supremacism, white nationalism is hatred, it is bigotry,

it is evil, it is wrong. And I think we need that clarity. And I'm certainly going to urge everyone to provide that clarity. Well, the Pentagon has decided to keep troops on the border longer than initially planned. The military deployed troops to the border last October, but they were only set to stay there through January. Now they'll stay there through September. Since the initial deployment, caravans have attempted to cross into the United States, and Border Patrol remains busy as ever apprehending border crossers. But some Democrats in Congress are dismissing the move as political. Well, there's a new caravan starting in the Honduras with the Associated Press reporting that hundreds of Honduras have joined and are looking to come to Mexico or the U.S.

President Trump tweeted, A big new caravan is heading up to our southern border from Honduras. Tell Nancy, meaning Pelosi and Chuck, meaning Schumer, that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a wall will work. Only a wall or steel barrier will keep our country safe. Stop playing political games and end the shutdown. Well, teachers in L.A. are on strike this week, putting half a million kids out of school indefinitely. The strike came as negotiations broke down between the teachers' union and the local school district.

The strike could last for days and perhaps weeks. officials say that meeting all the teacher's demands would bankrupt the system, which is already struggling to meet pensions and health care costs. Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal met with a big defeat Thursday with the final parliament vote being 432 to 202. Leftist British politician Jeremy Corbyn didn't mince words when discussing it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The results of tonight's vote is the greatest defeat for a government since the 1920s in this House. This is a catastrophic.

defeat for this government. After two years of failed negotiations, the House of Commons has delivered its verdict on her Brexit deal. And that verdict is absolutely decisive. Corbyn moved forward a no-confidence vote, which could lead to the end of May's tenure as Prime Minister and even potentially to a new election in Britain. Well, up next we'll talk to Lila Rose of live action to discuss how the sexual revolution hijacked women's rights. Do conversations about the Supreme Court, you scratching your head, then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. So this week we'll have the March for Life in Washington, D.C. this Friday, which always

attracts the crowd of thousands and thousands. Really amazing how many every year joined a March in the Cold, especially how many young adults. And then, of course, next week will March the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. So we're joined today by Lila Rose, the founder and president of live action, a nonprofit that focuses on changing opinions about abortion. Lila, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Kate. Okay, so first off, how do you actually change opinions on abortion? Great question.

This is where we spend our days thinking about this all day. And what we found, the number one way to change minds on abortion is to actually show them what abortion is in a way that's non-threatening. So that's a little hard to do because abortion is this horrific violencing of a human life in the womb, but we've actually created a series of videos called abortion procedures narrated by a former abortionist. The videos have over 100 million views online, but they're medical animations of each of the most prevalent abortion procedures.

And when we poll pro-choice women, for example, millennial women, after they watch these videos, we see a full third of them change their mind. And half of them say this is essential education and should be shared with high schools and should be shared with young people with students. So we found them incredibly impactful. So it's that alongside messaging about how abortion is against women. Abortion is against the flourishing for women and for families and how it harms women as it also kills a child and that we can do better and we have to do better for women. So I think both showing the reality of abortion and finding creative ways to do that through reporting, through our abortion procedure videos, as well as the messaging about how abortion actually harms women as well as ending a life.

And I have to say, I've seen one of your abortion videos, and I was extremely impressed because it's not graphic in the sense of it doesn't show a real baby, a real situation. But the illustrations are, while not being unnecessarily vivid, I found it very uncomfortable to watch. But I think that it was sort of an uncomfort in a good way. Like, you need to be awakened at this truth. Right. And people, it's done in a way exactly that's not gory, but it makes people actually think about what's happening. Watching through the animation what's actually happening to that baby and the different, development age of that child as an embryo or as a fetus. And that is very impactful for people

because then they're thinking about it. That's in their mind. It will never be out of their mind. Yeah. And it's a great way to reach young people. Obviously, social media, videos, that kind of thing. And I want to ask you about the younger generation, Generation Z, which is crazy that's younger than us. I think we're all millennials here. Gotta love me some Gen Z. That's right. You know, I was just thinking about them with a March for Life coming up because they might be the largest demographic there. It's just a bunch of kids. Where are they on abortion? And how do you approach, how do you approach them on the issue? Yeah. Well, Gen Z is super open-minded on abortion. I mean, keep in mind, they grew up with the internet. They grew up even more than millennials. You know, they grew up with

social media. So they have access to information like the abortion procedure videos, like pro-life stories, like the facts about abortion, about embryology and, you know, the development of the baby in the womb. They have this information even more than millennials had when we were their age. So we're seeing polling indicate more and more that they're more pro-life than their predecessors. And, you know, it's still a work of education. We have to keep on working to reach young people, both millennials and Gen Z because the reality is they're not learning about the truth about abortion in their schools. You know, they're not going to learn about it from, you know, most Netflix series of videos or they're not going to, you know, learn about it from maybe probably their parents,

you know, Gen X or baby boomers are usually not in support of, you know, of life. So we got to educate them, but I think they're super open-minded. That's a great point you make because Netflix, it's amazing how so many of the, you know, the structures that are in place kind of keep the pro-life message out, right? It's education, entertainment. So is it really, does it really just come down to disseminating the message? Isn't that just a large part of it that, I mean, people just aren't hearing the facts? I think you're spot. I mean, first of all, there's a lot of noise. So there is a lot of facts out. There are a lot of facts out there. But it's about explaining it to people and reaching them where they're at in a way they can understand. And in a way that they'll be able to trust it. Because, you know, you can set up some wonky looking website and be like, look, pro-life information. But if it's really not targeting the right group and it's actually not presented in a way that shows its credibility, that shows its based, it's fact-based, it's science-based. But I think more and more that's happening in the pro-life movement, I mean, live actions, abortion procedure videos, a lot of the work we're doing, we found it,

really great responses from young people. And, you know, the more social media and the more people have freedom to be their own creators, content-wise, and to kind of curate their own creators, find their own people that they'll listen to, the more opportunities there are for us to get the truth out there. You know, it's not just people are watching Netflix. It's not just people are in the classroom learning what their professor says or their teacher. It's they find where they want to go. And so it's up to us to create messaging that's powerful and get the truth in front of people. We have the truth. It's awesome. So let's spread it in a convincing way. So speaking of social media, I know that live action has had, shall we say, a bit of difficulties with some of these tech companies.

I believe you're not allowed to advertise on Twitter, but Planned Parenthood is. I believe I saw this week that YouTube took down a video, then restored it and apologized later, but not after it had been down a while. So how is that relationship going? And yeah, how do you think conservatives should deal with these companies? It's a tough one. It's a fraught relationship with the tech platform. social media platforms because they have their own ideologies. I mean, even Mark Zuckerberg himself has said that most of his staff is left-leaning.

You know, think Jack over at Twitter, Dorsey has said something similar. I mean, it's pretty obvious, you know, Silicon Valley. I actually live in Silicon Valley right now out in the Bay Area. And it's just they hire, you know, largely one mindset politically. Now, there are others that disagree at these companies, but the reality is you're going to see that suppression and censorship pop up left and right. and it has happened to live action, it's happened to other groups. We fight it at every turn.

You know, that video that YouTube took down one of our undercover investigative videos exposing Planned Parenthood covering up sex trafficking, YouTube took it down saying we were violating their community code, you know. We complained, and they put it back up. No explanation, but they put it back up and remove the strikes from our account. So I think it's vigilance is important. And then I think those that are not lockstep with the leftist ideologies of these companies need to be thinking creatively about other ways to reach people. We still have to use these mediums, but we need to be thinking about other ways to reach people.

This why live action works a lot to get people's emails and to send people to our websites and to find ways to reach people besides just through social media. So you were just at a Heritage Foundation event where you talked about the women's movement as it kind of emerged over the recent decades. And then you talked about how the sexual revolution sort of hijacked that. I think if there's anything that the pro-choice folks have done, making us think that the sexual revolution and women's rights are just two sides of the same coin. But you would say that that's kind of not the truth. Can you tell us what do you mean when you

say the sexual revolution hijacked women's rights? Right. And I think first of all, we have to define sexual revolution. You know, what is it? Is it this idea that you can have sex with anyone, anytime, anywhere with no consequences, and it's not a big deal and it's on your terms? Or is it this idea that sex is amazing and a gift and beautiful and we should actually work to build relationships to enjoy it as a gift between two people and that we recognize its power to bring life into the world. I think that we need to have a new sexual revolution with the latter to say sex is amazing, sex is beautiful. We need to see it as a gift that we give to one another. It's a place of pleasure. It's a place that can bring life into the world and that there should be responsibility

attached to it to help anchor it in relationship, in commitment, in love, in self-giving. So, you know, the old sexual revolution, I think, is tired. I think people know it doesn't work deep down. I think Me Too is a great example of that. Yeah, treating each other just as sexual objects for your own pleasure usually is going to have consequences. And, you know, it's no wonder that the abortion movement was globed onto the sexual revolution. And then they both injected themselves into the women's movement because this idea that we're going to empower women, okay, well, let's empower you sexually by making you like a bad man, basically, a promiscuous man that has no responsibility when he has sex. So let's make women like that.

It's like let's bring them down to the level of the worst man instead of elevating all of us. And then, oh, if you're around having sex with whomever, whatever, well, and you use contraception doesn't work. Okay, yeah, you've got to get an abortion. I mean, it kind of all makes sense, that package videology. And it's disastrous. It's a disaster. And I think more and more people are seeing that. They're not happy.

Even the Atlantic recently reported that young people are having less sex today. It's not that they're having less sex per se, as far as with the United. another person, they're just not having sex with anyone but themselves. I mean, a lot of people are addicted to pornography, they're masturbating, they're not even in relationship having sex anymore because there's so much, there's so much destruction that's happened in relationships where people aren't even together anymore. I mean, that's what the Atlantic was reporting on. So I think the sexual revolution, the old version of it has disintegrated to the point where people are like, wow, this is not working. And now it's like, well, consent, just consent to have sex.

and that's the best standard. Well, what does that even mean to consent? You know, there's those conversations. And then sex becomes a transaction. And is that what it should be? No, I don't think people deep down want that to be what sex is. I mean, it's not ultimately lifelong fulfilling. So I think there's a backlash against it.

It's a good one. And the pro-life movement is, I think, you know, the crosshairs of that because we're saying this radical thing that, yeah, every life is precious. And yeah, maybe you shouldn't sever sex from relationship and children. Maybe they're meant to go together. and maybe that will make us all happier. Right. I definitely agree that the Me Too movement has shown that, you know, there's a lot of problems with the sexual revolution.

And a lot of the stories you heard about Me Too didn't necessarily involve, I mean, not the high profile ones involved crimes. But some of the surrounding stories didn't necessarily involve no consent, but they involved feeling used. And I think that's an interesting place to begin some of these discussions. But to slightly shift, you know, the Women's March is also happening this weekend. I think it's always a little weird for us pro-lifers that those two events have happened back to back for the past few years. But you mentioned that the Women's March often seems pretty angry. Is there an opportunity here for conservatives, for pro-lifers to reach out? And what do you think is driving that anger?

Well, I think there's some legitimate concerns. And, you know, there have been a terrific amount of objectification, horrific amount of objectification of women, just of people sexually and the abuse that accompanies that. I think that people in public office saying nasty things and behaving nastily, I think that deserves us to stand up and speak out against it. I think that's all true. But I think deeper than that is the fact that according to even plan parented, one in three American, I think it's more like one and four, but a large amount of American women and men have been involved in abortion.

They've had abortions. Their partner has had an abortion. They've had a child who was aborted. And I think that if you don't grieve that and heal from that, that becomes a deep source of, I think, tension and a lack of peace. And I would argue that the women's march, a lot of that anger, especially from some of the leadership and that total rejection of pro-life women. I mean, it's a hardcore pro-abortion platform is because of hurt, is because of woundedness.

And unfortunately, the path they're marching on, which is more abortion, you know, is not going to heal you. It's not going to bring you peace. It's more violence. It's more division between you and children and men and relationships. So I'm hopeful that when we get the messages out about healing, about hope after abortion, about really the beauty of womanhood and the unique dignity of motherhood, about the gifts that women have to offer and about how we can partner with men to contribute in society and do smart public policy to accompany it, but really make it about individuals working in their own lives

to improve and work with others to serve and love, I think we're going to see change, but that change doesn't come from the way the women's march is marching. So it seems like you've thought pretty deeply about this. I'd be curious, what would your advice be to someone if they knew someone who'd had an abortion and maybe was somewhat conflicted, maybe even says they're pro-choice, but seems hurt? Like, how would you advise reaching out in a helpful way? Well, if you know someone or you are someone who has been involved in abortion, has had an abortion, I think it's crucial to get the support you need to heal from it.

I think a lot of women is buried in their past, but maybe it comes back to haunt him on, you know, an anniversary or when they see a child. And there's some great healing ministries that live action promotes, like Silent No More, is an outlet for women who have been involved in abortion or Rachel's Vineyard. I think finding a good therapist can help. I think if you're a woman of faith, you know, God wants to heal you. forgive you. And I think to do that, we have to acknowledge something bad happened. And that's really hard. I mean, the women I've been privileged to talk to have shared their stories with me.

It's really hard to admit it even happened as a man or a woman if your child was aborted. But if you're able to do that and then get the help you need and the healing, it's transformative. I know so many people who have been freed from so much of the guilt and shame and the pain deep down. So, you know, those are a couple of resources and don't be afraid, you know. There are people that want to help women and men who've gone through this and, you know, not provide judgment but provide hope and healing. And that is out there for those that who have, for those who have been hurt by abortion. You know, you've talked about the Women's March and you've talked, it seems like to me like

it's sort of a misguided attempt at empowerment. At least that's partly it. Can you talk a bit more about what, you know, your vision of women's empowerment would be? You know, I think some women might say, well, you're against abortion. I've always said that was the kind of the centerpiece of my empowerment. What would you offer them? Sure. I think that women's, first of all, women's empowerment and the individual's empowerment does not start with politics.

I think that's one of the biggest problems with the women's march and with a lot of the political movements around so-called feminism today. That's just really about abortion and contraception. But, you know, it starts in your own life. It starts in your decisions that you're making. It starts in the responsibility that you take. It starts in the personal path to healing and self-awareness that you're on. Yes, there are certain public policies that should be, you know, enacted at the local level to help families and to provide tax cuts and to, you know, encourage women who are working and trying to also care for their families to help them with solutions for that. But I think it ultimately starts with us personally.

And this is not something that we're going to achieve by marching together and shouting at the Supreme Court or shouting at, you know, the president's mansion or wherever. I mean, it's one thing to create legal protections for the preborn. But as far as empowering individual women, I think that starts with each of us learning about ourselves, learning about, you know, having hope for our own lives, you know, and also not rejecting our femininity, not rejecting our ability to be mothers, not saying that, oh, I need to be like a man and just have a career and not have a family or not be a mother. and that I'm somehow going to have to choose between the two. I think we should see, look, what's in our hearts, what do we desire, and look at marriage, look at family, look at children, not as these things that hold us down, but places where there's a garden for our dreams to grow in that community of our home, that community of a relationship with our, you know, a husband or relationship with our children. So changing our view of children, changing our view of family,

changing our view of marriage, and in many ways, changing our view of ourselves and our own capabilities and recognizing that we can accomplish a tremendous amount if we're willing to take responsibility, we're willing to work hard. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Lila. Thank you. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda.

Each Tuesday in the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. The MeToo movement against sexual harassment. Is this the best a man can get? Is it? We can't hide from it. It's been going on far too long.

All right, that's a new commercial from Gillette, the men's shaving company. We cut the commercial short there, but it goes on to detail some grievances about male behavior, which some have called toxic, and then it goes on to show what men should be doing, what they should be like. It's gotten a lot of attention, a lot of flack the last few days, with a number of loyal customers saying they'll never use Gillette again, and he may be surprised. Among those is Pierce Morgan. He's always trying to surprise us these days. So what is this all about? Here to discuss is Jarrett Stetman, author of a new commentary, on the issue, host of the right side of history, and frequent contributor to our podcast.

Thanks for being back on. Thank you very much. Daniel, you missed the most important thing, possessor of a beard. And a tweed jacket. That means that I am an expert on all things raisers, right? That I have a beard. Just stroke that beer. That's why, yeah, this is an identity-based podcast.

We invited you on for this very reason. All right. So tell us, what's that issue here and, you know, what's your main take? I think my main take, and certainly there are some people that were angry on Twitter, which is quite common with this. And I think to a certain extent, Gillette is trying to, frankly, monetize the Me Too issue to sell razors, which I think a particularly odd thing for a razor company to do so. But is it helping them do that? Is this actually like, who exactly is this appealing to? I mean, are they going to get, you know, feminists now to buy razor blades or, you know, are maybe more people going to buy them?

I don't know because they saw this message. Is feminists even shave? Well, actually, I saw on Twitter, feminists were saying, well, one, I think there is a movement for women not to shave in January, which I don't agree with. But also, there was a, some of the, like, feminist types were pointing out the Gillette actually charges more for its women raisers than its male raisers, which they argue are identical.

I haven't fact-checked this. But, yeah, they're using this as an opportunity to get Maddox Gillette, and that does seem like an obvious thing they should have. thought of. Anyway. It doesn't really seem like they won over anybody. I mean, it seems like if anything, they made a few people angry. And look, I mean, they've also had issues just in the last few years. Axios actually reported on this that they've lost a huge amount of market share since 2016. So obviously they're looking to do something to change that. I think we saw earlier, so certainly last year we saw with Nike with the color and Kaepernick commercials trying to capitalize

on what they think will be a new demographic that can kind of bring in kind of interest. But it seems very unlikely. I mean, when you go in for a razor blade, are you thinking, boy, how is this going to further the Me Too movement? Or are you thinking, how is this going to like shave my beard and, you know, make me look a little better at the end of the day? And I don't think that really comes across. And I think it does trivialize a matter that's, I think, very serious, which is, you know, the commercial kind of makes ridiculous kind of traditional masculine culture showing men is just fighting and bullying and punching and just saying, well, boys will be boys. And I would say that's not traditional masculine culture. And to say that

that's how we should view it, I think, is wrong. I mean, I think if anything, I think Ben Shapiro in particular made this very good point. It's a loss of traditional masculine culture that has led to, you could say a lot of young men turning to savagery and dissipation in their lives. And I think that's a, I think that is a very serious matter that this commercial kind of makes, trivializes, really. Yeah, and the commercial touched the nerve for a lot of people. And I understand why it did. Part of the frustrating thing about the commercial is that it's only a minute and a half long, and it doesn't fit into, like it doesn't give you all of the information that you would want about all of the different scenarios.

So if you watch the video, you see all of these probably dozens of different instances of men behaving a certain way or, you know, for better or for worse in both cases. And it doesn't really give you the full picture. So it kind of feels like almost it could be a veiled attack on, you know, this tradition and traditional masculine idea. But it gives, I mean, here's a. where I think we can all agree on. Like, you know, men are prone to their own, you know, pathologies as any group might be. You know, there are certain things that men have a tendency toward that need to be restrained. And so I think we can agree with the commercial that there's, that definitely needs to take place. But it's, it's, I guess what's sort of poison the well on this issue is so many folks on the left just deny masculinity and want to deny any. any true place for like good masculinity as distinct from femininity.

So I feel like that's what makes it confusing and not very helpful. Yeah. I mean, I think it's confusing because I think in some ways the ad makers were trying to not offend anyone but also make a statement, which is not really an easy accomplishment. And I mean, yes, I think society as a whole agrees that sexual harassment is awful. And you can't say boys will be boys unless it's okay for. for a boss to be mean or condescending to a female employee or to treat women inappropriately.

So it's a very low standard that I think most of America would agree with. Most American men were never Matt Lowers or Harvey Weinsteins or any of these others. But I think what sort of ticked me off about this commercial, and a lot of it I just found myself thinking this is just bland I agree with. You can't say boys will be boys is a good excuse for harassment or anything. But sort of the conflation of things. and there were some visuals that showed two small boys roughhousing with each other. Yeah, wrestling on the ground.

Right. And it didn't appear that it was mean-spirited. It didn't appear. Maybe they intended it to be that way. But at least I didn't get that it was like one boy beating up another boy. It just seemed like, you know, I grew up with two brothers. They were constantly beating each other up. I didn't get it.

It seemed painful. But, you know, it's something that boys will be boys. And, I mean, you guys could obviously speak to this better than I could. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Right. That's where it crosses over into the okay. or even good part of masculinity that should not be rejected.

Yeah, instead it portrays, well, we've let this go on too long. I don't know when bullying and, you know, beating up people like that. It was considered a positive trait. I don't think that this is something that, well, gee, we always supported bullying. Just, I shocked.

Feminists have finally educated us now that bullying is not okay. That's just, it's never been okay. And to say that to kind of portray traditional masculinity in that way just kind of makes an absurdity of it. And I think that's why, it rings so hollow in this commercial and seems so eye rolling and kind of agitates people because

yeah as you said there are a lot of attacks on the positives of traditional masculinity the things that we should be fostering not everything about masculinity is a bad thing obviously it's you know half the human race and the and these are positive like the constitution in many ways constrains our behaviors and make sure that i mean we're somewhere between beasts and angels we want to channel our virtues and limit our vices and that's that's how we see you know male and female nature that's that's how we bring out the best in us to just say it's the lignet in and of itself, I think it's definitely the wrong way to go. So something really interesting aspect of this, I think, is the monetary aspect.

So, you know, no company puts out a big ad like this without thinking that it's going to make them some extra money. I mean, that's just what companies do. And, I mean, I think you could point out a lot of instances where companies try to virtue signal, but really they just want more market share. and they have reason to think that way because if you look at the numbers, they've actually lost, Gillette has lost a lot of market share in this shaving industry. They've lost like about 15% of it in the last few years to some of these new rising companies

like Harry's and Dollar Shave Club, which are like pretty trendy and cool and, you know, a lot cheaper, actually. And Gillette's just kind of this, it's kind of like this legacy company that it's kind of trying to prove. to the young people that were on the right side of history. And so I think that's an interesting aspect of it. They think they're going to somehow help their market share, but it doesn't seem like they are. I did notice that the Dollar Shave Club immediately tweeted out,

basically joined the Dollar Shave Club now. And of course, you know, it was great trolling on their part. Yeah, yeah. Who knows how this will actually play out as far as getting people to buy razor blades? Yeah. Well, the thing about Dollar Shave Club is, though, if you look at their products, it's like just going, all in on masculinity.

It's like if you look at some of the names of their products, you'll just laugh out loud because it's like just embrace, embrace masculinity. So maybe, you know, maybe Gillette thinks that's toxic. Well, I mean, I think it's interesting because I was at a digital conference that was for both media publishers and brands. So it was sort of an odd mishmash. But last year, and one of the things I actually brought up was sort of being woke in this virtue signaling.

And it was sort of like how it could potentially help the bottom line. as I recall, they showed a brand that I can't recall for sure, so I'm not going to say it, but they had done something for Gay Pride Month. And they had done, I believe, on their Instagram, some sort of, you know, rainbow thing in a jig associated with their brand, and it had done like the most likes of all time for that brand or whatever. And so they were discussing, like, the possible benefits of the brand for being woke. But I think it'd be interesting, as far as I'm aware, if no one's done a market study,

but, like, Instagram likes don't necessarily translate to sales and polar Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't seem like there's a huge population of guys that are going to be like, hey, I wanted to feel bad. Right. And now I'm going to use this. I mean, is it also somewhat the cheapening of the whole thing. I mean, really, this whole thing is just used to tell you to buy more raisin. Right, which is a little bit gross.

No one believes that it's actually virtuous what they're doing. Right. And when you think about some of the most egregious things that Me Too highlighted, like, you know, the New Yorker exposee of Harvey Weinstein. and like the, you know, the real trauma that you, that came through in the quotes from the women. And now it's just become a thing to sell men's razors. It's like. And let's be honest. Like Gillette was fine, you know, basically going with, you know, celebrity culture and whatnot to sell razor blades.

I like in the commercial how they have celebrities and journalists like lecturing the American people. It's like, well, wait a bit. Most of these stories were celebrities and journalists. Right. I mean, they're the ones like lecturing us to change our evil ways. It's a peculiar strategy for them. I think that a lot of people, I think a lot of people see things. through what so. Honestly, I think this could be like a major miscalculation, kind of like the way the elites

miscalculated on Trump. Like they think, oh yeah, everyone, like normal people are all into this Me Too, like Women's March, you know, all of that whole package. They're all about it because that's what the media seems to say. And turns out your market share that doesn't quite think the same way as you. Absolutely. So anyway, well, thanks so much, Jared, for coming in and talking about the issue. You can Check out his article at daisignal.com. Thank you very much. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

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