The curse of maleness

Last night after dinner, Quadrant Online’s editor was rebuked by a female companion for allowing personal grooming to go to pot over the Christmas season. Apparently a chin that bristles “like a toilet brush” is no fun. The evidence is above and the criticism seemed mighty unfair. Half-shaven male models are de rigeur on billboards all over the place these days. Why can’t conservative editors spurn the razor for a day or two? In any case, this morning seemed the right moment to invest in a fresh razor and set to work with the soapy lather.

Call it synchronicity if you will, but before heading to the supermarket and its “male care” shelves, an email arrived from an outraged reader. Seen this, the male correspondent wondered? There followed a link to the video below — a little exercise in male consciousness-raising, not to mention virtue-signalling, by the people who make Gillette razors.

It seems Gillette has a low opinion of the men who buy its products, grasping that we are a toxic bunch and in need of hectoring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0

Reactions may vary from man to man, but for this testosterone-poisoned XYer the response was an immediate vow never again to buy another product by Gillette, a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble.

— roger franklin