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'Jane the Virgin' Star Justin Baldoni Wants to End Toxic Masculinity: 'The Glass Ceiling Exists Because Men Put It There'


Since the shocking sexual harassment allegations were first reported against Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein in October, there’s been an avalanche of accusations against other power players in media, business, and yes, Hollywood. (If you, too, are having a hard time keeping up, we created this—horrifying, frankly—list of the latest men facing allegations, which we’re updating.)

In the wake of all these accusations, the concept of “toxic masculinity” has become a hotly debated topic. How are we (or “the patriarchy”) as a culture subtly reinforcing the kinds of stereotypes that may lead to detrimental behavior patterns? These stereotypes, like the idea that men are supposed to be “strong” and never show emotions, can easily lead to misogynistic ideas or acts. (Picture, say, a certain American president dismissing certain comments made on a certain Access Hollywood tape as “locker room talk”—typical male banter, made in jest, and not to be taken seriously.)

One of the emerging voices in this conversation is a surprising one: Justin Baldoni, an actor best known for his work as the—often shirtless—Rafael on Jane the Virgin.

At the TEDWomen conference in New Orleans, Baldoni gave an impassioned talk on the subject, saying the characters he’s often asked to play actually feel all too similar to the one he’s been encouraged to play all his life: a stereotypical man’s man. “This is the script that we’ve been given,” he said. “Girls are weak, and boys are strong…. I came here today to say as a man that this is wrong, this is toxic, and it has to end.”

Baldoni has started leveraging his impressive social following—1 million on Instagram, 160,000 on Twitter—to tackle this issue head-on, and, as he tells it, he got a really great response [from women]. In an effort to court more male followers, he started posting more content that felt stereotypically male—workouts, meal plans, etc.—and lo and behold, not only did men start to engage with him, but a men’s fitness magazine even offered to feature him as one of their “game changers.” (The irony of the moment was not lost on Baldoni.)

But Baldoni isn’t giving up. He’s developing an online talk show, titled Man Enough, and he’s putting himself out there at conferences like TEDWomen. “I believe that as men, it’s time we start to see past our privilege and recognize that we are not just part of the problem, fellas, we are the problem,” he said during his TED speech. “The glass ceiling exists because we put it there. And if we want to be a part of the solution, then words are no longer enough.”

I spoke with Baldoni at TEDWomen following his talk to discuss the correlations between these masculine tropes and pressing issues like sexual harassment in the workplace. (And yes, I asked if he ever worries about doing exactly what he rails against—taking command of a conversation in the women’s space and “mansplaining” it.) Read his responses, and watch his speech at TEDWomen below.

Glamour: Let’s first address that Glamour’s audience might not necessarily be the demo you’ve said you want to reach. What are the men’s brands you want to be interviewing you about this stuff?

Justin Baldoni: I think as a young man, I would collect Men’s Health and Men’s Fitness and GQ, Esquire, and all those magazines. As an actor, it was always kind of a bummer that none of them ever wanted to talk to me…. Part of it is also because I’m on a feminist show, primarily watched by women…. I’ve had my reps tell me, bluntly: “Men’s magazines are not going to write about you because you’re too feminine and because you don’t attract a male audience.” That’s just where it becomes frustrating because the men that I really want to have dialogue with are not listening unless their girlfriends tag them or their girlfriends send them something that I said…. And that’s a bummer because in reality I’m not telling them they have to be different. I don’t think that men have to change. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with men inherently; I think it’s what we’ve learned and the roles that we play.

“The glass ceiling exists because we put it there. And if we want to
be a part of the solution, then words are no longer enough.”

Glamour: I’m sure it’s anxiety-inducing to speak at TEDWomen because you run the risk of mansplaining a women’s issue.

JB: I actually hired a very good friend of mine who’s a very powerful feminist, and I had her tell me and make sure that nowhere in my talk was I mansplaining. There’s no way that I could have given this talk without the support and help of women, there’s just no way. By nature I would have mansplained something because I have the privilege of being a white male and I’ve been mansplaining my whole life—that’s just the way it is. I did everything I could to take out any part that could potentially be that, or to just be aware of what I was saying, because I really wasn’t trying to talk to women, I was really trying to talk to men.

Glamour: Working at a women’s media publication, we speak pretty openly about the “lady media” tropes that now feel incredibly not modern. For example, the myth of “having it all.” What are some of the men’s media tropes that you’ve run into?

JB: I’ve got to be honest, it breaks my heart when I look at both…. Men’s Fitness reached out to me to be a game changer, and what was interesting was that they knew about me for a few years, but it wasn’t until I started talking about working out—like how I tore my pec and I kind of followed my journey the whole way—that they were able to sell it up the chain. And that’s the bummer; it has to be, “Oh yeah, he’s a regular dude too,” because that’s the entry point. But at the same time that’s also a gift because I now understand the psyche of the system. If I want to talk to men, I do have to kind of be a man…. Because if I’m a “girly man,” then they’re not going to listen, but if i can do more pull-ups than you and if I can do that crazy workout that I guarantee can kick your ass, then you’ll listen to me, right? Like all right, cool, maybe I’ll start a whole fitness plan, maybe I’ll do something masculine-focused because I’m cool being a Trojan horse. I have to imagine that I was built the way that I was for a bunch of different reasons, but I have the heart that I have for a reason as well.

If I can be an entry point to help men recognize that being feminine and masculine is OK, then that’s beautiful work that I’m honored to do.… I hope that male fitness magazines and male magazines in general can put as much emphasis on men that are leading with their hearts, and men that are championing women, and men that are standing for equal rights as they do with the men that are making billions of dollars playing sports and men that are alpha males.

Glamour: In your talk, you also discuss sexual harassment and the “Me Too” phenomenon, and it must be acknowledged that women aren’t the only victims. Did you ever feel like you were harassed or victimized on set?

JB: When I was 21 or so, I was very new in the business. I had just done my first show and a girlfriend at the time had gotten me a spa certificate to go to Burke Williams in West Hollywood. I remember there were hot tubs and steam rooms and all kinds of stuff, and it’s kind of fancier people, wealthier guys. I went and jumped in the hot tub and I saw a guy kind of look over. I saw him look over at me, jump out of the other hot tub, and jump in with me, and he said, “Oh what do you do?” And I said, “Oh I’m an actor,” and he said, “Oh I’m a producer,” and he started talking about all of the movies he’s done and all the people he knows. He’s friends with Clooney, Cheadle, and this person and this person, and he slowly started to try to get me to take off my pants because I had my bathing suit on and he was naked.

And I remember the way he did it, using his power and what he does and who he knows as a way to make me feel less than, like I wasn’t going to be as successful as the other guys who’d been in the same hot tub with him, naked. I just remember that feeling and having a moment of saying, “Well, should I do that? And where does that lead?”… I remember a split second [of thought], and then going, “What? No,” and just leaving. I could imagine how hard and painful that must be for a woman. I mean I was stronger and bigger than the guy, and [then there’s] the fact that no one is going to believe you if you’re a woman because your voice is already not heard…. I’ve also experienced [harassment] as a man from women of power…. I’ve had my ass grabbed multiple times by powerful women.

I just think the system is broken, but thank God we’re now at a place where, as gross as it sounds, the infected pimple is finally being popped and healing can actually begin…. And then the other thing men are going to have to start doing now is recognizing when they did it and didn’t realize it. I think that’s when the other side of the “Me Too” movement is “I’m Sorry.” I guarantee at some point in my life there is a woman or two that I in some way made uncomfortable by saying something or doing something that was chauvinistic or sexist. There is one million percent probability that that exists, and all I can do is say, “I’m sorry, I was naive, I was young, I screwed up, and I’ll try to do better.”

“We’ve built in this system—the opposite of accountability—and now
it’s time to figure out how, as men, we can break that system.”

Glamour: For men who may have been enablers—either inadvertently or because they were intimidated—do you have any script or recommendations for guys to help combat this behavior in the moment?

JB: Well, can you be man enough to actually say something? The fact is that so many of us men are so terrified of losing our standing with our other male friends or our standing at our jobs because, at the end of the day, it’s a fraternity. The hierarchy of power is just a big fraternity, and if you go against one of your brothers, then you’re breaking this thing they call “the guy code.” Growing up, how many times did I hear “bros before hoes”? Just think about it. First of all, how demeaning, how sexist. What are we saying about women, and how we’re saying the importance is us, not them. Right? It’s the worst thing you could say, but all young boys, teenagers, guys, we get it. So you have a 17-year-old boy that witnessed another boy date-rape a girl? Bros before hoes. Are you going to break the guy code? We’ve built in this system—the opposite of accountability—and now it’s time to figure out how, as men, we can break that system, and it starts with showing what a real man is. A real man is someone that says, “Hey man, we’re still friends, but that’s not cool.”

Or if it’s a director or someone that’s in power, you could say, “I want to bring this up because I’m worried about you and this could be perceived the wrong way.” Every situation is different…. Men have to start small because it takes a lot of courage to stand up to another man and go against everything you’ve been conditioned to say…. Or in some cases it’s so obvious that you do need to stand up and say something. Like if you’re hanging out and you see a girl who’s so wasted and your buddy’s not, say, “No, don’t take her home, man, what are you doing?” Stop him. I think that it’s going to take some strong men to be willing to stand up and do that, so, hopefully, now thanks to the bravery of women, that men will finally find the strength to do the same thing.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Watch Justin Baldoni’s speech at TEDWomen 2017:



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Sorry, But Even Dumb Penis Drawings Are About Toxic Masculinity


When I first read about that Naval officer who drew a penis in the sky with his plane last week, I thought it was kind of funny, probably because I’m culturally conditioned to laugh at men’s silly antics. Boys will be boys, right?

I also found the subsequent reports about how neighbors were outraged pretty funny too, especially the part about the upset mom who said she now has to explain that penis to her kids. “What a prude!” I thought, like a judgmental jerk.

But then I put myself in my sister’s shoes and wondered how she’d explain penis graffiti to my young nieces. That’s when it hit me—maybe this mom’s distress is more about having to tell her kids why someone would do this and not at all about the penis itself.

The more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off. Why do men feel the need to remind everyone of their penises, even in sacred public spaces like, say, the sky?

I used to think it’s because they’re horny and immature, which is partly true. But it wasn’t a tween boy flying that plane. It was a grown-ass man in the military. Women are horny too (and occasionally immature) but you don’t see us drawing genitalia all over the place, do you? This isn’t about sex. Because if it were, we’d be seeing boobs, butts and vaginas drawn on every subway platform in New York, not men’s own genitalia.

What it’s really about, I’m understanding, is power. Dominance, perhaps. Maybe neediness. Entitled boy-men trying to force women to acknowledge their all-important penises, whether we care to or not.

Now, before you go assuming I’m some prude, I assure you, I’m not. Far from it. I adore a good penis! But I’ve been assaulted by my fair share of them too, which—like a lot of other women—makes my relationship to them complicated. Because I’ve been forced to look at one too many against my will, whether it be on a subway platform, on a bus, or on a park bench. I’ve been masturbated next to by strangers and even a coworker, I’ve had countless boners shoved into my back while I’m trying to dance and I’ve been raped. I’m realizing now that even a stupid penis drawing is male anatomy being forced into my world.

I’m frustrated by the fact that any asshat with a black marker can take me out of whatever peaceful thought I’m having and force me to visualize his junk while I’m flipping through a textbook in high school, peeing in the stall at the bar, and now even looking up at the sky.

Toxic masculinity is the culprit, of course. I don’t blame men entirely for being the way they are. It must be frustrating to live in a world where traditional roles are being challenged and overthrown by women while also reinforced and encouraged by the advertising industry and other men. Especially now that women don’t need men as much—we have jobs, vibrators, sperm on demand. I’d probably be frustrated too. But channeling that frustration through the one organ that can do the most damage to women isn’t cool.

This may all sound like I’m being too sensitive, that I “can’t take a joke.” Well, I’m a comedian. I can not only take jokes, I write them. But even I’m finally starting to realize these jokes aren’t funny anymore.

I think I speak for many women when I say please stop. We don’t want to see your penis anymore, in any form, without our consent. Not even graffitied on a random brick wall or drawn somewhere over Washington state. Unless that penis is attached to a man I want to have sex with or a handsome fella in women-friendly porno, get that thing out of my face.

Melanie Hamlett is a writer, comedian, storyteller, and public speaker. She’s a three-time Moth winner, and a frequent contributor on the Risk! podcast





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It's Surprisingly Hard to Ban Toxic Sex Toys, But Here's How to Protect Yourself


These days, most of us will carefully check ingredients lists for gluten and trans fats, demand that our water bottles be made without BPA, and seek out paraben-free, body-safe cosmetics. But the average person can’t tell you what a toxic sex toy is—or even that they exist. Unfortunately, in the unregulated sex toy industry, plenty of sex toys are potentially rife with products that can hurt you (and not even in the fun, kinky way).

Perhaps the most well-known offender vis à vis toy toxicity is a group of chemicals known as phthalates, a plasticizer that can be blended with other substances to make them softer and more flexible. A spotlight’s been shone on phthalates in recent years, as publications like Bustle and Bitch, and via feminist-oriented sex shops like Good Vibes and Babeland have spoken out against them.

So why all the hullabaloo? It turns out that phthalates may have side-effects when they come into contact with your body that not only aren’t disclosed by most sex toy manufacturers, but could potentially be terrible for you. According to Dr. Amanda Morgan, a faculty member at the School of Community Health Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who wrote her Master’s thesis on harmful sex toy materials, phthalates are known endocrine disruptors that can cause health problems. “[Phthalates] mess with your hormones; they can cause birth defects, or other things related to liver or kidney functioning,” Morgan told me, referencing a studies which have linked phthalates to irregular fetal development, early-onset puberty, and lower sperm counts, among other issues. “They can really mess you up, because they pretend to be your hormones, and so your body’s hormonal cycle gets knocked out of whack from exposure to these things.”

With the short-term effects of chlorine and the long-term effects of phthalates, PVC is, Morgan says, “definitely one of the worst sex toy materials we’ve seen.”

When you hear horror stories about sex toys, though, it’s not necessarily phthalates that are to blame. One of the most common anecdotal complaints about toxic toys is that they cause skin irritation: “I first thought [it] was a yeast infection or BV, because of extreme itching and burning on my inner labia,” reports one reader who wrote in to sex toy review blog Dangerous Lilly. “My ass suddenly felt like it was on fire. A burning sensation spread throughout my butt,” recalls sex educator Tristan Taormino about a questionable dildo she used. One Playboy story describes a dildo that caused a woman “such severe pain that she could barely speak.”

I asked Dr. Emily S. Barrett, a professor at the Rutgers University School of Public Health who has done extensive research on the prenatal effects of endocrine disruptors like phthalates, whether these reported burning sensations fit with her understanding of the chemicals. She told me she hasn’t seen evidence that phthalates irritate the skin in this way, and that they tend to “act on a much more subtle level most of the time.”

So what is causing these health problems? According to Amanda Morgan, phthalates aren’t the only sketchy ingredient still getting into our sex toys. As part of her thesis research, Morgan tested 32 sex toys to determine their chemical makeup. What she found was pretty scary: The toys she tested typically contained 30-35 percent chlorine. She said PVC, a material commonly used to make inexpensive sex toys, always contains chlorine (hence the chemical name “polyvinyl chloride.”) Even scarier, in 2006 BadVibes.org—an organization which, full disclosure, is linked to pro-toy-safety sex shop The Smitten Kitten—ran lab tests on four popular sex toys. They found that two of them were made of PVC and contained “very high levels of phthalate plasticizer.”
 
“We use chlorine to kill bacteria in things,” she said. “If you are being exposed to this high level of chlorine, especially in a sensitive membrane area [like the vagina or rectum], we could definitely chalk that up to causing irritation, burning, or messing up the environment by exposing it to something that is, as we know, a sterilization product.” So with the short-term burning effects of chlorine and the long-term endocrine effects of phthalates, PVC is, Morgan says, “definitely one of the worst sex toy materials we’ve seen.”
 
Now, you might be thinking, “OK, great to know! I’ll just only buy safe toys from now on!” Well, it’s not so simple. Since the sex toy industry is unregulated, it doesn’t fall under the current purview of the Food and Drug Administration. According to FDA press officer Angela Stark, that’s because the agency “does not regulate devices meant purely for sexual pleasure. It does, however, regulate genital devices that have a medical purpose such as vibrators intended for therapeutic use to treat sexual dysfunction or to supplement Kegel exercises.” Of course, the vast majority of sex toys don’t fall under this “health aid” umbrella.+++large

The current Congress likely wouldn’t rush to make a bold, sex-positive statement like mandating sex toy safety.

The responsibility of regulating sex toys could potentially fall to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but Morgan told me the understaffed CPSC is already in charge of regulating over 15,000 types of products—not to mention the products themselves. The complex issue of sex toy regulation would be a big ask on top of all that.

Add to all of this the fact that the current Congress likely wouldn’t rush to make a bold, sex-positive statement by mandating sex toy safety, and there are plenty of reasons your sex toy might not meet body-safe standards. “Our government doesn’t generally like to talk about people pleasuring themselves,” Morgan pointed out.

Beyond that, though, Morgan adds that regulating the sex toy industry might not even be the best solution to getting rid of toxic toys anyway. “If something is federally regulated, that means that the federal government—depending on where they are in their political leanings at that time—could potentially make it illegal to have these products, by saying they are ‘dangerous’ and then regulating them out of existence,” she reasoned. “You get certain types of people in power and they may not believe in sexual health, wellness, [or] self-pleasuring. It might go against their core values and therefore they [might] use their political agenda and the federal regulation system to regulate these products out of people’s hands.”

It’s a conclusion that Zach Biesanz, a legal assistant in the office of New York’s Attorney General, came to in his 2007 paper in the journal Law & Inequality: “Special regulation of the sex toy industry would be unreasonably burdensome from a regulatory standpoint,” he wrote. “Only banning these toxins outright will suffice to protect consumers from phthalates’ harmful and even lethal effects.”

“Sniff your sex toy. That’s the easiest thing you can do [to protect yourself].”

In the meantime, how do you tell if a toy is safe? Sex toy experts like Morgan, the Smitten Kitten’s founder Jennifer Pritchett, and seasoned sex toy reviewer Epiphora all recommend buying toys made of phthalate-free, body-safe materials like pure silicone, stainless steel, glass, and hard plastic. Still, it’s difficult to know what’s what in an industry that mislabels its products so frequently. “Sniff your sex toy,” said Morgan. “That’s the easiest thing you can do. If you smell these products and they don’t smell like anything, then it most likely is a stable chemical compound like silicone.” Phthalates and PVC, however, smell “like chemicals,” according to Morgan, “like a new shower curtain,” according to Epiphora, and “like a headache,” according to Pritchett. The sex toy smell test might sound a little weird, but it’s a pretty good first line of defense.

Morgan also recommends buying toys made by “companies that take a lot of pride in making good-quality, body-safe toys,” citing Tantus and Jimmyjane as examples. Other companies that proudly declare their products body-safe include We-Vibe, Fun Factory, Vixen Creations, and Funkit Toys.

And when in doubt, find a reviewer you can trust. Sex toy review blogs abound on the internet —Epiphora, Dangerous Lilly, and Formidable Femme, to name just a few—and while you’d be wise to take claims about sex toys with a grain of salt in this unregulated industry, sometimes the preponderance of good or bad reviews about a particular company or toy can suggest conclusions about its safety (or lack thereof).

Most importantly though, demand body-safe sex toys buy only buying from companies you can trust. “Consumers vote with their pocketbook,” said Tantus founder Metis Black. “Support the businesses that make safe toys a priority, that use their resources to educate, that take a stand and advocate for consumers.” She added that while pure silicone toys are expensive now—especially in comparison to PVC toys, which can often be under $30 a pop, versus $100+ for silicone—more consumer demand for body-safe toys will create more supply at lower prices, as bigger companies with more resources start making non-toxic toys in larger quantities. That’s just sex toy economics.

Bloggers, consumers, and ethical toymakers alike all dream of a future in which no sex toys will burn your junk, give you infections, or cause long-term bodily harm. It seems reasonable enough. And if we keep fighting for it, maybe one day it’ll be reality.



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Why Toxic Beauty Products Harm Women of Color, and How We Can Protect Ourselves


During the past 24 hours, I’ve read dozens of articles about how women of color are disproportionally exposed to toxic chemicals in beauty products. Every article cited the same source—a commentary published this week in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology—and listed life-threatening side effects. Many went on to explain that women of color are more at risk than white women because of racial stereotypes and beauty standards—harmful ingredients found in hair relaxers, skin-bleaching creams, and unnecessary vaginal douches were specifically called out.

As I read, I was equal parts furious, relieved, and a little confused. Of course we should be talking about the price women pay to fit into beauty-standard boxes. We should openly discuss the fact that we live in a world where how you look can get you sent home from school or cost you your livelihood. But nothing I read told me, a woman of color, how I could avoid poisoning myself. There was zero advice on how to shop for beauty products safely or what brands and ingredients to avoid. So I reached out the lead author of the commentary, Dr. Ami Zota, to figure out where this scientific data fits into the daily lives of women in America.

Dr. Zota made clear that she and her colleagues weren’t presenting new data, but were using recent research to draw attention to a serious and often undiscussed issue: Trying to adhere to Western European beauty standards is costing women their health and, in some cases, their lives. The commentary—think of it kind of a as an expertly curated Pinterest board of facts—pointed to studies conducted in the United States and around the world. The facts are clear: Women of color spend more on beauty products than white women. Women of color use skin-lightening, hair-straightening, and vaginal-douching products more than white women. And women of color have been found to have higher levels of dangerous toxins like mercury and parabens in their blood than white women. When packaged together, along with some disturbing findings like “black women’s natural hair was rated as ‘less attractive’ and ‘less professional’ than when it was straightened,” Zota’s work paints a compelling picture of a dangerous trend. But she’s quick to assert that there’s more to the story and that there are ways that women of color can actively protect themselves.

For starters, Zota recommends keeping an eye out for potentially harmful ingredients while you shop. “Some types of chemicals are more clearly labeled so you can attempt to avoid them,” she told me. “You can reduce your exposure by reading labels. Parabens, for example, are more likely to be listed on packaging and labels so you can look for things that are paraben-free.” But finding key words on ingredients lists isn’t enough. “Other types of chemicals are less likely to be labeled, typically because they’re in fragrances,” Zota said. “The FDA doesn’t require companies to list the individual components of fragrance. Historically, that’s the one place that contaminants, like phthalates, are found.”

You can also keep yourself informed on a daily basis using websites like the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep, which lists known chemicals in beauty products. You can search through brands or look up specific products that have been researched. While Zota doesn’t endorse EWG certification as a sole means of preventing exposure to toxins, it’s one more way to vet potential dangers.

A third factor, one that hasn’t been making the rounds in recent coverage, is that there’s another marginalized group with the umbrella “women of color” who are at the greatest risk. “Most of the literature we cited looked at immigrant women [in the United States] who were bringing in products from other countries or buying their products in small stores that are getting cosmetics from questionable sources.”

Being aware of the potentially harmful unregulated products made available to women in this country is a hugely important part of her research. “We’re not trying to fear-monger, and I’m not a fan of sensational headlines. We’re really trying to educate people, because we are learning that some contaminants, even at a low level, when used on a daily basis can have implications on reproductive health and the health of one’s offspring.”

While I’m thrilled that we’re talking about the injustices women of color face every day, it’s also important that we don’t just read, feel awful, and then move on. There’s a reason women of color are more exposed to harmful toxins in beauty products. There are ways to protect ourselves and to deal with the real, deep-rooted issues that create these problems in the first place. The conversation should continue. We need to keep talking.

Related Stories:
–I Thought We Were Done Policing Black Hair?
–President Obama Talks Black Hair and the Pressures His Daughters Feel to Look a Certain Way
–“I Want to Show Girls It’s Not Bad to Be Dark—Different Is Beautiful”



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