Justin Baldoni is just the latest man in the public arena to turn out to be a huge disappointment, but for me, this one stung. You would think that after Louis CK and Aziz Ansari I would have known better than to admire a male celebrity who was preaching feminism. But this guy wasn’t just making self-deprecating jokes about men and rape culture. He had a book series, a podcast, and a newsletter devoted to unpacking and redefining masculinity. He gave many interviews on the subject and has a Ted Talk titled “Why I’m Done Trying To Be ‘Man Enough,’” in which he talked about the importance of men getting in touch with their feelings, embracing vulnerability, and listening to women.
Cut to 2024 and the aftermath of filming It Ends With Us. Turns out Baldoni hired the same people Johnny Depp used to discredit and smear Amber Heard to make sure that if his co-star Blake Lively came forward with her story of what happened to her on set and the toxic, sexist environment he allegedly imposed on her, no one would listen.
It is crushing to realize that the few men who choose to use their platform to speak out and confront this culture of misogyny and toxic masculinity apparently only do it to build their brand. Maybe even to hide their true colors. I am reminded of the sociopath who was in a relationship with a close friend of mine, who spoke the language of feminism while deceiving her to an unreal extent and putting her physical and mental health in danger. She and I have howled in laughter at how he apparently used to rail, to her, against the healthcare system for its terrible treatment of women. But it isn’t really funny. Since this relationship, she has found herself hospitalized several times with unexplained searing pain in her gut – a place in the body where trauma often transforms into physical ailment – and yes, the healthcare system has treated her poorly.
I am also reminded of the man I met my first few weeks of college, who made a performance of stopping to check on a drunk girl who was making out with someone as I left the party with him, and whose sign on his dorm room door said, “Consent is Sexy.” He tried to close that door; I got a bad feeling and led him back outside instead, where he promptly ditched me. He would later become known on campus as someone who coerced and assaulted many of my peers.
What I find most disheartening is this: I want men to be allies. And of course there are men who genuinely are. But it seems the louder their allyship is, the less we can trust it. Which sucks, because there are a LOT of very loud male voices on social media sending messages to young men and boys that recruit them to be part of the problem – to cut themselves off from their capacity to grow and empathize, to lean into anger and entitlement, and to hate women. Whereas there are few adult male role models who are having public conversations about healthy masculinity. Baldoni makes it less possible for REAL men to do that work.
Men like him do have a tell, though: it’s how they treat women. Take their words and their politics with a grain of salt. Set a boundary with them and see what happens. Because ultimately, this is how we know whose feminism is genuine and whose isn’t: by listening to women. Men can give all the speeches they want, but the women in their home and their social circle and their workplace know who they are. And when those women tell the rest of us, they are doing us a huge favor, often at great risk to themselves. For example, survivors who choose to report – which we know can be a humiliating and re-traumatizing process – often name wanting to protect other women as the reason they spoke up.
If all women stopped seeing each other as competition and started trusting each other, predatory men would have a harder time. He says his ex is crazy? Maybe ask her what happened. He says his female coworker who just quit was hard to work with? Get her story. Men like Baldoni have made it impossible for men who say the right thing in public to be trusted. In the end, the only thing he said that was worth our time was this: listen to women.