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What do you think?

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Do pierced ears make a man less manly?

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The decision by a popular Chinese video streaming platform to censor the ears of actors wearing earrings has sparked a heated debate online.

Images taken from programmes produced by the Netflix-like streaming service iQiyi, show actors with large blobs covering their earlobes and have been widely shared online.

The hashtag #MaleTVStarsCantWearEarrings has been used more than 88,000 times on Weibo where many users are expressing their outrage at the censorship.

The controversy is the latest example of the heavy-handed blurring of TV programmes in China. Hip-hop culture, tattoos and LGBT symbols have all been censored.

Many took to social media to argue that the censorship was driven by a desire to protect "traditional" gender roles.

The effect of male celebrities displaying more "effeminate" characteristics has become a controversial issue in China in recent years.

One Weibo user jokingly wrote: "Men who wear earrings are sissies, Genghis Khan's a sissy, we should block him, and kick him out of our history books."

Others were quick to suggest a double standard, given that actresses did not have their earrings hidden.

"Who can say this isn't sexism? Why can't men do this? We've simply gone back 100 years," one user wrote.

While another called the move "unspoken sexual discrimination".

While the majority of comments were critical of the blurring, some wrote that they agreed with the decision.

"I support the government moving to rule on this," one user wrote, "men should look like men."

Some others commented to say they thought men wearing earrings was "strange" and "effeminate".

Analysis: Kerry Allen, BBC Monitoring

All TV broadcasters in China are state-owned, heavily regulated and subject to censorship.

Domestic programmes must often submit papers to their local Communist party bureau at least two months in advance for official approval. For foreign TV broadcasts, this process can take even longer.

Regulation has also extended beyond television to digital platforms, owing to people increasingly watching TV over the internet, and even broadcasting their own content. The popularity of live streaming apps unsettles the Chinese government, who want absolute control over anything that is broadcast.

However, social media users have noted their dissatisfaction over a growing list of what they can and cannot watch.

One Weibo user commented to question why actors wearing earrings was such a big issue.

"Some people actually say this would negatively influence children. If wearing a stud is to blame for negatively influencing a child, how vulnerable is the country's education system?"

Various Chinese news publications report that the country's top media regulator has not issued a statement on the issue, despite repeated attempts to contact them.

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Why is China blurring these actors' ears?

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The decision by a popular Chinese video streaming platform to censor the ears of actors wearing earrings has sparked a heated debate online. Images taken from programmes produced by the Netflix-like streaming service iQiyi, show actors with large blobs covering their earlobes and have been widely shared online.

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How would you describe yourself? How would your friend describe you?

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Here is the very controversial video that has gone viral this week.

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This article explains why many people are very upset about the Gillette commercial.

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When I viewed Gillette's "toxic masculinity" TV ad - the one that portrays a line of men shrugging, "Boys will be boys," while their fellows bully the weak, help themselves to unwanted sexual contact, and shut up their female colleagues at work - my first, admittedly tongue-in-cheek thought was: how clever.

Let's see, I reasoned: Gillette's specialty is shaving equipment, and ever increasing numbers of men, especially beard-crazy millennials, aren't shaving these days. Gillette is simply repositioning itself from a marketer to men into a marketer to women. And what sells better to women than male-bashing? From "doofus Dad" commercials hawking laundry detergent, to a #MeToo movement that mushroomed overnight from allegations of sexual exploitation in the entertainment industry to complaints about bad dates with guys with crude foreplay skills, women make a ready audience for material that tells them that there's something fundamentally wrong - maybe it's patriarchal cultural conditioning - with the other half of the human race.
Read more commentary: Gillette commercial controversy: Men should just get over it and adapt to #MeToo era If you're mad at Gillette's toxic masculinity commercial, maybe you're the problem Why did it take Susan Zirinsky 46 years to become president of CBS News?
New York Times best-selling author Jessica Valenti writes: "It's true that women are fed up with sexual violence and harassment; but it's also true that what this culture considers 'normal' sexual behavior is often harmful to women, and that we want that to stop, too." In other words, normal maleness is bad and needs to be changed - and that's why Jessica Valenti is a New York Times best-selling author.

Gillette's male-bashing ploy as marketing

There is some irony here. A leading study involving 8,520 women published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology in 2016 suggests that men are growing facial hair, and eschewing shaving, because women like it that way. The study concludes that women prefer men with beards because they view beards - from stubble to the full-blown thing - "as a signal of intrasexual formidability," that is, of being tough and aggressive and masculine, which women view as valuable traits for protecting themselves and their children.

In short, women may say masculinity is toxic, but they go for toxic every time. You might conclude that Gillette, by invoking every cliché in the male-bashing handbook, lets women have their masculinity cake and eat it, too - and also pick up one of Gillette's Venus line of razors for females while they're at it.

That was my tongue-in-cheek take on the ad. Now for my serious take. Many people might ask: What's wrong with telling men not to bully each other or harass women? After all, males commit the overwhelming majority of violent crimes - a byproduct of the physical aggressiveness that goes with testosterone.

Men deserve more credit than Gillette gives

The problem with the Gillette ad isn't that it points out that males commit antisocial acts. It's its blithe assumption that other males routinely let them get away with it. This is what has infuriated hundreds of thousands of men to the point of threatening to boycott Gillette.

They rightfully point out that supposedly patriarchal Western culture (which, by the way, treats women more respectfully than any other culture humans have ever invented) doesn't "normalize" male acts that harm others, but, rather, quite the opposite. Men might say "boys will be boys" when their son breaks a lamp playing fetch with the dog in the living room. They don't say it when their son joins a gang that beats up other boys in the schoolyard. This is not to say such activity, along with its adult equivalents, isn't uncommon, or that there isn't often peer pressure for men, especially young men, to misbehave. But men have devised institutions - called civilization - designed to channel male aggression in positive directions, such as heroism that saves lives or hard work that supports families. They deserve credit for that.

One of those institutions is fatherhood. It's fathers who are chiefly responsible for turning young male barbarians into gentlemen instead of rapists, boors and bullies. Right now, one out of every four boys in America grows up in a home without a father and pays a price in the well-documented social disorder that has ensued. If Gillette wants to get into the preaching business, it might want to focus on that problem instead of tarring men in general as violence-enablers in need of re-education and their very masculinity as a kind of poison.
Charlotte Allen is a writer in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter: @MeanCharlotte

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Gillette commercial controversy: Give men credit instead of painting masculinity as poison

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CLOSE The Gillette ad's problem isn't that it points out male aggression. It's the blithe assumption that other males routinely let them get away with it.

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This well-done video was mentioned in class. It's about how girls' perceptions of themselves change as they mature.