There is much cheering in the feminist blogosphere this weekend, for good reason, as Summer’s Eve has removed three offensive vagina puppet videos from their “Hail to the V” website and their YouTube page. My co-blogger, Laura Wershler, will have a lot more to say about the Hail to the V campaign next week and I don’t want to steal her thunder, but I can’t help feeling a little cranky about the response of the Richards Group (the ad agency responsible for these ads). For more than a week, many feminist critics have written eloquently and angrily about how these videos are offensive on several levels, and the company continued to defend them. But a finally, a dude mocked them, and Stan Richards decided the ladies have a point.
Yes, Stephen Colbert’s satire was great, and I’m a fan — but if I had a nickel for every time a feminist critic said something about it would be obvious how ridiculous these ads (and these products) are if we saw comparable products marketed to men, well, I’d have a lot of nickels. I’m just sayin’.
Here’s an interesting political approach. While there are hairs to split (do all women have vaginas? do all people with vaginas consider themselves women? and what about those of us with no sexual partners, or sexual partners without penises?), there’s something to be said for appealing to the majority. After all, those of us who already get it, get it, no?
I do wish it came with an action plan, though. Links to a site for people to contact their congresscritters would be good.
Norwegian athlete John Carew just revealed his new tattoo, which features wings and the phrase ‘Ma Vie, Mes Régles’. Apparently Mr. Carew believed that reads “My Life, My Rules”, but with an acute accent (é) instead of a grave accent (è), the actual translation is either ‘My Life, My Period’ or ‘My Life, My Menstruation’.
Reel Grrls produced this animated vision of what watching television might be like in a world where Gloria Steinem’s classic essay “If Men Could Menstruate” wasn’t fiction.
Widely distributed U.S. comic strip “Zits” — the ongoing story of the life and times of 16-year-old Jeremy Duncan — began a storyline about menopause this week. Apparently, Jeremy’s mom has begun experiencing signs of perimenopause. So far, it’s not awful. The humor is based on the unpredictability of hot flashes and Jeremy’s apparent embarrassment at seeing his mother spontaneously remove her blouse.
It’s open to interpretation, of course, but so far (see yesterday’s strip), it seems to me that we’re invited to laugh at how easily the teenage boy is embarrassed, and to sympathize with the menopausal woman.
Have you ever wanted to make a uterus piñata? Say, for a baby shower or a menarche party? Liz Henry explains how.
Ms. Henry notes that the symbolism is not as violent as it might first appear:
Now you might think of this as perturbingly violent or promoting the idea of bashing someone’s body part with a baseball bat. However, try to adjust your mind to a different symbolism where cornucopia-like, abundant wealth flows freely out of a fertile, open uterus and you, as whackers with baseball bats, are encouraging it to open up to the world and deliver its fabulous contents!
At last, my girlish fantasies realized! I have always dreamed of a man who would have dinner almost ready when I got home, and then mansplain the intricacies of feminine hygiene products while the risotto simmered.
Except I grew up in the 1970s, so my fantasy man shaved his face, not his chest, before our date.
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