This snarky-but-nonspecific title refers to Tampax’s new advertising campaign, which includes a young teenage boy who wakes up with ‘girl parts’. My goodness, how will he cope?
By baking and learning men can be gross, along with performing other classic gender-normative “feminine” behaviors.
As Sociological Images points out, the campaign does not fall for any of the more egregious canards like “playing with his girlparts” creepy sexual arousal or suicidal emasculation-anxiety, yet Debbie at Body Implotic is correct in noting the campaign is still problematic.
Neither Procter & Gamble (surprise!) or Luscombe talk about menstruation in the context in which it matters, which is reproduction. “Having your period sucks!” says Zack, blithely unaware of how often young women in his class have cried their eyes out because their period didn’t come, or danced for joy because it did.
What both these commenters miss, and I think is a key point, is the campaigns erasure of the thousands of vagina-owning trans men and intersexed folks who have had to deal with Zack’s problem their entire lives. Zack is not exceptional by any means, yet the campaign reinforces that, as a special and unique snowflake, he must “tell his story.” (more…)
