Got Sexism?

Women and their periods, AMIRITE? It’s like lycanthropy without the excessive hair growth and need to eat bunny rabbits. That’s why I’m so glad that this new Got Milk campaign has brought male suffrage to light and started to show women what total vagina dentatas they are when Aunt Flo comes to town!

The campaign, titled Everything I Do Is Wrong, features a website with pictures of beaten-down, confused men desperately trying to please their illogical girlfriends and wives (by buying them milk?). Website features include a colour-coded tracker for the ‘current global PMS level’, a ‘puppy dog eye-zer’, a ‘video apology enhancer’ and ‘mistake verification system’ where everything you type in is wrong! Oh and don’t forget the map of your local area showing you where you can buy milk in a…bitch emergency?

The campaign images feature some real pearlers like, “I’m sorry I listened to what you said and not what you meant” and “We can both blame myself.” – brilliant! Oh man, that is comedy genius right there! If there is something the world needs more of, it is gender based comedy.

I’m also really glad that this is going to be around because I really hate how ‘political correctness’ has stopped men from calling me little lady and not taking anything I say seriously. The other day I was telling this guy about my opinion on the refugee crisis and he stood there, and he listened! Ugh! And he made a cogent argument back! And then so did I! And it just went on like that! And the whole time I was like, um, helloooo? I have my period??? Shouldn’t you be undermining me right now???

I mean, I am just psycho when it’s P-time in the V-town, that’s why, every month, I just stop writing my PhD for about a week. Or if I do write, I make sure to highlight the text in red when I send it to my supervisor so she knows, that’s my period talking! LOL! 

Let’s have a deeper look at this very correct and very good marketing campaign.

Some other genius lines include:

“I’m sorry I forgot your cat’s birthday”

“I’m sorry I believed nothing was wrong when you said nothing was wrong.”

“I’m sorry for looking at the waitress that time I was ordering.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t guess what I did wrong.”

WHERE IS THE MAN WHO WROTE THIS AND WHY WON’T HE MARRY ME?!

To switch away from my intense sarcasm, I’d like to point out that I am not denying that women can have their emotions affected by their period. What I am saying, however, is that treating period induced crankiness or mood swings in this way is incredibly belittling because it plays into the old stereotype that women are irrational creatures who cannot control their emotions and that when women are anything other than placid and agreeable they are to be feared, disliked, mocked and belittled. In addition, attributing any negative feeling a woman has to their period (hence the old ‘joke’- “What’s the matter, love? That time of the month?”) is a way to immediately dismiss what she’s saying and cast her as an irrational creature ruled by her physicality, as opposed to someone with a legitimate and well thought out complaint, concern or reaction.

Personally I don’t want any mood I have that doesn’t into the category of ‘beige’ to be 1) dismissed and 2) attributed to my hormones. This is not a harmless joke. It encourages people to view women with a double standard. It patronisingly suggests that men should just humour women when they get a bit ‘worked up’, placate them with whatever will soothe their woman’s mind (in this case milk) and wait for the transformation to take place wherein said woman is not some vicious harpy. It encourages people to dismiss and undermine women, to see them as silly and to not engage with them like they’re human beings.

There’s a difference between joking in a way that is inclusive and made with a point in mind and joking in a way that ridicules other people. In this campaign, women are the joke. And to an extent, men are too. This campaign perpetuates the stereotype of useless men being all useless and just dumbing around because of how dumb and useless they are.

Little things make this less light-hearted, more divisive and more belittling. Making the website .org instead of .com? Women are the joke. Holding real world protests against crazy PMS affected women with men holding signs of these ads? Women are the joke. Suggesting that you patronise her by calling her ‘passionate instead of irrational’? Women are the joke.

Even worse, the idea of ‘medicating’ a woman with milk ties into a history of women being treated for ‘hysteria’ and other mental illnesses by enforced bed rest for months, drinking milk, eating baby food, force-feeding and refraining from intellectual activity. Both Carlotte Perkins-Gilman and Virginia Woolf were subjected to it and both wrote against it, with Gilman saying it almost drove her insane.

It wasn’t so long ago that a man could commit his wife to an insane asylum if he thought she was ‘hysterical’. It wasn’t that long ago that women who expressed a sexual identity were given clitoridectomies. It wasn’t that long ago that women weren’t allowed to have superannuation. It wasn’t so long ago that CEO’s would justify women being paid less because they get periods and have babies – in fact, that happened within the last year. It wasn’t so long ago that it was a point of concern as to whether unmarried women in politics were setting a bad example- again, that happened in the last few years.

I’m not saying that you can never make a joke about women or periods, I am just saying don’t base an entire marketing strategy on the idea that women are crazy and silly and they need to be medicated, by milk or anything else.

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