"Self care shouldn't be gendered" - top surgery scars

How is self-motivation self care? Its absolutely insane and promoted by a massive company! You couldn't make it up.

I’m so confused by what Instagram sees as a male vs female nipple.

When was the female nipple in this instance turned into a male nipple and therefore not censored by Instagram? When the mammary tissue behind it was scooped away?

I don’t think they accept self ID for nipples. Or is it based on the self ID of the person themselves? So what if they identify as male but haven’t had ‘top surgery’? Are their nipples male (and therefore acceptable) or female (and therefore obscene)?

Slight tangent.

From the article, my bolding:

"Watson, who plays Theo on Netflix's teen drama Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, just partnered with Unilever for the brand's latest initiative, United We Stand. The campaign pairs six grassroots, non-governmental organizations with LGBTQ+ voices and allies to raise awareness about the lack of accessibility of beauty products in the queer community."

Name me one "beauty product" that is not already "accessible" to the "queer community" ?

None.

(Follow the money.)

All this suggests to me is that sales of women's "beauty products" to both women and men were reaching saturation point, so manufacturers needed to create and/or exploit a new "target market", ie. the "queer community".

Give it time and the "queer community" will be segmented again along the lines we seen drawn between groups under the "Queer Umbrella" aka "Trans Umbrella". ( If they do not already exist there will be "special moisturisers" to deal with the "special problems" of M2F facial skin and "special aftershaves" for transmen.)

Marketing Planning 101. Create demand for re-packaged products by creating new markets and/or segmenting existing target markets.

"Non-Queer" examples.

• increase demand for existing products by inventing new "problems", generate social stigma (to avoid) and/or personal insecurity (to soothe) and then sell products as "solutions", eg. halitosis and Listerine *

• increase demand for existing products by promoting variations on existing "problems" and watch to see if the suckers fall for the applying the "solutions" more frequently and/or in greater amounts, eg.

• having established the "problem" and an accepted "solution", create new products that "improve" on the old products, eg. halitosis (again): brushing your tongue is so yesterday, you need a "tongue scraper"!

Celebrity Endorsement - nothing to add, everyone understands this as a marketing strategy.

From the article again:

"partnered with Unilever for the brand's latest initiative, United We Stand. The campaign pairs six grassroots, non-governmental organizations with LGBTQ+ voices and allies"

ethicalmarketingnews.com/unilever-launch-first-of-its-kind-pride-campaign-united-we-stand

Anyone surprised to see this from the "Ethical Marketing News" article:

"As part of the campaign, Unilever and RanaVerse created films for each organization, each featuring a different ambassador. The films are directed by Tourmaline, a passionate advocate for the trans community. Unilever partnered with breakthrough director Tourmaline, director of Happy Birthday, Marsha, a film about iconic transgender artist and activist, Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson and her life in the hours before she ignited the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City, to capture creative content that shines a light on the important organizations in the LGBTQIA+ world. A passionate advocate for the trans community, Tourmaline is committed to shifting the conversation around the gender binary of society and unearthing histories of trans women of color."

If you want to see an illustration of a Marketing Planning tool for identifying possible market segmentation and target markets you need look no further than the "Genderbread Person".

• Listerine (from Wikipedia)

"According to Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's book Freakonomics:[5]

Listerine, for instance, was invented in the nineteenth century as powerful surgical antiseptic.

It was later sold, in distilled form, as both a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea.

But it wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution for "chronic halitosis" — a then obscure medical term for bad breath.

Listerine's new ads featured forlorn young women and men, eager for marriage but turned off by their mate's rotten breath. "Can I be happy with him in spite of that?" one maiden asked herself.

Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered such a catastrophe. But Listerine changed that.

As the advertising scholar James B. Twitchell writes, "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis." In just seven years, the company's revenues rose from $115,000 to more than $8 million."

* Aftershave* (from Wikipedia "Aftershave")

"Some aftershave manufacturers encourage using their fragranced aftershave as if it were cologne, in order to increase sales by encouraging consumers to use it in a more versatile manner, rather than just after a shaving session."

This bothers me and I don't know if I can articulate why. I rarely see myself reflected on screen but I don't feel alienated from the human race because of it

But I can't help seeing a cultural reflection here of something I keep seeing in different places that are largely entertainment based of feeling like you actually don't exist if you, or someone exactly like you isn't on a screen somewhere.

Yes, to both of these comments. It put me in mind of the thread about ableism. I wonder if this isn't another version of what bothers me about trying to avoid words like "disabled" for people who don't think of themselves as disabled, even if they are trying to communicate for quite a practical purpose like getting an accommodation.

There is this sense that you are validated unless you see the image that reflects you precisely, or have a word that describes you down to the last detail. Or the idea that my daughter brought home from school that if you didn't let everyone know all your thoughts about what you identified as, as you were going through life, you were somehow not living honestly.

It's as if there is no concept on an inner individual that is a secret from everyone else, or maybe even to some extent from yourself, everything is external. It reminds me a little bit of Jung talking about how we present a persona to others, but very often, and to our detriment, we begin to believe that the persona is really who we are, and maybe even all of who we are.

Health, comfort, self-care, self-love, and self-priority are things that should be universal.

Says a young woman who had an elective double mastectomy for cosmetic purposes. I don't see health, self-care, self-love or the rest in her account of her life.

The poor woman is obsessed with her appearance. She says nothing about anything else in her life. It's all narcissism and a desire to label the minutiae of life, even toiletries.

I suppose one day she'll grow up. I don't know whether to hope she does or continues oblivious.

I haven’t followed the link so apologies if I have misunderstood but why does being ‘non-binary’ whatever that means, mean that you can’t have a natural, non-surgeried body? Isn’t it about how you regard yourself?

Why does adopting cosmetic ‘Male’ physical norm markers- like not having breasts- mean that you are more non-binary than someone who has breasts? What am I missing? This move seems very sad but also missing the point I thought was trying to be made. A bit like (much less invasive example) when schools say that they’re going to have a ‘gender neutral’ uniform and then with great fanfare they say it is just kids wearing trousers (and not wearing skirts?) ie conforming to ‘male’ gender norms?

What strikes me is how all these people are so up themselves. It's l all " me, me, me" and lots of navel gazing. Very pretentious and self absorbed. It's actually very sad and an indictment of our times

Just as a side point about this actor's show.

I find Sabrina to be a very odd series. Season one was okay, but season two ... there's something off-key about it -- to the extent I stopped watching.

And this, in itself, is strange. I am a big fantasy and horror fan. Weird shit does not faze me.

But Sabrina season two started to make me uncomfortable.

Mutilation surgery used to be illegal.

Schizophrenics quite often get obsessed with one part of their own body feeling wrong to them - a man ran a lengthy legal battle for years in the 90s demanding an NHS surgeon cut his leg off. Can't remember which leg, they were both fine, although evidently it mattered a lot to him.

He lost. No idea if his psychosis was fixed.

So what's changed? I suppose a mastectomy is sort of reversible, at least.

I've never seen myself reflected back on a commercial; I've never related to a single person onscreen in my life.

I suspect that this is true for most people. It certainly is for me. I am a member of a particular minority group. Even when that group is represented onscreen, I don't see myself reflected back - I see aspects of this minority group, often stereotypes and tropes, rather than my lived experience.

Nobody has the right to see themselves reflected in wider culture. Yes, it is culturally healthier for a society to have all its variations represented onscreen, but it is impossible to represent all its individuals. Expecting that is just toddleristic "Me want!"

(Actually, it's not quite true to claim that I've never related to a single person onscreen in my life. I have: the Ally Sheedy character in The Breakfast Club. But I didn't see myself reflected back in her, because I was loved and cherished by my family and I was not a kleptomaniac Grunge. I was just a misfit freak who hid behind her dark hair.)

I understand the positives in the idea of 'visibility and representation'. Genuinely.

But I can't help seeing a cultural reflection here of something I keep seeing in different places that are largely entertainment based of feeling like you actually don't exist if you, or someone exactly like you isn't on a screen somewhere. Like the fifteen minutes of fame is actually a laudable aim, rather than a satirical poke.

Again, I truly understand the pleasure and power in that moment of "I thought I was the only one, now I know I'm not." But that's something that is best experienced via actual relationships, not by ticking label boxes in adverts.

I don't know, but stuff like this brings home to me that half the problem here is the fragmentation of communities and positive social contact. It makes people so bloody vulnerable to absurdities and harmful lies.

No cult like encouragement there.

I read that and I just see a total obsession with looks and that their perception of their looks at any given time have a massive impact on her feelings. Like OCD thoughts.

Oh this poor soul.

So they thought they were trans but now they aren’t? Was there any counselling before the operation? Breasts aren’t there as appendages, they aren’t like hair. There is no getting them back.

I don't know where this person was living but I simply don't understand how they could have got such a rigid idea of men, women, boys and girls. Their myopia goes way beyond "girls don't play with trains etc"

On make up and clothes the internet is awash with young men giving make up tutorials on how they wear makeup.

The not washing bit- seriously? They think real men don't wash? Or sit with their legs crossed?

HOW IS THIS EMPOWERING?

All the changing of mind shows is she wasn't emotionally mature enough to make those decisions and quite frankly the doctors who didn't identify that have a lot to answer for.

I think in the long term she will recognise that, but she will need to go on a journey to discover that.

When I look back, I certainly was emotionally immature though incredibly intelligent. It wasn't until I was post 25 that I could have made that kind of decision fully appreciatung what I was doing.

During the 90s the androgynous look was pretty popular in britpop culture and that's what I wanted to be and really resented that I was definitely not flat chested and couldn't just 'disappear' as a result. I hated being a girl cos 'girls looked wrong with guitars'.

Will all the pressures now, I know where I'd be. I was self harming and trying to deliberately starve myself as it was. It was a challenge of self control to not eat for three days. The self torture was worth it for the high it gave me.

It makes me sad to know where this comes from, and ultimately the journey you need to go on to discover yourself. I hope she and others doing it, come out ultimately stronger and fighting hard for others because they'll be needed in the long term to cut through all this crap.

I've never seen myself reflected back on a commercial; I've never related to a single person onscreen in my life.

This bothers me and I don't know if I can articulate why. I rarely see myself reflected on screen but I don't feel alienated from the human race because of it. Of course when I was growing up I felt insecure and worried about not fitting in but with maturity don't we learn everyone is different but we're all equal. It's our differences that keep life interesting.

Does anyone relate to a whole character on screen or do we relate to aspects of their character, their experiences and emotions ; all
of which seems to me to develop from empathy with others as a result of our own life experiences.

I worry that the emphasis on individuality is leading young people to think they have no commonality with other human beings. What a sad state of affairs.