Yoga with Adriene - Redo of PMS Video

[ThePawtriarchy]

I’ve just seen the message in my inbox from Yoga with Adriene saying that she’s done a redo of her really popular ‘Yoga for Cramps and PMS for Women’ video to remove the reference to ‘Hey Ladies’ etc and make it all gender neutral, to be inclusive.

I actually just feel really sad now. I feel excluded as a woman, there’s nowhere that’s safe where I don’t have to consider men first.

Is it to do with men though? I thought in instances like this it's out of consideration for trans men?

I know what you’re saying @TequilaPilates and you may be right but it still feels the same. As though the language referring to experiences only women have is being amended to refer to everyone except women. It’s almost as though ‘woman’ has begun to mean nothing and everything all at once. That I shouldn’t really use it at all.

I've just seen this email too and came here to see if there was a thread about it. I think I feel sad that this ideology is so pervasive and confused that it's seen as progressive.

Yes, agree. She’s posted on Twitter about it and it’s just people saying well done. I’m not sure I have it in me to disagree on there today. I love Adriene so it makes me question myself on this 😩

I do her yoga videos and there can't be many that this applies to - is it just this one? She doesn't just do videos for women does she?

Yes, it’s just this one Tequila as it was the only woman specific one.

I just read the email and was almost willing myself to stop reading because I knew what was coming - the language is always similar, isn’t it.

@TiredofthisBS I think it’s because in my real life nobody agrees with me and I think assume I’m bigoted.

My husband veers between disinterest and telling me he can’t share views like mine due to it not being ok at the massive corporation he works for. He’s finally decided to give a shit about diversity after years of looking bored but it turns out that it doesn’t include women.

My other friends believe you can be born in the wrong body and look embarrassed at the mention that women’s rights might be at risk.

I love my weekly email from Adriene. Just read this one and felt very despondent.

The world has gone crazy! I won’t be watching her videos any more.

I too came straight here to start a thread after reading the email this morning.

She says that in 2014 she made a video about yoga for PMS and cramps:

In my pink socks I kick this video off with “Hey Ladies” and remark on how this is a special sequence, “just for us go’ils.

This video is huge, y’all. It has 753,978 views and in the top comment someone suggests I be awarded the Nobel Prize. (Oh, YouTube, how I love ya.)

But, because it really is my wish that this community and this space be one of total inclusion, I want to call a re-do on this one and offer a new practice that respects affirming, neutral gender pronouns. One that reminds anyone watching that I am here to create spaces that feel welcoming and supportive for everyone, and I am fully committed to this.

As I meditate on the importance of being true to the best version of myself, each day, I want to keep asking myself in what ways can I challenge (my) assumptions.

How about you?

I really don’t know what to say ...

[Edited by MNHQ]

Yes, @justanothernomaj - despondent is exactly it. At least there’s still
Benji!

At least there’s here to talk about it (as long as we’re careful).

@ThePawtriarchy I know how you feel. My husband doesn't get it either but I despite pressure I will continue to put women's rights first. Mainstream and social media is much to blame for this situation. It's a shame that Adriene feels the need to follow the trend to throw women under a bus. Personally I like Sarabethyoga

There’s lots of ‘Yes! Not only women have periods!’ crap in the responses and retweets. Of course only women have periods. If you’re calling yourself a man and having periods one of these facts is not correct, which is it... 🧐

I will check out Sarabethyoga, thanks!

Apologies it's sarahbethyoga 😊

If you can find it in yourself to respond, you might want to. Maybe something of the lines of understanding wants to make transmen feel comfortable, but in doing so she is adding to the idea that women and their specific sex based needs should be unmentionable.

I’ve messaged her on insta. Doubt she will ever even see it, but hey ho.

I have unsubscribed.

(And am now seeing adverts above my typing for yoga stuff.)

I read it and rolled my eyes too.

I love her videos and I love her; not surprised exactly, but I have downgraded her from 'fantasy BFF' to 'ok but a bit wokey'.

Is the push I was waiting for to unsubscribe from her email, I find her writing style annoyingly gushy anyway.

I think I am more offended at her needing to wear pink socks in the first video than her deciding to remove overt references to women in the new one.

She's still making a PMS/period pain video so women aren't losing out on anything. It's done in your own home so no issue of access to female only spaces. The only difference is that she won't address the audience as women or ladies or whatever ( which she doesn't do in any of her other videos because they are aimed at everyone).

Its a real shame when actual sex based issues cant even be referred to as womens issues.

They really are looking to erase any talk of women arent they. And its just happening so quickly like above with not bejng able to talk at work etc.

I used to be proud of having girls and how far womens rights had come and it seems so backwards. I am sad for my girls future.

Woman is a sex designator, not a gender description. And this is female erasure. The loss of our language, of words specific to females and only females is yet another example of why this ideology is hostile to us. Because I've seen what happens next - first the well meaning virtue signaller strives for gender neutral, then they are informed that other words are "problematic" too.

Cf companies offering period products for instance where first they start talking about menstruators and female biology and then they are "advised" that female is a contentious word, too, and so on.

Appeasement is a stop gap. It only ever works for a little while. In the end you either have to abandon expressing your own position entirely after moving over to theirs incrementally, or you assert yourself and stand your ground.

The Yoga world is woker than woke. And her business model means that she can't ignore this. But simply redoing the video (it is five years old after all) wouldn't have sufficed.

One must genuflect at the altar of gender ideology or be branded a 'phobe. Heretics won't be tolerated.