Lunette (menstrual cups) policing our language.

[littlecabbage]

I was interested in the MN sponsored thread about Lunette menstrual cups, and so had a look at the Lunette website. Unfortunately, there is an entire page dedicated to discussing “cis-women” and multiple “genders”, and lecturing us all on “how feminine-only language hurts” and how they would like to police our language for us.

I will therefore not be buying this product.

uk.lunette.com/blogs/news/gender-and-period-care-products

What to Say Instead

So, it’s pretty clear that the use of female-centric words needs to cease in the menstruation industry. This begs the question of what to say instead.

Depending on the context, you can try to avoid naming groups of people. For example, instead of saying “Some people who menstruate prefer Lunette” you could say “Lunette is a preferred menstrual care product”

We’ve changed racist labels. We’ve changed sexist labels. Now, let’s change cisexist ones. Periods are not inherently feminine. Periods are a biological phenomenon that impacts the lives of people who are born with a uterus. We have the power to grow toward inclusion of all people who menstruate, and now is the time for that shift. All people deserve to feel comfortable taking care of themselves during their time of the month. Period.

Here is the MN thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_product_tests/3741592-Find-out-what-MN-testers-thought-of-the-Lunette-menstrual-cup

No male will ever menstruate

They're not trying to appeal to males - the demographic they're targeting is woke folk. The people woke folk feel are excluded by 'feminine' products are transmen who possess female biology.

Periods are not 'feminine' no. But they are 100% female.

What absolute numbskulls these people are. Fuck 'em.

I do hope the lunette people get to see all the (now deleted) comments and then have a think about the strength of feelings on this matter.

Bloody hell.

This is ridiculous.

I will not be buying this for my female periods.

Don't the people working at the Lunette marketing department ever read the newspapers? 95% of the British population doesn't agree that there are many genders or that TWs are women or TM are men. The employees in the marketing department are not only being misogynistic, they are also clearly demonstrating that they are incompentent.

And dear Mumsnet: this is exactly some of the feedback you should give Lunette: That the mumsnetters find their choice of words to be disrespectful and offputting.

Lunette also publishes tips on breast binding on your period. I saw this on their website just after I bought my second cup from them.

uk.lunette.com/blogs/news/5-tips-for-binding-on-your-period

It's transwomen (and TRAs, generally, in their "support" of transwomen) who are driving this, not transmen. Even though it looks like it's to be inclusive of transmen, we all know that transmen, being female, have no power and are not generally listened to. It's that "their" (ie transmen's) issue is being amplified and being pushed so hard by males that this is gaining any traction. And the reason these TRA male-sexed people are so keen to support a "female" issue is part of their overall campaign to eradicate any reference to female biology from anything women-related that males do not share.

They’ve deleted my message on the feedback thread. It isn’t even a deleted message, like it was never there.

Ah, well. I won't post on their product testing post, then. But I certainly won't buy one - menstruation is a female issue and doesn't need to have the words women vanished from it.

Erasure, again.

A bit trying, that after years of asserting our right to say out loud and clear that women menstruate, of overcoming all the stigma and shame associated with something that most women (and only women) experience, we are again losing the ability to describe ourselves and our bodies. We are again having to capitulate to pander to the feelings of people who think 'woman' is an abstract notion, rather than a bodily reality.

I won't go and derail, I'm a good girl

But pray-tell Michael, how many of your product testers were not female?

I know. It’s so scary. Erasure. Erosion of rights. I have a DD and I worry that she will grow up to think it’s normal that Male and females menstruate.

I really don’t think this can be said loudly enough. I had to explain to my 70 year old DM yesterday as she had no idea. She is very prudish but clocked immediately what I was saying, she was horrified and had no idea. I’ve told her to be careful in changing rooms too.

Lunette also publishes tips on breast binding on your period.

Ouch! Even more so than would normally be the case.

I'm not buying and products aimed at women that refuse to address us as women. Any company calling me a menstruator is getting no money from me.

A quick look at lil-ets and tampax all have girls and women and females in their website. Good to see not all brands have gone down the same road.

Who are triggered by being called women. But not by hoiking a menstrual cup out of their foof and tipping blood out of it.

Is it really, really bad that I burst out laughing? Or just really bad? Or a bit bad. How bad on a Woke scale?

Lunette also publishes tips on breast binding on your period

Ouch to this and wtf to the news in the OP.

How bad on a Woke scale?

Well, it's 100 on the boke scale!

Funny that “Michael’ popped in to tell the women off! 🤣

Upset by being called women. Life must genuinely be very difficult if your own body causes such grief. I'd gently suggest that the solution lies in your response to reality, not in trying vainly to persuade the world to collude in this fantasy.

Periods are not inherently feminine.

Nothing is inherently feminine. Women have been picking apart ideas of what's feminine since at least 1792, and showing how they are designed to restrict girls and women and groom us for exploitation.

But periods are part of female biology. And females have been thought of as particularly bodily, biological creatures, tied to and by our weak flesh. Material bodies are of course much less to be valued than the realms of pure thought, occupied by the masculine, which is to be freed from mundane bodily concerns like making homes or washing and feeding families. And biology is absolutely not to be talked about in public. In fact femininity becomes valuable when it coyly conceals and denies female biology, the realities of reproduction. Femininity is about female bodies enticing and receptive to men for sex, not about the potential to reproduce, which must not be acknowledged as owned by women. These marketers think they are being progressive, but they are falling into the oldest traps patriarchy has laid out.

I feel like cups require a much more, um, maybe we could say intimate level of contact with your own body than say pads do, so they seem an odd choice for anyone trying desperately to forget that they have a vagina and a uterus.

Ffs.

So, it’s pretty clear that the use of female-centric words needs to cease in the menstruation industry.

Says fucking who exactly?

Funny that “Michael’ popped in to tell the women off!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry Michael! But honestly - some things can be delegated, you know.

Dear goddess. I'm the queen of inappropriate pissing oneself, aren't I? Have Tena Ladies gone to the dark side yet?

Yes, I agree, ProdigalKittens - why would you not use tampons so you don't even need to look at them?

Mooncups are an odd choice for someone who doesn't want to acknowledge their biology.

Have Tena Ladies gone to the dark side yet?

Don’t be pissexist. It’s Tena People That Piss Themselves, donchyerknow.