Have you seen the new Bodyform advert?

[Fairenuff]

Just that really. Sorry if there's already a thread.

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/bodyform-s-new-advert-breaks-period-advertising-taboos/vi-BB16hTmF?ocid=msedgdhp

Brilliant.

I can’t decide if I like it or not. It certainly is powerful and honest, and a vast improvement on blue liquid, white shorts and ‘people who menstruate’. But I’m not sure I want to be unexpectedly reminded of the devastation I felt when I discovered my first baby had no heartbeat during my 12 week scan by an advert designed to sell sanitary products (some of which are used by women miscarrying not menstruating.)

Same experience here but on balance I think it's important to give a voice to that specific experience of being female which is common to so many women. I find it quite cathartic, but I completely understand your feelings. I cried

Great advert and as so many women have commented - how on earth have we got to a place where in 2020 we have to be pathetically grateful that a company with women as their core demographic are not erasing our language, identities and experiences?

As a woman who is currently going through the (literal) pain of miscarriage I thought it was a wonderful video. The scene with the doctor's face changing is one many of us have sadly experienced. I think it was a very brave scene to include and honest to women's experiences. I'm now crying and eating chocolate cake.

your post made me cry again. That scene was so powerful. And sad.

The Metro has managed to produce a whole article that's entirely about women and women's bodily experience without mentioning the words 'woman' or 'women' once.

I think when the advert is this powerfully and viscerally about women, it highlights the absurdity of this to most people.

That's amazing! Although I didn't get all of it.

I've asked her to define non-binary. I'm pretty sure as a lesbian involved in the construction industry I would be classified as non-binary.

I agree. The problem with the reply you received is that it's implied that women who don't mean particular criteria are excluded by the word 'woman'.

@Shedbuilder

I emailed Jessica Lindsay who wrote the editorial in the Metro. Jessica had managed to write a couple of hundred words about the advert without mentioning women. The words 'woman' and 'women' do occur in the article, but only where Jessica was quoting the Bodyform marketing manager or the Bodyform survey results, when she couldn't get away with removing them. I accused her of erasing women.

She responded:
I am not trying to erase women - I am one. Instead, I used added descriptors so that the many people who have periods (including trans men and nonbinary people) feel included under this umbrella alongside women.

I've asked her to define non-binary. I'm pretty sure as a lesbian involved in the construction industry I would be classified as non-binary. I mean, proper women don't know what I know about drainage and renewables and engineering, so I must be halfway to being a bloke, mustn't I? And strangely, not at all offended by mention of women and bleeding...

I guess at least she mentioned transmen, rather than the usual of centring male transwomen, as they usually don’t get a look in with TRAs.

If you get a definition of non-binary, please share

I loved the refrain in the song "who made you?" Every damn person on this planet including the misogynists, the ridiculous TWAW wokesters and the gay couples who think they have the right to buy a surrogate child owes their very existence to a woman with a womb.

Yes it reminded me a bit of this!

That's an ace video/ promo

@Ereshkigalangcleg

The Metro has managed to produce a whole article that's entirely about women and women's bodily experience without mentioning the words 'woman' or 'women' once.

I think when the advert is this powerfully and viscerally about women, it highlights the absurdity of this to most people.

That's a particular type of internalised woman hating to believe that by erasing the word woman you suddenly become 'inclusive'. I'm always saddened to see young women being so clueless about the roots of patriarchy, misogyny and discrimination that they buy into this male dominated behaviour.

‘Non binary’ does so much damage. It’s seen as the mild, less confrontational version of trans. But in fact it is explicitly throwing all women and girls under a bus:

I’m not a woman/girl because I reject all stereotypes, I’m free and liberated, I’m interesting. You are just boring women being female. Ugh. Thank god I’m not one of you people.

I’m trying to think of the race equivalent. The Black person who rejects their race and claims to be something more ‘nuanced’.

The closest I can come to is Lenny Henry in his minstrel days. It pains him greatly now although I can quite understand how it seemed ok at the time to him trying to get on and trying to get himself seen as an entertainer. Just like all our girls trying to be seen as people not weak sexual vessels which is all they are told women are.

I’ve watched the video twice and can’t see a trans man in it, but I have read on Twitter there is.

@Arkon

I’ve watched the video twice and can’t see a trans man in it, but I have read on Twitter there is.

The isn’t a trans person in the advert, from what I can see. However their is an interview with a young tans person on the Bodyform website. It’s A couple of years old and actually quite good.

www.bodyform.co.uk/our-world/miles/

A few people have said it shows a trans man at 2:44, it’s only for a split second.

Honestly, I’m as GC as you will find, but I’m alright with a female bodied person who identifies as trans, in the advert, as the fact that they are barely noticed, shows that they obviously haven’t been centred, as so many are, in women’s issues. It’s still a strong female centred advert that doesn’t fanny about catering to the woke brigade.

Oh it doesn’t bother me either, I just found it interesting that those on twitter jumped to point it out. Personally I viewed that scene as a woman who had a mastectomy, not necessarily trans 🤷‍♀️

@Arkon

Oh it doesn’t bother me either, I just found it interesting that those on twitter jumped to point it out. Personally I viewed that scene as a woman who had a mastectomy, not necessarily trans 🤷‍♀️

Yes, we don’t know that this wasn’t who they were actually were.

@Arkon

Oh it doesn’t bother me either, I just found it interesting that those on twitter jumped to point it out. Personally I viewed that scene as a woman who had a mastectomy, not necessarily trans 🤷‍♀️

That's how I view her. The entire advert was so profoundly female centred, I imagine that's exactly what it was meant to portray. That trans didn't even enter into it.

There have to be hardly any transmen who want to be part of an advert that was so relentlessly about female biology. Surely it's the opposite to how they want to be.

Just amazing. As a woman, mum and teacher this could be a game changer. I cried a bit too.

[quote Ereshkigalangcleg]I loved the refrain in the song "who made you?" Every damn person on this planet including the misogynists, the ridiculous TWAW wokesters and the gay couples who think they have the right to buy a surrogate child owes their very existence to a woman with a womb.

Yes it reminded me a bit of this! [/quote]
Best song ever! I’d LOVE to see an advert for period products featuring the Vagina Anthem but I doubt it will ever happen.

Yes, I'm not sure why a trans man would be an part of it except in a "and of course, men have uteruses (uteri?) too!" shoehorn.

I really liked it but surely it’s not going to be available for children to watch with the obvious shagging? 🤔

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