Something that is obscured by this ridiculous language is the correlation between feeling shame at your body’s natural functions, and being female.
The whole point of this ad is trying to destigmatise the issue. But you can’t address it properly if you’re ignoring the fact there’s a huge difference in the way girls and boys are socialised in terms of bodily shame in general, and that within that wider context this particular issue is something only girls and women, aka human females, experience and are shamed for. Can experience and be shamed for.
Only the female body does this thing. Only female children have to cope with the shame and embarrassment of dealing with their period when they enter puberty. And a huge part of the reason that shame is attached to it is precisely because we are female, in a profoundly misogynistic world. It’s not random.
The female body is still somehow viewed as inherently shameful, because of all the countless generations of patriarchy, of women being reduced to sub human status, of women being blamed for men’s cruelty and inhumanity towards us.
And of course in the same vein, female sexuality is also still policed, controlled and shamed - the sexual double standards of judging men and women who have multiple sexual partners, for example, differently are still very much alive and kicking.
Take away the explicit reference to the fact these people experiencing shame at the entirely natural functioning of their reproductive system are all female, and you lose the ability to analyse the misogyny inherent in this phenomenon, to recognise it as a feminist issue and address it as such.
It’s almost like they're ashamed of the connection between this issue and femaleness, too ashamed to point it out.
Great win for those who actually don’t want the status quo to change, a complete own goal in terms of what this campaign is supposed to achieve.