Always: 61% of young people have felt ashamed for having a period

[TeenPlusCat]

Ad just on TV as above

That can't be right can it?

Even if every single girl felt ashamed that would still make up only 51% of young people...

(sorry if this has been covered before)

Even if some people disagree with them, there are people out there who have had periods who would not see themselves as girls. You can say they are wrong all you like. But they will still not see themselves like that. And would be hurt to have someone define them in a way they did not agree with.

@anadulthumanfemale who says that they surveyed transboys? You can say that 61% of girls feel ashamed about their periods without it needing concern transboys.

I can imagine that transboys are much more likely to be ashamed about their periods (difficulty coming to terms with puberty has a strong correlation with trying to identify one's way out of one's own sex). So it would make sense to target them separately.

you just say females between 13 and 17 years old

No, as you said yourself, you can read the small print. You aren't expected to just know. But most people do, and will.

So for those who require clarity, it is still there. No one is pushed out. Nothing is lost. Except the time to read the small print. And if you aren't willing to do even that little for the sake of another's feelings, well, that's that I guess

You seem to be implying, without clearly coming out and saying so, that you take for granted that the survey sample included female transitioners and females who identified as non-binary.

Why?

Including transitioning teenagers/young females with dysphoria would heavily skew the data on how common it is to feel ashamed of having a period. So let's not assume they did, mmmkay?

So given we have no reason to presume there were teenage girls in the sample who identified as anything else than girls, whose feelings are we protecting here?

The feelings of female transitioners reading who don't want to find out that girls without trans identities also hate having periods?!

What next? It hurts some people's feelings to find out that we and apes have a common ancestor. Shall we stop mentioning that, too?

How does everyone know that it's only relevant to girls? Only because at some point in everyone's education, someone had to admit the truth that menstruation is unique to the female reproductive system.

Yes, anyone who talks about "people who have periods" is relying on someone else having done the groundwork.

In a gender utopia, how would anyone know who are the "people who have periods" if no one has previously been able to say "you're a girl" and "girls have periods"?

"61% of carbon-based life forms have felt ashamed at having a period". Perfectly clear and correct according to some posters

@Ereshkigalangcleg

We know full well why this obfuscation is occurring. I think clear language around women's health issues is more important than their sensibilities.

Yes

If this was happening with men then I could be mollified….but it isn’t

But as with others i do like information to be clear, and this isn’t

No wonder GIRLS feel ashamed of their female bodily functions when they are so shrouded in obfuscating, erasing, distancing language.

If you are open about the fact that all girls menstruate and it's a perfectly normal, healthy (albeit often painful and inconvenient) fact of life for every single female post-puberty, much of the shame is removed.

If you erase the definition of those who are affected by periods, you automatically make their experience harder to talk about. If we're talking about 'young people' coming to terms with the sometimes messy and uncomfortable business of menstruation, I would definitely want to swap places with the 'young person' sitting next to me in maths who I know for a fact isn't concerned about bleeding through his uniform.

Girls have periods. Boys do not. Once we stop being able to state that clearly we increase the shame and the awkwardness and stigma around periods.

The irony of this being so blatantly displayed in an advert ABOUT PERIOD SHAME actually blows my mind.

This is where the Idea that a girl is "something you can see yourself as" leads. Being a girl is a fact. You can wear what the hell you like but you are still a girl.

Say I see myself as a 6ft size 6 blonde woman. The fact that I am not is a reality, it's actually factual. Imagine me walking into a model agency and saying "here I am, put me on the catwalk". When they turn around and say no, am I supposed to tell them that they are incorrect, offensive and should be cancelled.

I guess these companies don't do facts.

I am interested in the 'inclusive' obsessives on here of how to navigate this conundrum.

There are 30 young people in a class. One says 'Oh my gosh I am bleeding from my genitals'.

How does the teacher work out whether to explain 'yes it is perfectly normal, go to the nurse and they will issue you with some period products' or 'oh my goodness someone call an ambulance'?

If parents and teachers and marketing and doctors cannot refer to 'girls' any more, how do we even explain to girls about periods and whether they will get them or not?

If we have to pretend that 'trans girls' are 'girls', then how do we explain periods with the ones that are biologically female and not the biologically male?

How do we explain to the 'trans girls' that this will not happen to them and why? What words are we allowed to use to explain this?

Nothing? In 2 hours?

No 'oh yes we have thought that through here is some guidance'?

Well I am shook.

I'll vote with my wallet and not buy Always. Have told DH not to buy them for DD either. Always can make their choices, I'll make mine.

They could have gone with "people who have had a period" if that's who they asked. They haven't though they've asked young people aged 12-17. They could have all been blokes.

@AuxArmesCitoyens

"61% of carbon-based life forms have felt ashamed at having a period". Perfectly clear and correct according to some posters

Well it cant be 61% insects dont menstruate and thy make up the majorty

Get with the programme Velvet, you clearly don't have to menstruate to participate these days.

The real problem that causes it is, of course, that now we are not allowed to have a word for individuals who belong to the biological sex which typically produces ova.

If 'women' and 'girls' are abstract identities, then we now have no name for that group of people which is the basic group one needs to be in to menstruate (though not all members of that group menstruate and none do all the time). And we have no name for those female people who actually identify as women because they live with female bodies and that affects how others treat them and also their lives directly.

'Women' and 'girls' cannot now be used for that group, so everyone in it has had their identities erased. Moreover, it will be pretty hard to fight against sex-based discrimination, sexual harassment and so on when we have no name for the group most likely to be its victim.

When people talk about 'inclusiveness', they add those who are female but identify as something else to the group by calling the group 'people' or 'bleeders' or 'individuals with a cervix'. But that makes the giant assumption that nobody's gender identity is based on their actual biological sex.

I think (based on my informal surveys) that the latter is almost always the case, so erasing 'women' and 'girls' as names for biologically female people then erases the names for the vast majority of people who currently call themselves by those labels. So inclusiveness invalidates the gender identities of the vast majority.

I no longer can tell if I am a woman in this new system as I have no idea what an abstract gender identity might be, and all suggestions about how to give 'women' and 'girls' an alternative definition are deeply sexist and take us back to regressive sex roles.

But the difficulties this change will cause in the global fight for equality between the sexes is my real concern. And the fact that worrying about that giant problem is labeled bigotry.