Lately I’ve been getting links from co-conspirators around the blogosphere on both the fantastic and quite awful activities on the Feminist Front. And things move fast - last week I received a tip from Parents for Ethical Marketing that Procter & Gamble website BeingGirl.us had up an article that encouraged disordered eating in teen girls.
But before I could type “WHAT THE HEY YOU JERKS” into a subject line for a blog post, thanks to the efforts on the part of countless bloggers, writers and phone callers who inundated P & G, the article was removed from the US site.
So why am I blogging about this? Well, the article is still up on BeingGirl.ca, right here. Sigh.
You will note the article includes excellent suggestions like: force yourself to wait 30 minutes before you eat; write down everything you eat; and put up post-it notes around your room and locker to remind yourself not to eat, you fatty. Ok, the “you fatty” part was my own, but I can’t help but feel I was just making the implicit, explicit.
In case this doesn’t sound that bad to you, remember this information appeared unsolicited on a website targeted to girls just starting to have their periods. As in girls who are 12.
Let’s take a moment to celebrate the power of grassroots calls to action. Hooray! Clap clap! And now let’s start some grassroots action of our own: get in touch with Beinggirl.ca and ask them to get their nonsense off the Canadian site as well. Some places to start:
Procter & Gamble Canada Contact Us Form
Responsible Shopper Profile With P&G Head Office in US Contact Info
Also check out the original call to action that started this all at the F-Word blog: it has numbers you can use to call the US office.
[And if you want to complain about some other things on this sprawling, multinational and honestly terrifying site, can I recommend that you also check out the page which reduces ALL of Africa to ten facts, mostly about giraffes and cheetahs. Also look for marketing that trains children on how to emotionally manipulate their moms into buying them deodorant.]
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nine comments
I'm appalled and disgusted.
I am a user of its Canadian sister site, beinggirl.ca and i had always believed that this site was helpful to many girls.
Posted by Brianne
March 25, 2008, 5:49 PM
Brianne, one thing that was sticky about writing this post was that as much as Beinggirl promotes a way of thinking about bodies that I don't agree with, it did seem like a lot of young teen girls were getting something out of it - at least from the comments section. (At least, that's if you assume that the comments from teenage girls weren't actually written by some middle-aged male marketer pretending to be a 13 year-old girl puzzled about her first period.)
My instinct on looking through the site for about 30 minutes was to yell "shut the whole thing down!" But it's complicated right - because if young teen girls like the site, who am I to tell them what is and what isn't oppressive to them?
Posted by Thea
March 25, 2008, 5:54 PM
Good point.
But the thought that one of the members actually says that she's "average weight' and STILL wants to lose weight makes me want to rip my ears off...
Posted by Brianne
March 25, 2008, 6:27 PM
Wow. Just...wow. That's awful. Hey, I'll take occasional overeating over anorexia any day. But apparently that makes me a little loopy in the eyes of the "OMGEEZ OBESITY EPIDEMIC WE'RE ALL GUNNA DIE" masses. Sigh.
You know, I'm really tempted to boycott Always for this... although my periods are way heavy and their pads are the only ones I like. Sigh again.
Posted by Lindsay
March 25, 2008, 7:06 PM
I've sent off a big rant to them, especially concerning tips 1 and 8 which completely advocate binge and purge :/
The comments on that article just hurt my heart. An 110lb girl who thinks she's fat? I want to cry.
Posted by Danielle
March 25, 2008, 10:11 PM
That "Africa: A Rich Mosaic of Culture" interactive is really appalling. The depiction of an entre continent really is: AIDS, Giraffes, Cheetas, AIDS, Diamonds, AIDS and No One Goes to School.
Posted by Stacey May
March 26, 2008, 10:11 AM
I am so angry and disgusted I feel like I am going to throw up! (Gosh, wouldn't P&G; be proud of me and my savvy "weight maintenance"?!) Ugh.
Ugh, ugh, UGH!!!!
I actually cried when I first read all this (Thea's post, AND the BeingGirl.ca "article")...
As someone who works with a lot of young women, and has seen them struggle with body issues and eating disorders (along with some of my own 20-something peers), the fact that a website like BeingGirl.ca (which, admittedly might even actually HAVE some worthwhile support to offer young women) would be ignorant enough to publish an article like that, well... it really just kinda breaks my heart.
And then it fills me with rage. I just submitted a comment directly on the BeingGirl.ca page that contains the offendig article and I TRIED (over and over again) to submit the following to P&G; Canada's online "Customer Question Form":
"My question is: Why would your company post this:
http://www.beinggirl.ca/en_CA/pages/a...
WHY on earth would you dare to post such an offensive "article", that encourages eating disorders in young women, on a website that is pretending to be there to support girls and young women?!
Do you care that I (as a teacher, and a young woman myself - I am only 25) will be telling ALL the girls that I work with and all my friends that your website is DISGUSTING and that I encourage them to join me in boycotting your products as a result of my disgust and anger?
Or do I matter just as little as the girls you published that article for?"
And then I called P&G; Head Office and verbally submitted another complaint. Along with my phone number and a request that someone call me back to explain themselves.
I'm not holding my breath though.
Posted by Meghan Marie
March 26, 2008, 11:11 AM
You don't have to use that shit. Try cloth pads, or a menstrual cup. I made the switch a few years ago and believe me, I am never going back to the disposables.
Posted by Corinne
March 27, 2008, 2:58 PM
how do you know a man pretending to be a girl going on beinggirl?
Posted by Jenna
April 23, 2008, 9:31 AM
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