Some brilliant feminist “propaganda”, coming to a lamp post near you.
Well, that’s one way to make sure your message is heard.
A young German blogger is writing feminist messages on sanitary pads and posting them in public spots around her city.
Elonë, who lives in Karlsruhe in Germany, was inspired by this message originally penned by Twitter user @cutequeer96 last year:
That message became the subject of Elonë’s first post, which she shared on Tumblr and Instagram this week.
It has now been shared more than 100,000 times and her project has made international news.
Related: “Yes, I’m a feminist. Why aren’t you?”
The 20-year-old has already been inundated by messages from people around the world who are keen to reproduce the campaign in their own cities.
Elonë said that the idea behind her project was to raise awareness of feminism and women’s issues and to spread the message that “feminism means equality, not men hate.”
Related: Want to know if you’re feminist or not? Answer this simple question.
Predictably, she has already copped personal abuse and backlash (often by men), but Elonë is standing by her project:
I did this to provoke, I did this to get people to think about the whole thing…You poor little men please start telling me about how men are treated bad… how bad it is to get more money on every job, tell me how it is to be called a bitch, whore, slut, c*** for everything you do, please tell me how you got sex trafficked please… if men like you would start seeing the problem it would be a better place here so stop victimising yourself.
Some of the slogans she has posted so far include: ‘rapists rape people not outfits’, ‘my name is not baby’ and ‘my pussy, my choice’.
It’s provocative, it’s in your face – and it’s genius.
Let’s hope this movement takes off.
Do you think this campaign will make a difference?
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Top Comments
The infuriated comments and other enraged responses online both here and elsewhere prove this this is a great advertising campaign. Simple, effective, clearly hits a sore point and makes people look and talk and think and re-evaluate knee jerk responses to any attempt to have women treated as human beings with equal rights. Great stuff, well done to that woman.
Of course, if you're disgusted by rape, it's not aimed at you. But then, you already know that. So, if you are one of the good guys, instead of wasting time telling everyone what a good guy you are or churlishly pretending this is somehow insulting to you personally, the actual good guys will be busy helping promote this message and others like it, or at the very least not trying to make it all about themselves again.
As always, I rarely respond to relentless sexists, flat earthers, the permanently offended on behalf of men trolls and those who use ad homs, deflections, minimisations and other fallacies.
I'm a man. It is aimed at me. My opinion on, or response to, rape isn't even being questioned. It is assumed that, as a man, I'm not disgusted by it.
Right, so because I don't like a gender being stereotyped I'm labelled as a "permanently offended on behalf of men troll".
If I stood outside the family law courts with a sign that read "Imagine if women were as concerned about what's best for their kids as they are at getting back at their ex" that would be ok with you? After all, if you're a good person you'd support the message of more equitable custody right? Nothing offensive about labelling all women as the one category?
Don't bother replying, you're flat out sexist comments and inability to engage with others opinions says enough.
Unfortunately, there's good research to show that people often behave the way they *believe* most people behave. Social psychologists use this information to help promote the incidence of desirable behaviours in a population. For instance, a group of children can be encouraged to bully less, simply by teaching them that bullying is strange and uncommon - that it's a social abnormality.
Unfortunately, there's similar research showing that despite their best intentions, public service announcements that that depict an *undesired* behaviour to be more common than it actually is, typically increase the incidence of that undesired behaviour.
The second pantyliner states that the majority of men feel a certain (undesirable) way about rape and about menstruation. Despite the author’s best intentions, this could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy and serve as fodder for our burgeoning rape culture.
Sanitary (I hate that word) Pads are just like big Bandaids......I think that it would help some men to realize that ...............using the word "sanitary" is misleading because it implies something unpleasant & distasteful ........it's so very 1950's.
Men who rape have no empathy..............I think the message should read "Imagine if men were as disgusted with rape as they are with murder" but that would be a bit pointless displayed on a pad.
This is a campaign directed through eyes of a very earnest young girl looking to shock people out of their complacency by using a "feminine product" but I'm sure there's another issue coming when that would be more appropriate.