A UK company that sells period products is under fire for its “inclusive” marketing technique which involves telling pre-teen schoolchildren that men can have periods too.
Despite its name, the “Hey Girls” product material claims that “not all women have periods and some men do” and that girls should use language such as “people who have periods” when talking about periods, the Daily Mail reported.
Hey Girls, which is a major supplier of period products to the governments of Scotland, Wales and Australia, offers a booklet that includes a “gender and diversity” section with cartoons of four people carrying bi-sexual and pansexual flags, along with those for LGBT and people non-binary.
Hey Girls also provides videos for girls where the words “woman, woman, girl or girl” never appear.
Heather Finlay, who runs Luxury Moon, a firm of reusable menstrual products, used Hey Girls as one of her suppliers for five years before she cut ties with the company over its new ordering protocol.
Hey Girls co-founder Celia Hodson, left, with Scottish shopper Heather Turnbull said their period product company was an “inclusive social enterprise” working to end “period poverty” in the UK.
Ms Finlay shared a photo of a Hey Girls menstrual cup sent to her in 2021 which said it was for “girls or women in need” and said profits went “directly to help girls and women in need.”
Today, the menstrual cups sold by Hey Girls do not mention women and girls.
Instead the packaging says, “We are on a mission to give everyone a better period” and that “for every product purchased from us, we donate a box to someone in need.”
Hey Girls’ menstrual products use language like “menstruating people” and have little reference to women and girls. Hi Female
Finlay claims that a new generation of young people at Hey Girls have taken over “with this new wake-up language.”
“It looks like gobbledygook,” Finlay told the Daily Mail. “How can it help? I don’t think it’s appropriate. I think most parents don’t want their kids to accept it. [Women] feel inhumane. There is a trend to be inclusive, which means you don’t talk about women or girls at all. You are excluding a large number of women and girls.”
Lucy Marsh, spokeswoman for the conservative non-profit organization The Family Education Trust, told the outlet: ‘My youngest daughter is only 13 and has recently started her period.
Critics of “wake up language” worry that it will make women feel “dehumanised”. Hi Female
“Girls this age should be taught about their changing bodies in an age-appropriate and sensitive way, so they feel able to share their concerns and ask questions about being a woman. Telling them that boys have periods is misleading and wrong. It also confirms the idea that girls can be ‘born in the wrong body,’ which is very dangerous, especially for girls who already feel depressed about their body development.”
Hey Girls co-founders Celia Hodson and Kate Smith said: “Hey Girls is an inclusive social enterprise working to eradicate period poverty in the UK.
“The language we use in our materials has changed in response to feedback from our customers and is rooted in our belief that period education and access to products should be inclusive for all menstruators, regardless of how they identify.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
