Yes, I know I am writing a thesis, but I just couldn't hold off on this...the anger is just too much.
Warning, the following post contains intense sarcasm.
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I was perusing my google links the other day, and something has repeated come up in the feminist and sociological blogs I follow. This website (http://everythingidoiswrong.org/#/), has been raising a lot of emotional ire. Long story short it is a website dedicated to helping men deal with their ladies PMS issues. I was so inspired by this site, it has forced me to re-contemplate my life and my relationship with all the men in my life. After some in depth soul searching, I have composed this letter to the milk companies to thank them for highlighting this enduring problem.
Dear California Milk Processor Board, lobbies, advertising agencies and everyone else responsible for the subject discussed herein,
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Until I visited your website http://everythingidoiswrong.org/#/ I had not realized the pain and suffering that my Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS) has been causing the men that I love for the past Seventeen years and five months.
You may ask how I know that I have had my period for seventeen years and five months. Well, you see, as this milk advertising campaign has understood, my whole life is defined by and revolves around my period. It affects every aspect of my personality making me the thoroughly unpleasant person I now only realize myself to be.
So milk, thank you for making me realize what a burden it is to the men in my life when once a month I can't walk from the pain of my cramps, am completely exhausted from depleted iron for two days, when I faint from the dizziness, can't eat because of the pain from constipation, cry because of the low self esteem from my acne outbreaks, feel depressed and have increased difficulty concentrating.
Oops, sorry, I mentioned constipation, forget I said that. Women don't poop.
Thank you also for showing the men in my life how to soothe me and my raging PMS with gold and silver trinkets and chocolate. I am sure your meter showing the gold, silver, and cocoa futures so my husband can invest our (sorry I mean his) money according to my biological schedule.
Thank you also for showing my husband how my love can be bought with cute puppies, flying kittens, heart shaped balloons and other cute things. Until this point I had been foolishly assuming that mutual respect and communication were the foundation of our relationship. I now realize it is teddy bears.
On behalf of my husband, I want to thank you for teaching him how I was always right. Until now we had both foolishly shared blame when we disagreed. We now know that he is always wrong, not necessarily because the facts are on my side, but because I have a uterus. A utreus that bleeds. Once a month.
Oops, sorry again. You probably don't actually want to think about what a period is.
To the men in my life, I apologize. Up until now I have only been taking hormones that change my physiology and painkillers that make it illegal for me to drive in order to ease the pain you feel from my PMS. I have foolishly asked you to do things like buy Midol, fill a hot water bottle, or, and this is my deepest regret, buy pads or tampons. I am deeply sorry for this. Should I be so foolish in the future to make a request of you, please set me straight and buy me milk, that should solve everything.
Dear milk company, lastly and most importantly. Thank you for portraying me as a dumb bitch who is a slave to her hormones and a complete burden to live with. Thank you for portraying the men I love and respect as stupid idiots who can't have a reasonable conversation and are too immature to help me through something we all know is natural. Thank you for perpetuating sexist myths that hurt all of us. Thank you for giving medical advice based on spurious research. Thank you for teaching young girls their bodies are something they should be ashamed of and laughed at for. Thank you for teaching young boys that the period is something to be feared. Thank you for including one black man on your entire site (you wouldn't want to be racist). Thank you for doing what years of guilt have not been able to do and make me consider veganism, not because I dislike milk, but because I think you are a bunch of misogynistic douche bags who I don't want seeing a cent of my money.
And mostly, thank you in advance for taking a minute to go fuck yourselves. It is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Shelly Belly
See http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/09/02/milk-is-mens-work/ for an analysis of another one of this company's charming ads.
