This Article About How Sexist Movember Is, Is The Most Outrageous Thing I've Ever Read On The Internet
(Source) — Pinktober – Breast Cancer Awareness Month – ends only to be replaced by Movember – an awareness campaign for men’s health that takes place throughout November. It’s characterized by too many mustaches, overarching shows of masculinity, and a general overload of testosterone. The pure and charitable sentiment is there – raising money for prostate and testicular cancer research, and fighting mental health problems among men – but what once started out as a harmless campaign has become sexist, racist, transphobic, and misinformed.
Despite Movember claiming to be a global movement, it assumes privilege and a certain relation to class on behalf of the participant, which is only found in certain parts of the world. It is also wrong that Movember aims to link masculinity and being a man to secondary male characteristics, including having a prostate and being able to grow a mustache. To be completely clear, you don’t have to be a man to have a prostate, and you don’t have to have a prostate to be a man. Being a man, according to Movember, implies an archaic view of gender that implies that only a male/female gender binary exists, and that you aren’t really a man if you don’t necessarily identify with that binary. The idea of suggesting that men show solidarity with each other by growing mustaches is completely absurd.
Movember is also sexist. Cisgender women, called “Mo Sistas,” are encouraged to help their “Mo Bros” raise money during November, but god forbid these women try to let their own body or facial hair grow in support of this campaign. Quiteirregular.com, a blog run by blogger Jem Bloomfield, compiled a few polite tweets written during/about Movember, aimed at their female counterparts. The tweets range from, “Just a heads up, No Shave November is not for women. Don’t be disgusting, ladies,” to, “I know it’s no shave November but please ladies know this month is not made for you to take part of. #Gross,” and, “Ladies, if you’re participating in No-Shave November, we cannot be friends. I’m gonna ask nicely that you continue your routine maintenance.” (It is important to note that people often mix up Movember and No-Shave November, although they both support prostate cancer awareness.)
Bloomfield then remarks that, “This campaign, intended as a project by men for men, has immediately been turned into a pretext for demanding that women submit themselves and their bodies to male approval,” going on to add that, “I don’t want to be told that a mustache makes me a man, or that my identity depends upon shaming women into being presentable to the male gaze.” No- Shave November’s website asserts, “guys and girls alike unite in the height of laziness agreeing to not shave their beards or legs (respectively) for the entire month of November.” But Bloomfield is right in saying that the campaign has been twisted into a misogynistic tool by its own users.
Advertisement
We say this a lot, but this article has to be from The Onion. I’m sitting here, waiting for Ashton Kutcher to tell me I got Punk’d. I genuinely can’t comprehend what I just read. Is that an example of my stupidity or the outrageousness of this article? I don’t know, that’s for you to decide. What I do know is that I’ve read this excerpt 4 times and am no closer to understanding it than I am to making my own God particle. But I guess this is the world we live in now. Men can’t act like men without being called sexist. Now, if you grow a mustache and crack a joke on Twitter that chicks should still shave their legs and pussies then you might as well be a caveman, bashing women over the head and dragging them back to your cave. Raising money and awareness for prostate cancer now “assumes privilege” and that’s a problem because philanthropy has always been a hobby of people on welfare. And good luck explaining to me how Movember “demands women submit themselves and their bodies to male approval” because I’ve been home for 12 hours and my mom has yelled at my dad to shave his mustache because she thinks it’s ugly about 50 times. This entire article is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read and I’m mad at myself for even blogging it and giving it attention.