Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Always Exploitive

The Almighty did not give me the ability to boycott Always or Tampax. If I could, though, I certainly would.



I despise this for a number of reasons:

I hate any for-profit company that says "buy this and we'll give a cut to charity." If you're so interested in charity, then why don't you give the money?

So it's advertising.

And whom are they helping?

The black schoolgirl in a small village in sub-Saharan Africa. Not the Ukrainian prostitute in downtown Kiev. Not the orphaned girl in Afghanistan. Not the child of homeless parents in Baltimore, the very country where their major market and commercial operations are. Nope, they are looking to maximize sympathy.

Black. Female. Child. Lives in a village. A village full of straw huts. In Africa.

Someone please yell "CUT!"

I'm pretty sure that African women have been undergoing these bodily functions for a while. I'm highly skeptical that devising a way to deal with said functions is on this village's top-10 list of priorities. And why exactly can't these people purchase or produce the solution themselves? Wait, I know, it's because "assisting national governments to implement sound economic policies that foster local industry over imported goods" isn't quite as catchy as "Have a Happy Period." The former would also be very much counter to P&G's interests.

And what happens when P&G finds a new cause celèbre for its ad campaigns?

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3 comments:

Kelly said...

I concur. But the black girl in the village needs help too. Not everything focused on 'black people in Africa" deserves criticism for that choice.

Kelly said...

ps I think you have "Africa Fatigue"

The Proud Islamist said...

I think you're right. Is "Africa fatigue" a well-known phenomenon?

No doubt she needs help too, but I question from whom and why.