- everythingidoiswrong.org
Apparently, milk has been found to reduce P.M.S.—you know, where ladies get all bitchy once a month before the blood gushes out.
As a lady to whom this happens (monthly!), I’d be interested in knowing more about, say, the science behind this, and whether I’m supposed to take my milk intravenously or just put it up there. But instead the “Got milk?” people have an ad campaign targeting men*—one that’s all about how bitchy the ladies get, and how maybe if you lob half-gallon containers of milk at them while cowering, they won’t be bitchy so much.
- everythingidoiswrong.org
The “Got milk?” people (the California Milk Processor Board) have a website called “Everything I Do Is Wrong” (subtitle: “Are You A Man Living With P.M.S.?”)** that’s littered with hilarious charts and graphs and etc. about ladies’ That Time of the Month bitchiness and about specifically how the poor guys doing all the wrong stuff should buy milk and throw it into the room where the bitch is and cower.
The Boston Globe talked to a guy named Steve, who explained how it’s not offensive, it’s funny, LADIEEEEZZZ!
The board’s executive director says the Internet, radio and billboard campaign isn’t meant to be offensive but to encourage open conversations between men and women about an awkward subject.
“None of the humor is aimed at women. The humor is aimed at how clueless men are in dealing with emotional situations.” Steve James said Tuesday. “All of the humor is built around men’s cluelessness.”
Steve also said hey, his wife laughed at some of the stuff on the website, so it’s cool.
- everythingidoiswrong.org
Turns out the California Milk Processor Board is basing the campaign on research that received money from GlaxoSmithKline—they manufacture calcium supplements—and that the “author also served as a consultant to and had financial ties with the drug maker,” per the Globe. The chairlady of the University of California, Davis Department of Nutrition says she’s not familiar with such research, but then what do ladies know, amirite, ladies?! She probably had P.M.S. when it came out and couldn’t read because she was busy being a bitch.
Thanks, Steve. You have amply demonstrated men’s cluelessness, indeed. Also, you have made me want to kill things and throw people. And it’s not even That Time of the Month!
*Or it’s a stealth campaign actually targeting ca-ray-zeee lady bloggers? Because that’s going to work.
**Which crashed my browser in the middle of writing this post. Thanks again, Steve!
The real idiocy here is that the Calif. Milk Producers’ Board is alienating the people who actually BUY the product….women. How do they benefit from representing their primary customers as deranged half-wits? As a woman who’s never experienced any PMS symptoms, I’m especially mystified. I’ve decided not to buy any California milk products until they drop this inane campaign. The Milk Board does not represent goat milk — so I’m switching to that or soy; I found one type of milk at Whole Foods that is distributed from Texas. Many other products like yogurt and cottage cheese are made outside of Calif too. I suggest anyone upset with the campaign vote with your wallets and read product labels for the state of origin.
When I have cramps, I’d rather my husband hand me a bottle of red wine.
Oh come on…jokes based on stereotypes are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Yes, not all women are raging harpies during that time of the month. Just like not all men are bumbling idiots looking for any hole to stick their dicks into. And not all white people are preppy, upper-middle-class douches. However, there are tons of marketing campaigns based on those kinds of assumptions. So here’s what you do: say, “Ha! That was a joke based on a stereotype of women/men/whites/blah blah blah. I understand that those stereotypes are not necessarily accurate representations of me or anyone I know, so I can acknowledge the intended humor.” And move on.
Oh, and for the ladies saying that they hate their anger always being reduced to a symptom of their biology: Stop hanging out with and/or dating the assholes who think that.
For balance, if I drink milk through the PMS and into the cramps stage I get to spend 2 days throwing up. So happy when I made that connection and dropped the dairy products (you try living a normal life when every 4 weeks you spend 2 days sat with a sick bucket).
@53: “Oh come on…jokes based on stereotypes are ALL OVER THE PLACE.”
And they’re dumb and unnecessary, mister South Park Republican who thinks people are too “politically correct”. Thank god we’re not living in the Mad Men world where people spout stereotypes as reality.
As a member of highly stereotyped group, I remember and still enjoy a song called “Pretty Fly, for a White Guy”. If there was a national clamor about that one, I missed it. I enjoy and think it’s funny to see “Everybody Loves Raymond”, and “King of Queens”. I think the song “White and Nerdy” is hilarious.
Perhaps the degree of offense one takes to this type of humor has to do with comfort in ones own skin and self confidence?
“the degree of offense one takes to this type of humor” has to do with the about of shit the group being made fun of has to deal with relative to the amount of shit those who find it funny have to deal with. Is your “higly stereotyped group” white, male, and middle class? Then you deal with the least amount of shit. Self-confidence has nothing to do with it.
As someone who gets a monthly visit from DJ Menses, and also finds this ad boring and tasteless, in that order, I want to add:
some of us don’t experience and really, don’t believe much in PMS. I don’t. I think it’s all so much like ADD – profiteeringly overdiagnosed and dangerously misdiagnosed. I’m entitled to my opinion. I know other women disagree. We deal like grownups. So be it.
Milk can be good for you in moderation – no less gross than wearing silk made from worm butts or eating burgers made from buffalo crotches or syrup pulled from trees or eating off plastic plates made thanks to long-dead dinosaur graves. We farm insects and animals and the rest of the planet’s ingredients for resources. It’s what we do. Milk & cheese really are one of the more renewable options compared to the majority of the raping-of-the-planet humankind has been responsible for…
And anyone who would call a lady friend (or stranger) a bitch I guess must be a dick (or ass or someother body part or animal name insult).
What I don’t get is that women still do the majority of grocery shopping for families, so why insult them in this way? Why frame it around dudes getting relief from their bitchy, harpy, unreasonable female hetero partner and not around women feeling better themselves? Can you imagine midol being advertised that way? This honestly makes me want to NOT drink milk. Why am I buying your shit when you think so little of me?
@56 shorter: grow a thicker skin, ladies.
@56: I also get called cracker sometimes when I do something stupid! I know what it’s like to get called a nigger and black people just overreact.
What bothers me about this is not the stereotypes of women, but the stereotype of PMS. PMS that includes verbally abusing your guy and going out of your skull is rare, definitely exists, and is a psychiatric condition. Since when is it funny to make fun of people suffering and making their loved ones suffer with them. Next up — how funny it is when your schizophrenic cousin won’t take his meds!!