The feminine product brand Tampax was trending on Twitter Tuesday as some followers demanded a boycott.
Tampax had already come under fire this year due to its leftist ideology and willingness to promote gender theory. This time, Tampax is taking heat for a strange and snarky tweet that some have interpreted as trolling men, though the intended audience is unclear.
“You’re in their DM’s. We’re in them. We are not the same,” the tweet read, seemingly referencing that tampons go inside women and are closer to those individuals than the men trying to hit on them.
https://twitter.com/Tampax/status/1594719218632720385
Followers were outraged at this sentiment, which they claimed was “sexualizing” tampon usage.
“Peak patriarchy: a company making women’s products insults its entire customer base and thinks this is OK. You utter creeps,” one person shared.
“A women’s period products company is getting off on the idea of their products being inserted in girls and women – getting there first – while men are chatting them up hoping for sex. Overtones of rape, [pedophilia], misogyny – what a hat-trick,” another agreed.
“So…A tampon is saying – to a dude framed as a sexual rival to the tampon – basically, ‘hey, bro. You’re too slow. I totally *hit* that already. How do you like THEM apples’ And this is supposed to appeal to your customers in some way?” another person wrote.
“No, it’s disgusting and creepy,” another reaction read.
Many outraged users pointed out how girls as young as 11 were likely to use tampons, which they claimed made the sexual joke even more inappropriate.
The social media fight evolved into some users accusing critics of being “transphobes” for insisting on a boycott and taking offense to the joke.
“Has anyone else noticed that the people screaming #BoycottTampax aren’t really upset about the joke? They’re actually a bunch of transphobic bigots attacking a company that showed support for a group of people they like to be cruel to,” one person wrote.
Another brought up the recent mass shooting inside a Colorado gay bar, saying anyone advocating for a Tampax boycott is also disrespecting the magnitude of that tragedy.
“So much #TransHate in the #BoycottTampax trend,” that person shared. “And only two days after an [sic] horrific hate crime against the LGBTQ community. You all should be ashamed of your denial of human rights to individuals, many of them very young, trying to live safe live [sic].”
In September 2020, Tampax inspired controversy by posting a tweet that said, “Fact: Not all women have periods. Also a fact: Not all people with periods are women. Let’s celebrate the diversity of all people who bleed!”