I’d like to say foremost, I actually agree with Ms. DeGeneres on many issues, and for the most part find her hilarious. But when asked to write about the concept of Bic Pens for Women representing ingrained societal misogyny, I found myself having to hide a familiar and festering anger. But the source of my irritation is not what most would assume. Indeed, you might find it is support for women’s causes, not opposition.
As it happens, I was raised by a single mother. But she was not a “mother” – yes I am the most important entity in her life, but raising me was not and is not her identity. For while feeding, sheltering, protecting, and teaching me all of the things she could of courtesy, curiosity, and perseverance, she also worked herself to the bone as part of a growing family business. The latter task she continues to this day. She has been tested in every way a person can be and does not slow down. This she learned from my grandmother, who also built a clothing business even as she acted as the De-facto family matriarch through sheer force of personality. I might add my grandmother, though retired from her own endeavors, now works at my mother’s side and still commands ultimate respect of the family.
In my lifetime I never observed either of these two remarkable women lay claim to any privilege or detriment impressed upon them by society. The simple fact of the matter is they didn’t have time. A sign hangs on the door to my Mother’s office – “She who rows the boat has no time to rock it”. If you are running a race and someone tells you that winning is not possible, do you stop and argue so as to make them right? Or do you ignore the heckling and pass them by on your way to the finish line?
To look beyond my limited experience, one only needs a cursory glance through history. Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt… these women didn’t waste time or energy concerning themselves with barriers. They were too busy ignoring them and adding something to the sum of humanity beyond a bit of noise.
The truth is that Bic For Women is nothing more than another vapid flash in the pan marketing ploy. Yes, I think we can all agree it was a rather bone headed concept, and sure it’s a fine example of everything wrong with the cooperate hive mind. But a tool of oppression? That’s stretching things a bit I think. So it goes when something so meaningless in the grand scheme becomes a point of outrage for feminists, I feel as though my family and others like them are being belittled and insulted. Do women really need that level of support? Is the colloquialism “boys and girls” really worth more than a passing thought? Was an outcry over INK PENS warranted on any level? I’d like to think women are stronger than that – the ones I know and prefer to associate with certainly are.
If I am wrong, then logically the likes of Barbara Streisand, Whoopi Goldberg, and Hillary Clinton have been greater boons for women than Ms. Cuire, Earhart, or Roosevelt. Furthermore it would seem women have no need of feminine hygiene products. Come to think of it, why do men need facial razors? After all, anything marketed toward either sex is yet another sign of a skewed society yes?
To go even further, there are parts of this world where women truly are oppressed. Where education or even showing their faces in public can result in ostracism, torture, rape, or death – sometimes all and not always in the order listed. Yet here in the west we use the energy that might go to these real problems for quibbling about ink pens and maxi pads. Does no one see the shame in this?