Don’t Buy Dairy Products This Week – Please!

Look, people. I’m not heavily into using my library blog for non-library (or -craft :)) things. But I’m angry, and I’d like to ask you for help with a little project of mine.

The California Milk Processor Board–the people behind “Got Milk?”–have released a new ad campaign (via copyranter). It’s horribly sexist and offensive to both men and women. There’s a lot wrong with our culture, and I feel like one of our very biggest problems is this view that women are irrational monsters, especially during that time of the month, and men are basically overgrown children, always bumbling about and doing things wrong all the time (I love Sarah Haskins). Now if we were 20(?) years in the future, in a truly post-gender-binary world, this campaign might be funny. But drop in on any internet argument where at least one commenter is clearly female and clearly angry, or listen at the breakroom in a primarily male workplace (hard for librarians to do, admittedly) as they talk about women–or, for that matter, a primarily female workplace, talking about men–and tell me this ad campaign doesn’t fit in just a little too well with some of the misogynist (and misandrist) winds that still blow through our discourse.

So I’m not going to buy dairy. Not this week. Maybe not this month. Perhaps longer. I would like to see the California Milk Processor Board take back this offensive ad campaign, or replace it with one that promotes a gender egalitarian viewpoint. I’m prepared to go without milk, cheese, yogurt, and even (gulp) ice cream until that happens. (I’ll use up what’s in my fridge, but that’s it for lattes at Starbucks or any of the rest of it.) The coconut-milk, soy-milk, rice-milk, and other non-dairy milk producers will get my business, instead.

And I would really like you to join me. Not just in boycotting, but in spreading the message that this is offensive and wrong and is not something we, as consumers, are going to support. Blog, tweet, G+, Facebook, or share in whatever ways you like. But please pass this message on! And please don’t buy any dairy products for at least a week.