March 28, 2015

"Your Beautiful, Feminine Period Stains Are Against Instagram Guidelines."

"Rupi Kaur, a Sikh poet living in Canada, posted the above image on Instagram early this week—and swiftly got hit with... 'We removed your post because it doesn't follow our Community Guidelines."

And Kaur said:
thank you @instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique. you deleted a photo of a woman who is fully covered and menstruating stating that it goes against community guidelines when your guidelines outline that it is nothing but acceptable. the girl is fully clothed. the photo is mine. it is not attacking a certain group. nor is it spam. and because it does not break those guidelines i will repost it again. i will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be okay with a small leak. when your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified. pornified. and treated less than human. thank you

57 comments:

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Sometimes it's just flat out gross.

Anonymous said...

Women are insane.

mccullough said...

Maybe a bad art warning would be more appropriate. this let it bleed art has run its course.

Laslo Spatula said...

"i will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society"

Putting the 'men' in 'menstruation'.


I am Laslo.

pm317 said...

Yuk.. Hygiene?

May be put a man's picture alongside with semen stain. If menstruation is a beautiful thing, ejaculations must be too.

SGT Ted said...

Too many self identified feminist women obsess over their vaginas, fancying themselves as "artists".

Modern, cutting edge Feminism is an enabler of this mental illness in women.

Small children grow out of their genitalia obsession by age 4 or 5.

It isn't clever or daring to be obsessed with your junk when you are an adult, especially 50 years after the sexual revolution.

When grown men are obsessed with their junk in a public way, they are rightly referred to as weirdos and perverts, often by feminist women.

Ann Althouse said...

"Women are insane."

You try to comfort yourself by picturing the male as the model of sanity. That need of yours is perhaps insane.

SGT Ted said...

Not all women are insane. That poet very well may be insane.

SGT Ted said...

Her period stains are not beautiful. They are female, to be sure.

MayBee said...

The idea that women menstruate seems very gender normative to me.

MayBee said...

Seriously, women. We are wonderful and amazing creatures. But we don't need to glorify every little thing our bodies do.

Boogers. Real women have boogers. Here is a photo montage of myself with big green snot balls in my nose. Celebrate me!

rhhardin said...

It never bothered me.

The pic is okay. It's a woman having a period.

The reaction is interesting too, therefore, I guess.

Maybe somebody will make an art project out of spotting from IUDs.

n.n said...

Is her work patronized by PETA? They have a fetish for emphasizing the material aspects of human life.

Some people demand a regression to the greatest common denominator, which in a "diverse" population is a progressively (i.e. monotonically) lower level.

SGT Ted said...

Maybee wins the thread @11:43!

SGT Ted said...

The idea that women menstruate seems very gender normative to me.

Yes! She is oppressing and excluding the genderqueer and trans community by othering them with this cis-gendered celebration of her menstruation.

bleh said...

What if I take a picture of my red wings? Is that art?

bleh said...

@pm317: yes pretty much everything she said about menstruation is equally applicable to semen, e.g., a life-giving force, whether she chooses to create or not.

Sal said...

"It's taken me almost 18 years to pluck up the courage to say it publicly, but here goes: I am a woman and I have periods."

This is the sort of person who inspires us all with her courage. She belongs in a leadership position.

lemondog said...

Oh what a relief!

Restored!!!!

MayBee said...

When women were considered unequal to men, part of that inequality was men put women on a pedestal. Women were celebrated as being very special. Too special to do things like vote and drink or be alone with a man. Men weren't celebrated for being men. They were just men.

We wanted and want equality, and we've pretty much got it.

But it seems we still really want to be on that pedestal. There is still obviously some need to be celebrated.

SGT Ted said...

There is still obviously some need to be celebrated.

Very much like small children and birthday parties.

ddh said...

This is a macroagression that is leaving me traumatized. Make it stop!

YoungHegelian said...

It's interesting that the "artist" self-identifies as a Sikh. The Sikhs, unlike the Hindus & the Muslims, do not have "purity" or "uncleanliness" codes for women during menstruation.

Is this art an act of tribal politics?

Gusty Winds said...

Hmmm...just above a post about Carrie.

Is bleeding women today's theme?

FullMoon said...

Knowing there is something bothersome about that picture but not sure what.
Then the obvious.

No sex for several days.
Irrational, bitchy crybaby, annoying .

Generally speaking, I mean. Personally never have owned an obnoxious woman.

Best to swap 'em out frequently, like Tom Cruise.

I am Serious

Gusty Winds said...

Sgt Ted said, "That poet may very well be insane."

Maybe she's just having her period.

Moneyrunner said...

Let's ask what the LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM has to say about it. If you think you know, you're wrong.

Gusty Winds said...

There's a funny scene from The Office where Steve Carell is having one on one meetings with all the office women to state any open complaints about his management of women.

One says, "How come every time a woman has a complaint you ask if she's having her period?"

He replies with an 'aw that's nothing gesture',"It's so I know if I have to take her seriously".

Gusty Winds said...

My 15-year-old daughter started like two years ago.

Last night I asked if we could all go see the new Cinderella movie as a family and she laughed at me.

I miss Disney Princesses.

William said...

People are too ashamed of snot bubbles. They're part of life, and those hurried movements to grab a handkerchief when they appear are themselves more shameful than any snot bubble could possibly be. We need to celebrate and enjoy and not despise and disguise the body's natural effluvia. God created snot for a purpose. Who are we to demean it.

pm317 said...

@YoungHegelian

Bonus points to you. I am (of) Indian (origin) and woman and didn't know that.

MayBee said...

Ha!! This is the notification at the top of the comments section at Gawker (followed Althouse's link)

Warning: Replies that are pending approval may contain graphic material.
Please proceed with caution.


Apparently, Gawker has it's own guidelines for posting. Imagine that.

Wilbur said...

As long as my taxes aren't paying for it, she can create what she considers her art as she wishes.

If someone else wants to regard it seriously, be my guest.

Whatever paints your wagon.

Drago said...

pm317: "May be put a man's picture alongside with semen stain. If menstruation is a beautiful thing, ejaculations must be too."

The left did not think so when the ejaculate was placed against a blue background.

n.n said...

Next, urination and defecation in public... because it's natural. We can not only aspire to a lower quality of life, but normalize (i.e. emphasize, promote, celebrate) it too.

n.n said...

I wonder if any woman would be proud to display the artwork created through Planning. While it may subject them to shaming, imprisonment, and perhaps even capital punishment, by consensus of the billions of human lives that survive the abortion industry's practice of premeditated anthropogenic disruption, it is a natural, albeit severely corrupted product. Not that there is anything wrong with it?

holdfast said...

Never trust anything that can bleed for a week without dying. It's just unnatural.


Would this photo have been as "provocative" if the woman had sh*t her pants in her sleep? Why not? Is it because everybody poops?

Mary Beth said...

There needs to be a trigger warning. Even though she's pictured in bed, that photo could upset women who had a leakage problem at work or school, or who just worried about having a leakage problem.

Chris N said...

Classy

Fen said...

The male response:

"Your Beautiful, Masculine Shit Stains Are Against Instagram Guidelines."

Ah hell. My bad.

Michael McNeil said...

Somehow basically all other mammals than primates get along perfectly fine without sloughing off the inner lining of the uterus every estrous cycle. As a result, it would seem that we can just copy some nonprimate mammalian technology (no need to invent much of anything) and thereby enable women to exist without a menstrual cycle per se. Think that might be popular?

damikesc said...

I doubt they'd allow a picture of somebody shitting their pants either.

Simon said...

A lot of people are making the obvious analogy, that, look, it's a natural byproduct, but so are poop, snot, and urine, and Instagram wouldn't show someone covered in any of those things, either. There's something to that, of course, but I wouldn't say that blood is in the same category as those things. There's nothing particularly repulsive about blood; poop, for example, is a waste product per se, it smells bad, and we have a visceral reaction against it. You can't say that about blood, it seems to me, so there is clearly some difference.

SGT Ted said...

It's not so much that the photo is particularly offensive.

It's the Drama-Queening about how it's "beautiful" and how her "womb is home to the divine". When all it really represents is a biological function.

It's the feminist crybaby bullshit that if you don't care to see her photo it's some sort of "misogyny" is what makes her ridiculous.

Every fucking criticism that involves a woman is deemed "misogyny" by these female hipster douchebags. The prating about their "oppression", when they are some of the most privileged females on the planet, has gotten utterly tiresome.

SGT Ted said...

When I reflect on the women I saw in Iraq, dressed in black bags in 125+ degree tempuratures with no air conditioning, as well as the women I served with over there, wearing body armor in that same heat and then I read these pampered tools whining about "misogyny" and "oppression", it makes me want to slap them silly.

jr565 said...

What if you instead had a picture of yourself dumping in your white pants, and you can see the stains soaking through where your butt crack is?
Would that be against Instagram guidelines?

jr565 said...

" i will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be okay with a small leak. when your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified. pornified. and treated less than human."
Whoah, I have to check out instragram again. I didn't know you could find pornified photos. I'll have to give it another look see.

MayBee said...

Simon-
I don't find anything repulsive about menstrual blood. I just don't find a need to make it beautiful and celebrate it as glorious. It's a body function, not an achievement.

MayBee said...

Or what SGT Ted said.

I also wouldn't be surprised if instagram took it down thinking someone had posted the picture to embarrass her. After all, her back is to the camera and it looks like she doesn't know her picture is being taken.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernandinande said...

MayBee said...
Boogers. Real women have boogers. Here is a photo montage of myself with big green snot balls in my nose. Celebrate me!


Men also have boogers, therefore there is nothing to celebrate.

n.n said...

Menstrual blood is as much a waste product as urine and fecal matter. It is purposefully expelled by the body in the absence of a pregnancy. Just as urine and fecal matter is formed and expelled from the body after metabolic processes have extracted value from ingested material.

I can understand celebrating a pregnancy, an evolving life, but what purpose does it serve to celebrate a waste product?

Perhaps as part of a sacrificial ritual a la abortion or Planning, but not as a normal part of life, despite its natural origin. Celebrating menstrual blood is akin to celebrating death. Even in a liberal society, it is considered gauche to worship death outside of clinic walls.

SGT Ted said...

Sexy women are the *essense* of being human. The idea that sexy women is bad is another insanity brought to us by feminists. .

Simon said...

MayBee said...
"I also wouldn't be surprised if instagram took it down thinking someone had posted the picture to embarrass her. After all, her back is to the camera and it looks like she doesn't know her picture is being taken."

That's my bet.

n.n said...
"Menstrual blood is as much a waste product as urine and fecal matter. It is purposefully expelled by the body in the absence of a pregnancy."

That modifier flies past so fast that it's easy to miss: "Menstrual blood." Did you catch that? Blood isn't a waste product; when it becomes waste—not even waste; "surplus"—we have to denote that change by adding a modifier: It becomes menstrual blood. Effectively: "Waste blood." By contrast, there's no such thing as "waste poop." Poop is poop; it is by definition and of its essence waste, it is a waste product throughout its existence. That to me suggests a major difference.

Lookit: I went to college, I've been puked on; I have a grandson, I've had snot and drool and poop on me. That kinda grosses me out, truth to tell. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. Blood, even menstrual blood? Not really. Blood is alarming when it's unexpected, but it's not repulsive in the way that other bodily products are.

Kirk Parker said...

Althouse,

Yes, yes, we know: NAWALT.

But increasingly these days, it does seem like the safe way to bet, if one needs to make a first approximation.

zefal said...

Finally someone stands up to Instgram!

So Instagram users flag this and then Instagram bans it as they are wont to do if enough flag it. I doubt they have someone perusing the flagged pictures who is doing anything than a cursory look. They probably thought it was another type of stain. And this woman is naive if she doesn't think there's a whole category of porn related to menstration.