PSA: Women are not things, and their body parts are not food items.
Unfortunately, Twitter user Jennifer Mayers, a self-described “wife, mother, Christian,” doesn’t quite seem to get that. In a tweet from June 15, Mayers, 44, compared her daughters’ vaginas to pop-star Taylor Swift’s vagina. She did so by posting a photo of two sandwiches.
(We can only assume that the subtext of this tweet is that Mayers’ daughters vaginas are pure and neat and good, while Swift’s is not.)
Since June 15, the tweet has been retweeted nearly 900 times. And it has (unsurprisingly) elicited a significant amount of negative backlash.
Though it’s been argued that Mayers’ account may be “satire,” she frequently tweets vitriol, with no indication that it’s anything but earnest. (And after all, “satire” that doesn’t read as satire can still incite harassment, hatred and shame.)
One of Mayers’ most recent tweets is a blog post of hers where she calls Alton Sterling, who was gunned down on July 5 while selling CDs outside a convenience store, a “thug,” and describes the Black Lives Matter movement as “nonsense.”
What’s most problematic about the tweet comparing Taylor Swift’s vagina to a sandwich (if we’re being anatomically correct, we’d wager that Mayers meant vulva, not vagina), is that this isn’t just objectification, it’s slut-shaming.
Women do not exist to be consumed and judged for our decisions, sexual or otherwise. We are people, capable of feelings and desires and emotions. And, yes, some of those feelings and desires and emotions may pertain to love and sex.
Again: What Taylor Swift ― or any woman ― wants to do with her body and her love life is no one’s business but her own.
When we are reduced to sexual playthings, objects, SANDWICHES, it’s a message to young girls ― in Mayers’ case, her own daughters ― growing up that objectification is normal. That this is okay.
And it’s not.
We much prefer these more playful spins on Mayers’ tweet:
Women are regularly told by men that we are less than ― that we aren’t worth what men are worth, that we are there for pleasure and nothing else, that our voices don’t need to be heard.
We’re oppressed enough. We certainly don’t need it from other women.
We kindly suggest that Mayers take a note from Hillary Clinton’s book, and #DeleteYourAccount.
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