Facebook thinks women are ooky. Kate Ng in the Independent:

A feminist blogger has been censored by Facebook for blogging about periods and the history of menstrual products.

Alaura Weaver, also known as ‘Bad-ass Motherblogger’, started an ongoing series of blog posts detailing the history of menstrual hygiene.

I took a look. It’s interesting. Well worth a read, and not worth censoring.

She tried to boost one of her posts on Facebook, and they said no, you can’t, not allowed.

According to Facebook, the post violated their Ad Guidelines, which state: “Ads are not allowed to promote the sale or use of adult products or services, including toys, videos, publications, live shows or sexual enhancement products.”

When she appealed, they said the problem was that there was a naked woman in her ad.

The image was of an 18th century painting of women bathing, which Ms Weaver then changed to a historical print of Greek mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Hypatia being dragged through the streets of Alexandria.

The ad was rejected yet again for violating Ad Guidelines.

Bad-ass Motherblogger has a public post about it on (appropriately) Facebook.

Bad-asses,

I’m in an ongoing battle with Facebook’s ad department and I need your help. I wrote a post for my blog about the history of menstrual products. Part of my marketing strategy is to boost posts on my Facebook page. However, Facebook keeps disapproving my ad because it violates their “Adult Products Policy.” As in, they consider tampons and pads to be sexual devices. Attached is a screenshot of the original disapproval message. When I appealed the rejection, they changed their story and I was informed that my preview image (an 18th century painting of women bathing) contained “too much skin.” and it violated the Nudity Policy.
So I changed the preview image to a historical print of Hypatia being dragged through the streets of Alexandria (cuz violence to women is so much less offensive than women bathing). The ad was rejected again. The reason: “Ads are not allowed to promote the sale or use of adult products or services, including toys, videos, publications, live shows or sexual enhancement products.”

*sigh*

I don’t know about you, but when I think about using a tampon or a menstrual pad, the last thing I think about is sex. Women’s health shouldn’t be a taboo subject. If you agree with me, can you please bring attention to this issue?

Just to give you an idea of how boosting impacts the reach of a post: I have 730 “likes” for my page, yet without an ad, the post has only been seen by 8 people over the past 24 hours.
It scares me that advocates for women’s health and gender equality may not be able to share their message with their audience because the largest social media platform thinks women’s health products reside in the same category as sex toys.

Here’s the link to my blog post, in case you’re curious.

Facebook needs to lean in.