How to poison the well
The Philadelphia Inquirer screams
Hershey Canada Women’s Day campaign sparks transphobic vitriol on Twitter
Or to put it another way: Hershey hijacking of Canada Women’s Day sparks protests from women on Twitter.
The subhead is almost as stupid and dishonest as the headline:
For International Women’s Day, Hershey Canada launched a campaign spotlighting young women trailblazers on its chocolate bars. Their inclusion of transgender woman Fae Johnstone sparked Twitter hate.
It’s not “hate” to say that events for women should not feature men, just as events for workers should not include bosses.
The lede is also stupid and dishonest; three for three.
An ad campaign from Hershey Canada intended to highlight women trailblazers is being met online with transphobic hate.
Three venomous lying accusations in a row.
The writer, Emily Bloch, finally gets around to the particulars.
To mark International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8,Hershey Canada launched a campaign spotlighting five young Canadian women, whose faces appear on the brand’s chocolate bar wrappers. Each chocolate bar is meant to spotlight women using their voices and advocacy to contribute to systemic progress for women.
Right. Women. Because it’s Women’s Day. Women, as in women, not men larping as women.
Women featured on chocolate bars were Autumn Peltier, an Indigenous rights and water activist; Naila Moloo, a climate technology researcher; Rita Audi, a gender and education equality activist; Kélicia Massala, the founder of Girl up Québec; and Fae Johnstone, a human rights activist and the executive director of consulting firmWisdom2Action. Johnstone is transgender, which some hateful online voices are taking issue with.
“Hateful.” Women who don’t want men who call themselves women taking the place of women in women’s events are called “hateful” by the woman who wrote this poisonous article.
The campaign was meant to celebrate women’s progress and acknowledge the ongoing fight for equity, Hershey’s Canada said. The company is donating up to $10,000 to each of the five women’s organizations and an additional $30,000 to Girl Up, a group that focuses on women’s equity.
But online trolls are pushing a countercampaign, calling to boycott the Hershey Co.
Trolls. We’re trolls now. Transphobic, hateful, trolls – the activist vocabulary is complete.
According to Sarah McBride, the Human Rights Campaign’s national press secretary, TERF views — which exclude trans women from conversations about the gender — “deny the validity of transgender people and transgender identities.” TERF views are widely rejected by most feminists, LGBTQ supporters, and the mainstream medical community.
Geddit? “Everybody hates you. We’re the cool kids, you’re the losers. All the good people reject you. We’re awesome, you’re a bunch of toads.”
I honestly can’t figure out which aspect disgusts me more: the casual sexism of “it’s International Women’s Day and the ladies love chocolate amirite”, the use of a man as one of the Her/She women, or the fact that Hershey’s is revolting fake chocolate-like substance with a greasy texture and vomitous smell. Just so much to dislike.
I know, Hershey’s chocolate is horrible. The taste always made me think “bitter sour cardboard.” By the third or fourth time I realized I should never make the experiment again.
I had a friend who was a Hershey. She too considered the chocolate horrible.
Hershey as in scion of the chocolate family, or just the same name? If the former, then I’m not in the least bit surprised. I read Salt Sugar Fat a few years ago, and the bit that really stuck with me was how none of the junk-food magnates ate their own products.
Every religion needs a devil figure or two (hundred). The more wolves there are prowling round out there, the more the sheep huddle together under the protection of some Good Shepherd.
Hershey schmershey.
Scion. Not in the sense of partaker in all the wealth, I think, but definitely of the family. (She was a family court judge.)
I find the campaign’s inclusion of men in a program intended for women revolting.
I like Hershey’s chocolate very much. I am sorry that the existence of better chocolate means that lower-quality chocolate is deemed revolting.
Sorry for chocolate snobbery. I don’t mind lower-quality chocolate as such…in fact come to think of it Kisses are Hershey aren’t they? I can eat those without a qualm. They may even be exactly the same chocolate for all I know – maybe a lump tastes different from the thin flat bar. It’s the bar that I really don’t like.
I prefer Ghirardelli, but I think that’s more of a local bias.
twiliter, I also prefer Ghirardelli. I will have to say, though, Hershey is a lot cheaper.
I probably prefer Ghirardelli. I probably prefer forms other than bars. But I do like Hershey bars, finding them neither vomitous nor greasy nor chalky. (“Waxy” I think is accurate.)
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to deflect the discussion. I find I react badly when people express preferences of A over B by disparaging B in strong absolute terms, vaguely implying that people who like B must have something wrong with them. This is true for food, music, movies, books, whatever. I know it’s probably not intended that way, but it’s jarring anyway. I shouldn’t react like that.
First, it’s not clear if the author is making that claim, or is explaining the views of Sarah McBride (though it’s clear she’s endorsing the claim regardless).
Second, most feminists? Does she know what the “F” of TERF stands for? (Which of course doesn’t preclude the possibility that most feminists reject “TERF” views, but she needs to support that claim.) Most LGBTQ supporters? I mean, the T I can see, and perhaps the Q, but is she so sure about the LGB? And the mainstream medical community? Again, where’s the evidence for that? And which part of that community? I mean, does it really make much difference how podiatrists feel about such views?
And now that I think of it, what are these views that are TERF that are rejected so widely?
I laughing at this; Jeremy’s Chocolate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww5Lf97hXQM
I posted this in the wrong place originally, so I’ll elaborate a bit here.
The video refers to a web site. The web site is real. Jeremy Boreing is a co-founder of Daily Wire. They have a commercial about their razor products that might also be of interest. They are thumbing their noses at companies that dropped ads from Daily Wire over “values misalignment”. The “I hate …” URLs redirect to jeremysrazors.com, where you can see the commercials, various products, and other information.
I do recommend watching the razor ad. It might give a more complete sense of what they are doing. It’s a “stick it to the liberals” effort from a conservative founder of a conservative media outlet. It’s a bit much, but the whole effort is well done and honest, and genuinely funny. I don’t know that I’d buy any of the products, not so much because of the prices but because of Daily Wire, but I respect the effort.