Candace Owens’ Question Period

We all know the purpose of feminine protection is to allow women to leap about in fields while on their periods.

Well, the Oscars are over and they managed to make both conservatives and liberals mad. And yes, I have opinions, despite never having watched the awards ceremony this or any other year.

From what I can tell via Twitter, which is where I learn about things I don’t care much about, liberals are mad (justifiably) because the Best Picture award went to Green Book, a movie that transforms the true story of an exceptional black musician into a white-savior narrative seen through the eyes of his racist driver.

Conservatives, meanwhile, are outraged because somebody said the word “menstrual.”

Did I get all that right?

I found out about conservative outrage through this stellar tweet from Candace Owens — well, this tweet and the 46,016 people who had apparently liked it up to that point. (As I write this, it’s reached an even 50K).

Much like the Oscars themselves, Candace Owens exists on the periphery of my awareness. I don’t really know who she is, but I have a few friends who quote her a lot and admire her because she’s a young, smart, black woman who’s also a conservative Trump fan.

These American friends of mine — they’re the people who aren’t supposed to exist. They’re very smart women; they don’t call themselves feminist but they fully enjoy the benefits of liberation. They’re well-educated; they’re kind; they’re compassionate; they appear not to be overtly racist. They voted Republican, and they think Donald Trump, even if he wasn’t their first choice, is doing a good job. And they could easily be among the 50,000 people (so far!) who liked this tweet.

What did Candace Owens see in her one minute of viewing the Academy Awards ceremony? She saw a the end of a speech about the award-winning documentary short Period. End of Sentence, which deals with the stigma faced by girls and women in India around menstruation, and a project that attempts to dispel that stigma and make it easier for women to obtain sanitary pads. As one positive side effect, this makes it easier for teenage girls to stay in school.

I had never heard of this film before the Oscars, or more specifically before Candace Owens got her knickers in a knot over the phrase “menstrual equality.” As a result, I watched it today (it’s on Netflix) and it’s great. It does what a documentary should do: gives us a brief and insightful glimpse into an issue most of us probably didn’t know much about.

So how does the use of the phrase “menstrual equality” explain why Donald Trump won the US 2016 election?

Candidly, Candace: I haven’t the faintest clue:

But I can guess that Candace was turned off by the phrase because it represented a concept that disgusted her. She presumably menstruates, but she likely has excellent access to feminine protection, as do most North American women of middle-class and higher socio-economic status. So she has never probably had to think for one second about what life might be like for women who don’t enjoy that privilege.

Just as I had never thought much about it either.

For Candace Owens, that two-word phrase seems to have pushed a lot of buttons. People talking openly about things that should be shrouded in shame and secrecy. People insisting on equality. People speaking about issues that seem obscure and unimportant to her.

And because someone used that phrase during a Hollywood awards show, conservative America has risen up in protest to elect a government that will … what? Stop people from talking about their periods?

Like a lot of things people say on Twitter, it sort of falls apart if you try to analyze it.

But here’s the thing about these conservative friends of mine who love Candace Owens, who think Trump is doing a great job, who think the Oscars are full of self-absorbed Hollywood liberals who hate America. If you said to any of them, “Do you think it’s right that girls in India can’t go to school because they can’t access sanitary pads, or bathrooms in which to change their pads, and there’s so much stigma they can’t talk to anyone about it?” these woman would almost certainly say, “That’s terrible!”

And if you said, “There are entrepreneurs trying to make more affordable pads and get them into the hands of Indian girls and women,” I suspect they’d say, “That’s great!”

In fact, if (prior to the Academy Award) you showed the film Period. End of Sentence to many of these women, they would likely find it interesting, informative, and even worthy of an award. Maybe some would even donate to www.thepadproject.org . They’re big supporters of charity.

But now? A political line has been drawn around something that wasn’t inherently political. Now, because of Candace Owens’ tweet, at least 50,000 (and counting!) conservative American Twitter users likely think not only that “menstrual equality” is a weird phrase, but that Period: End of a Sentence is some degenerate liberal plot and that it’s “socialist” to care about girls in India getting access to affordable sanitary pads.

All because someone heard a phrase they didn’t like and didn’t understand, and instead of trying to learn more about it, reacted with a polarizing political statement on social media.

How often we all do that — hear something unfamiliar, something that grates or jars on us, and respond with a knee-jerk “Here’s Why The Thing Is Bad!!!” rather than a curious, “What is the thing? Can I learn more about it?”

As a card-carrying bleeding-heart liberal, I’d like to suggest that people on the conservative side of the culture wars leap to attack far too often when they should move towards curiosity. But the truth is, people on “my” side do it too. I do it. Shoot first, and ask questions later. Or, don’t ask questions at all.

And that’s a pain. Period.

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