In the I don’t even believe I’m writing this worst Christmas/Hanukah present ever department: Looking for the perfect gift for the special woman in your life? Already given her roses, diamonds and a toaster, how about a pap smear? Via Megan Carpentier, it seems that CBS is running Public Service Announcements urging men to, “do something special for your woman for the holiday season. Call her doctor and schedule her Pap smear.”
Say what? Since when is health care a gift? It is a human right and since when do men have the right to schedule medical tests for their women as if we are their property. As bad as the above ad is, there is a Hanukah version too that tells us that a Pap “Schmear” could save her life. As Megan so eloquently puts it, “I know what I won’t be getting with my bagel tomorrow.”
Gentlemen, trust me, don’t even think it or you can so go hang your ornaments elsewhere and play dreidel all by yourselves. If however you want to write to CBS and tell them to air a special interviewing women’s health care advocates about the need for full health care coverage for reproductive health and how women have been forced to pay way more than men for health care coverage instead of running patronizing PSA’s, I guarantee you no coal in your stockings, mistletoe privileges, plenty of latkes and gelt.
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Postscript: Just learned via a friend that this isn’t so much a case of misogyny as extremely bad taste, it seems last year they ran a male equivalent, the Hanukah one talked about the gift of a Kosher prostate. However the ads are also blatantly hetero-oriented, obviously someone at CBS has some issues…
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