An international grocery chain based in Britain was successfully pressured to remove signs “placed above tampons and other menstrual health products that asked people to report shoplifting of these items” at a location in Kensington, London, when a resident named Oonagh Ryder shared a photo of the sign online last week and it went viral.
“Help us build safer communities — report shoplifting to a member of staff,” read the apparently offense sign at a Tesco store.
A spokesman for Tesco even apologized “for any offense caused,” and claimed the sign was placed “in error.”
Spotted by @HMPSurvival. We really need a genuine conversation as a society about what 'safety' means. pic.twitter.com/jrH2rx6h3W
— Oonagh Ryder (@oonskie) January 29, 2020
Ryder spoke with BuzzFeed News about the “offensive” sign.
“Signs like these encourage ordinary people to be suspicious and resentful toward their neighbors, rather than be angry about the root causes of someone needing to shoplift menstrual products,” she told them. “The UK has very high levels of inequality due to the decisions of successive governments, with increasing numbers of people unable to afford basic necessities.”
Ryder’s personal pronouns are listed as they/them/she/her on her Twitter account.
Other Twitter users have joined in on the discussion caused by her viral post.
“Shoplifting isn’t the problem,” claimed one Twitter user. “It’s the fact that sanitary products aren’t free and accessible to those who menstruate.”
“Those who menstruate” being the politically correct and gender-non-specific term for “women.”
Another user noted that the availability of free condoms means that sanitary products for women should also be free, arguing that having sex “is a choice, our period isn’t.”
Whatever your opinion on free condoms, when they are made available “for free” it’s a public health issue, not about encouraging sex. It’s about curbing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This point is clearly lost on people who seem to think that shoplifting is okay if you have what you think to be a good reason.
For the majority of my life, this has not been an issue. It wasn’t until recently that entitled snowflakes who need their own person pronouns started demanding free feminine products or birth control in numbers where their movement could literally force a supermarket chain to apologize for trying to control shoplifting.
The feminist movement is in such a sorry state.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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