All over the internet, women are popping up wearing shirts with this single word repeated six times: “VAGINA.” It all started because the brand Momotaro Apotheca is trying to start a conversation, and it revolves around normalizing the word vagina. Their company is all about the necessities of feminine care, in their Instagram bio they state that they sell, “Plant-based, all organic, and cruelty-free products for vaginal wellness.” However, they realized that women don’t want to have the conversation about vaginal wellness because they don’t even like saying the word out loud, and how can you take care of it if you can’t speak it? They might have a point there. But is the t-shirt taking it too far or is that what’s necessary to get the conversation going?
Momotaro Apotheca spoke more about their movement in an Instagram post saying, “‘NOT A DIRTY WORD’ We are so excited to announce the launch of our #NotaDirtyWord campaign – an effort to acknowledge vaginal wellness as an important and respected part of our sexual and reproductive health. #NotaDirtyWord is a way to challenge the fact that people often avoid or are uncomfortable talking about their sexual and reproductive health. If we are too ashamed to use the correct words to describe our anatomical parts, how are we supposed to educate on consent, health issues, and pleasure? It is time to undo the stigma and create a conversation. Vagina is not a dirty word.”
The company has stated that a portion of the sales of the controversial t-shirts goes to the National Institute for Reproductive Health, an organization that supports reproductive rights. They’ve also released a few videos on their Instagram explaining the movement further and what vaginas mean to each individual specifically. Monica, a follower of the movement, stated in the video, “As soon as a woman appreciates her body again, appreciates her period and her cycle, she is so in awe of the process that she falls in love with herself again. So using the word vagina is not disgusting, our vagina is amazing…and I think there is so much beauty in it and we have just forgotten about the beauty.”
They may be on to something about normalizing the word vagina so that women feel comfortable discussing their feminine health, but what do you think about the way they’re going about it? These t-shirts aren’t just on social media. People are wearing them out and about to start a conversation. After all, a movement has to be in the public in order to get started. How would you feel seeing this shirt on the street? Is it necessary to normalize the word? Also, how necessary do you think this movement is? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
