Feminism and Fecal Matter

I’ve been looking forward to this post for a long time. As a recent college grad, I’m feeling bold, and ready to take on the topic, no matter how shitty it gets. Hah. Get it? So many more poo puns to come…moving on..

GIRLS POOP. THEY DOODIE. THEY DROP THE KIDS OFF AT THE POOL. ETC.

In case you aren’t clear on what that is, it’s this biological process thing where you excrete waste from your bumhole. All humans do this! Also, most animals. Actually all animals, I looked it up and snakes poo too.. The more you know, right?

Yet there’s this running joke I’ve heard, mostly from men, that girls poop “flowers.” That rainbows and baby unicorns come out of our tushes instead of the nasty brown goo men enjoy bragging about to their friends.

Yes, guys love and thrive in poop culture. They brag about their big ones to their friends, and movies and television portray men on the toilet, pants wrapped around ankles, holding the newspaper all the time. Men are encouraged to enjoy their “wasteful” activity. In Dumb and Dumber, we all gagged along but also laughed when the main character managed to get poop all over the bathroom walls.

 When’s the last time you saw a girl, pants around her ankles, humming whilst reading the paper in a movie or television show?  Sure, in Bridesmaids it’s referred to, but we still see Maya Rudolph quaintly falling in the street in a huge gown, ashamedly covering up the mess. Certainly, no enjoyment there. Recently, a commercial targeted towards women attempted to sell “poopourri,” an odor masking product. A gorgeous British woman in a fancy dress asks, “How can we make the world believe your poo doesn’t stink? Or that you don’t poop at all?”

As a staunch feminist, I find this to be problematic, horseshit, a piece of crap.

Girls are entitled to the same waste, and enjoyment of the deed as men are. In pretending that women don’t have normal body processes, we are forced to instead appear as dainty creatures whose sole purpose is to provide beauty and entertainment in an effort to appear “lady-like.” Any way you look at it, it’s dehumanizing. Another manner in which women are asked to conform to a physically impossible level of desirability. We are not art or any kind of passive beings created for you to gawk at, and therefore we do not poop flora. We are equally human, and we deserve to enjoy this biological process that will certainly remain a part of our EVERY DAY lives FOREVER. Maybe even twice or three times a day if your metabolism is kickin.

Between the smells and the mess, it’s not the most pleasant process, I know. But when you add the level of shame women have to feel about their bodies, the amount of constipated friends I have because they’re too afraid to poop at their boyfriends apartments, we have a problem.  

In essence, women; I challenge you to embrace your poo in all of its glory, and men; I challenge you to quit being such turds about it.