The bizarre decision to remove the Venus symbol from sanitary towels

Women, eh? Never happy. The feminists are up in arms again, this time over sanitary towels. Still, not to worry – great strides are being made to just erase women altogether, so that in the future, no one will even know what the word ‘woman’ means. So bravo to sanitary towel brand Always for leading the way by announcing their decision to remove the female Venus symbol from their packaging after complaints that the imagery is not inclusive to transgender or non-binary people.

It shouldn’t really matter, should it? It’s just a symbol on a wrapper. But it does. Because when you start to deny women’s biology, you begin to deny they exist at all. 

In justifying the move, Proctor & Gamble, who manufacture Always, told the Metro: ‘Our mission remains to ensure no girl loses confidence at puberty because of her gender or period.’ Yet by removing the Venus, the female symbol, from their products, the message they are now sending girls and women is that being female is offensive. Empowering stuff. 

For some reason in the current gender war, at a time when we are expected to accept that there are tens of different genders, the only one that seems to be constantly under attack is the one that around 50 per cent of us are born with.

Women are targeted by all sides. To appease women who identify as men, our biology is denied. Even a recent healthcare campaign last year by Cancer Research called on ‘anyone with a cervix’ to go for a smear test. To make men who identify as women more comfortable, women must give up their right to privacy in toilets and make do with fewer facilities, as the Old Vic demonstrated earlier this month.

Most worryingly of all, women’s safety has also been compromised by the trans-ideology: some police forces are now allowing suspected and convicted rapists to self-identify as female. Does this mean that, if convicted, they could be transferred to a women’s prison? There has already been such a case. Karen White, who claimed to be transgender but was legally still a man and was awaiting trial for rape, was put into a women’s prison where he sexually assaulted two female prisoners.

The legal definition of rape is penetration with a penis without consent. Are police seriously going to tell female rape victims that they were raped by a woman with a penis?

Transgender people should, of course, be free to live as they wish with dignity and respect, but it is wrong to demand changes that reduce the rights or risk the safety of others. It is also noticeable how often it’s women, not men, who are most affected by these changes. No one is suggesting we re-market condoms as a product for ‘anyone with a penis’.

When women do voice their concerns, they are penalised. Earlier this month, the margarine brand Flora pulled its partnership with Mumsnet because an activist had complained about the site being ‘trans-hostile’. On Mumsnet, mothers frequently have frank discussions about the transgender debate and their own worries.

Well I hope Always and Flora lose a lot of business – they deserve to. What on earth are they thinking alienating their key demographic? Because on the whole, it is still women who do the family food shop, and it’s only women who have periods.