Why Can't You Say 'Vagina' On Social Media?
Hope this makes it through your email filter!
When astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, the first woman in space, was training for her role as a Mission Specialist on board the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, NASA engineers were puzzled over how many tampons a woman would need for a one-week flight. They asked Sally, “would 100 be enough?”
“No,” Sally patiently responded, “that would not be the right number.”
Women’s bodies have presented a mystery to science and to medicine since the practice began. The male body was perceived in medicine as the "default standard" which has had major repercussions for women's health and safety over the years. Women’s healthcare is notoriously underfunded and under researched. A reluctance to talk about the details of women’s health issues in society means women are increasingly taking matters into their own hands and turning to digital technologies for health advice and management. Products collectively known as “Femtech” are helping to open the conversation about women’s health and break barriers and taboos.
The Femtech industry faces many challenges and obstacles to growth. Despite the various estimates of Femtech industry growth - set to be worth over $100 billion globally by 2030 according to one forecast - there is a twofold lack of funding. First, women’s healthcare is underfunded and under-researched to begin with. Second, only a fraction of investment goes to companies with female founders, who make up the vast majority of Femtech companies. When The British Business Bank started monitoring female-owned businesses in 2019, it reported that out of every £1 of venture capital investment, all-female founder teams in the UK get less than 1p.
All very frustrating, but today I want to highlight a truly ridiculous and avoidable obstacle that impacts not just Femtech companies but women’s health organisations more broadly.
I’ve written a lot about Femtech and the need to protect women’s health data, particularly when it comes to advertising products online. The internet is built on advertising revenues. Social media platforms make billions from advertisers by collecting as much personal data as possible from their users in order to maximise the time users spend online and ultimately click on ads targeted at them.
It is no secret that I am an advocate for overhauling this digital advertising model in favour of an alternative that relies less on collecting troves of personal data and tracking people across services, but there is still a long way to go. The examples I am about to highlight are further evidence that the business model of the internet needs a serious rethink.
As it stands, once a business is up and running advertising on social media is considered key to both growing the business and, for Femtech companies, reaching women who may be struggling with symptoms or conditions that their products can help with. However, Femtech companies experience obstacles to advertising on social media, as adverts are regularly censored or rejected for featuring words like “vagina.”
I know, it sounds ludicrous. The reason? According to social media platforms, vaginas are sexual, pornographic, and, get this, for over 18s only.
The problem is widespread. A survey out this week from baby-care company Frida revealed that 90% of UK women’s health organisations reported being censored on social media platforms for “pornographic” content in the past year - whether through blocked ads, removed posts, or algorithmic suppression known as “shadow banning” so that nobody sees the “offending” post. Some even have their accounts suspended. This not only makes it difficult for companies to grow their business, but for health organisations to plan campaigns and reach their target audience.
It is farcical. In 2023, BodyForm ran a campaign called “40 words you can’t say” including vagina, period and vulva, in an effort to remove stigma and shame from discussing women’s bodies. It was removed by Facebook within 30 minutes because adverts “must not promote sexual and reproductive health products or services" and that ads promoting such things must be “targeted to people aged 18 and over.” Ads for sanitary products only for over 18s? How very progressive.
Less than a year ago, Valentina Milanova from Daye, a company which offers at-home diagnostics for vaginal health, posted about her experience of ads featuring a pregnant woman with her belly exposed rejected by Meta for being “adult and sexual content.”
And it’s not just Femtech companies losing out. Anna O’Sullivan, co-founder of CensHERship and founder of FutureFemHealth, said in Femtech World:
“The current rules are damaging and harmful. They are preventing charities communicating life-saving education about gynaecological cancers, campaigners battling to break the taboo of menopause, and small businesses trying to share with the world their transformative health solutions. It’s just not right that they aren’t able to reach people.
“This is an entirely avoidable situation if social media platforms agree to adjust their policies to avoid the restriction and censorship of women’s health content.”
The thing is, over the years Meta has tweaked its Health and Wellness policy to seem reasonable and accept all of the above. And yet still the problem persists.
And it’s not just Meta. A recent investigation from The Center For Intimacy Justice details widespread suppression of sexual and reproductive health information from Meta, TikTok, Amazon and Google.
There are also enormous double standards going on. The report shows that ads for viagra are just fine and men’s health issues are not censored.
What is going on? I don’t believe that separating health content from truly adult material is that difficult- the platforms seem to manage fine when it comes to men’s health issues. One can only assume there is not the will internally to make it happen. But why? I had a conversation a while back with a (male) representative of a digital company wanting to grow their ads business. I suggested that Femtech companies would be perfect clients, given it is a booming industry and avenues for advertising can be narrow. The response was, “But if I allow this, how do I stop the platform being flooded with pornography?”
Bingo.
Women’s bodies are sexualised to the point we cannot access health information.
This is problematic.
ASSOCIATING VAGINAS WITH PORNOGRAPHY IS VERY PROBLEMATIC!!
So this is one obstacle to overcome.
Of course I can’t help thinking this feeds into the censoring and policing of women’s bodies more broadly, which is a wider problem than advertising.
We need to start talking to each other about sexual and reproductive health without shame or judgement, including our sons and partners.
I would love to see Femtech companies abandon social media and take it to the streets with Guerrilla Girls style marketing. Frida is having a go- look out for their campaign in London.
And social media platforms, for the love of Hera, please hire more women.
