Welcome to 2020, where the realities of giving birth, and the struggles that mothers face after giving birth, are still a taboo topic.

We all hear about the miracle of birth, the joy of holding your baby for the first time, and how pregnancy makes you glow. Sometimes, swollen ankles and the need to pee every 30 seconds comes up, but that’s as far as we’re going to go.

I mean, if moms-to-be find out how hard it is, they might change their minds, and then where would we be?

Clearly, when you’re going about your day, it shouldn’t be ruined by the reality of postpartum care. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.

If all of that sounds ridiculous, then take a moment to appreciate the fact that an advert for postpartum care products was rejected by the Oscars this year.

Before we head on over to The Washington Post to unpack why the ad was banned, and the fallout of that decision, give it a watch:

It’s raw, but there’s nothing offensive happening there. It isn’t, as the preamble to the advert points out, lewd or graphic. It’s a new mom, doing what all new moms have to do after pushing a human being out of their bodies.

The 60-second spot was meant to air during one of the biggest events in television, the Oscars. But ABC and the Academy Awards rejected it for being “too graphic,” Frida Mom told Today Parents.

So, we’re fine with toilet humour in films, and gratuitous boobs on Game of Thrones, but not this.

The rejection drew sharp criticism. Actress Busy Philipps said on Instagram that she was “sick of living in a society where the act of simply BEING A WOMAN is rejected by the gatekeepers of media,” arguing that erectile dysfunction ads don’t receive the same scrutiny.

The advert, as Sonia Moghe wrote in an opinion piece, was a missed opportunity to share the reality of the experience of being a new mom, with a major audience, and to “build empathy for new mothers”.

“What does it say to women giving birth — or the partners who watch them struggle — that an ad that offers them self-care products to cope with one of the most difficult times of many women’s lives is ‘too graphic’ for family viewers?” Moghe asked.

The guidelines from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prohibit commercials for political candidates, religious or faith-based message, guns, gun shows, ammunition, feminine hygiene products, adult diapers, condoms or haemorrhoid remedies.

Frida chief executive Chelsea Hirschhorn was horrified by that list.

“We were really surprised to hear that feminine hygiene was put in the same category as guns, ammunition, sexually suggestive nudity, religion and politics,” she told Today Parents. “I was surprised, in this day and age, to see that whomever at whatever organizational level at the Academy and at ABC put in writing that they would analogize feminine hygiene to some of those other, more offensive categories of advertising.”

On the upside, the advert has gone viral (at the time of writing, the video above has been viewed well over two million times on YouTube), and is, therefore, getting the airtime that it deserves.

What’s important to remember here is that the social squeamishness around the realities of motherhood makes it difficult for women to be prepared.

If you’re a new mom, or a mom with a new baby, I salute you.

[source:washingtonpost]