very silly

New York -- It was reported today that sexual repression and hipocracy were discovered in an Eastern European Country steeped in Catholicism and peasant superstition. This is the first known discovery of sexism and repression in Eastern Europe - stay tuned for further developments... On a more shocking development, white supremecy and antisemitism were not only discovered in Germany - of all places, but in Russia as well. While we hesitate to editorialize in bringing you the news, we feel such revelations should be met with a cool demeanor and patience - this all may be anomalous...

hypocricy

Hypocrisy.

well raise my rent! You're right!

because she believed i would no longer be a virgin.. and, her words to me at age 13 were "no man wants used goods."

So you joke, but it might just be the church prefers pads.

It used to make me cry when American feminists would defend the Soviet bloc as a place where women's rights were respected.

You'd think that a state-controlled economy run by people who worshipped Marx would have provided products for women like birth control pills and tampons.

But nooo -- only capitalism gave women birth control pills and tampons. Under Communism, women could only choose abortions and stealing every scrap of toilet paper they could find.

How considerate of the current Pope to remind Polish women of those days.

The main sign of liberation in Moscow in the nineties was the ubiquitous Tampax box perched on the counter of any woman selling anything for any reason.

Yes, you buy Tampax and onions, Tampax and vodka, you could ever get a box of Tampax to go with your brand new personal computer.

The one item that most reminds me of post-Communist Moscow is Tampax.

...and EVERYTHING to do with that elusive but still important concept of GOOD TASTE!!! I, for one, am sick and tired of "feminine products" (and, for that matter, "masculine products") being advertised on radio and TV whether or not the surrounding programming or time slot is appropriate. Bravo to the Polish media!

If it were about keeping TVbroadcasts in good taste, ALL advertisements would be banned.

The fact that they are banning ads about TAMPONS (fer crissakes) only shows that Catholics consider the existence of women something dirty, shameful, and tasteless.

Presumably cars which consume gasoline at the expense of our environment are 'classier' than that embarassing, nasty, possessor-of-not-quite-an-entire-soul,WOMAN.

Banning ads for contraceptives can at least be explained by the fact that the Catholic church opposes them, but TAMPONS???

TAMPONS!?!

I'll say it again; TAMPONS!?

If he thinks that Eastern Europe is bad, wait til Islam takes over Western Europe. Oh boy! I already feel sorry for little Dutch and French kids born today. Eastern Europe, for all its problems -- and I know EE -- I visit there every year, might be Europe's white-flight destination when truly tolerant, Jew-loving, and sexually unrepressed Muslims extend the Caliphate over most of today's decaying, no-births Western Europe. Again, one comes across a dope like jeffrey so rarely, it's almost a treat to read his rantings.

jeffrey is a moron

If he thinks that Eastern Europe is bad, wait til Islam takes over Western Europe. Oh boy! I already feel sorry for little Dutch and French kids born today. Eastern Europe, for all its problems -- and I know EE -- I visit there every year, might be Europe's white-flight destination when truly tolerant, Jew-loving, and sexually unrepressed Muslims extend the Caliphate over most of today's decaying, no-births Western Europe. Again, one comes across a dope like jeffrey so rarely, it's almost a treat to read his rantings.

-- HT

The doomsday prophecies of islam taking over western europe, the mentioning of the caliphate, it's all so reasonable and rational compared to jeffrey. speaking of islam taking over western europe, what do you think that people in southern france were screaming when the muslims took over half of spain, and what about when the turks were about to take over vienna (which is in eastern europe, but somehow actually part of western europe)? Albania and Bosnia (in eastern europe) are already majority muslim, and they're doing okay, have you noticed?

i am from eastern europe, and if you think it's some sort of jew-loving, tolerant and sexually unrepressed paradise you're not looking close enough. anti-semitism is rampant, and during WWII, the poles were very good about turning in the jews. eastern europe is generally INCREDIBLY racist against everyone who isn't white white white. they may not be sexually repressed, but at the same time, they're still very sexist. in russia, a woman who isn't married by the time she's 30 is considered a tragedy.

"Or is it just that the church prefers pads?"

I believe the only thing we're supposed to allow in there is a freely squirting penis.

I don't mean the tampons, I mean the ads. I'm a man, so I'm highly unqualified to judge.

If a woman's brand is working for her, is she really likely to try something different "just for a change"?

People, please, could you stop with these mindless generalizations about “Eastern Europe”? The tendency to lump all the countries east from the German and Austrian border into one culturally homogeneous block is vastly inaccurate. The countries therein are culturally very diverse, and lumping them all together just because they were in the Communist block and the majority of them happens to speak Slavic languages is about as informed as saying that England, Germany and Iceland are all the same since they speak Germanic languages and were not in the Soviet block. Really, the Communist regime lasted about 45 years in these countries, and although it certainly had a profound impact on their societies, do you think it can be compared with centuries of different historical and cultural development?

I am a woman from the Czech Republic, a country at Poland's southern border, and I can assure you that the majority of Czechs look at the Polish attitudes towards sexuality and women's place in society with the same bemusement as you do. This ridiculous affair about tampons, and more pressing concerns about abortion and contraception have nothing to do with Communism or East, and everything to do with religion and cultural differences. Just to make an example: the Irish have problems in this respect as well, yet there was never Communism in Ireland, and it is as west as you can get. However, Ireland's history share some important similarities with Poland: both countries were, for a long time in their history, under foreign rule, even divided, and religion has been the major source of national solidarity and self-identification. Voila, what do we have here? Countries where a conservative interpretation of religion has a major impact on cultural and political life. On the other hand, my country is from 60% atheist, even though we are just across the border and share the same meridian (as we do with Austria and Switzerland, for the record, so much for “Eastern Europe”). You cannot compare the situation of women in my country or Poland or, let's say, Ukraine.

Just to wrap things up, I do not think the worrisome situation of women in some of these countries is the result of Communism. As awful as the regime was, it did actually quite a lot for the emancipation of women since it integrated them into the public workforce. We had even quotas for women in Parliament. (That's why most Czech women nowadays fiercely dislike any such idea.) Actually, the emancipation of women is one of the core socialist ideas (see e.g. August Bebel), and even the pre- I WW socialist parties did a lot for female suffrage and improving of social conditions for female workers in both Western and Eastern Europe. I am in no way a supporter of Communism, and personally am leaning more to the liberal, but these are simply historical facts that cannot be denied. Explaining the infringement's of women's rights by Communism or “eastness”, whatever that may be, does nothing to understand and ultimately nothing to solve their problems.