Hershey’s, the iconic chocolate company, recently released an advertisement apparently to celebrate women.

The problem? The ad is starring a man.

“See the women changing how we see the future,” the transgender narrator says at the end of the ad.

The advertisement’s narrator also says, “We can create a world where everyone is able to live in public space as their honest and authentic selves.”

The problem is that we cannot create such a world. Being “their honest and authentic selves,” to leftists, means living unchained from any values, giving into every desire, and abandoning the Biblical moral framework that has created Western society.

It’s the idea that whatever we feel must be validated and acted upon. For instance, if Joe is a pedophile, then living as his “honest and authentic” self means molesting children. An infinite number of other horrible actions can be justified in this framework. A world where everyone gives into every fleeting desire would be filled with murder, rape, and every imaginable crime. This is the world Hershey’s and other corporations that embrace the left-wing agenda are proposing.

The timing of this advertisement is also of note. Its release is obviously related to International Women’s Month (March) and International Women’s Day (March 8). And despite the name of these occasions, they really do not promote or support women or femininity.

As I wrote in “The Dark Origins and History of International Women’s Day”:

“[The International Women’s Day website] calls for ‘gender parity.’ In many countries around the world, equal rights are still an issue, but in America, men and women have the same rights recognized in the constitution. Not to mention that the website does not focus on what makes women unique, like motherhood or femininity. If we are going to celebrate women, shouldn’t we promote those qualities that make women uniquely women? Just as if we are celebrating men, it would seem logical to promote masculinity. Plus, if women do not have anything distinctive worth celebrating, why do we even have an International Women’s Day? We could just lump women in with the men and erase the category completely. Alarmingly, this does seem to be where our culture is headed.

In this way, International Women’s Day is not an appreciation of women. Instead, it pushes a particular narrative about women: Namely, that women—to be important in society—need to be doing the same things as men. In the Soviet Union, women (along with everyone else) were viewed as useful only if they were in the workforce. The idea of a stay-at-home mother or housewife was thus discouraged. And in modern America, this same idea seems to have cropped up.”

The origins of International Women’s Day devalue femininity, so it’s not surprising that Hershey’s is ignoring and replacing actual women and femininity by substituting in men pretending to be women.

As the ad made the rounds on social media, #BoycottHersheys began trending on Twitter. While many are understandably upset about the advertisement, some individuals are saying they’re going to buy Hershey’s chocolate in support of the company or in opposition to conservatives. Others are pointing out that Hershey’s (along with other popular chocolate companies) have a history of using child slavery in their supply chain.

If we needed any more convincing, buying American-made products from companies with American supply chains and Western values is the real solution here. Gender—and especially transgenderism—has nothing to do with Hershey’s products. Hershey’s doesn’t sell makeup, women’s clothing, or any other specifically gendered product; women and men both buy and consume Hershey’s chocolate. With Republicans and Democrats having nearly opposite sentiments on transgenderism, this ad is just a blatant attempt to get left-wing brownie points. But the left continues to get away with it because conservatives continue to put up with it.

It’s not always possible to buy everything from America; sometimes those options simply aren’t available (cacao, for instance, is predominantly grown in Africa). But when possible, we can support American industry and local businesses. Not only are we investing back into our own communities and supporting our values, but we’re also cutting off America’s dangerous dependency on countries like China.

At the end of the day, the only way that major corporations can keep getting away with these stunts is if we allow them to. Fortunately, more and more Americans are waking up to the insanity and saying, “Not today.”

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Image credit: Flickr-Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0

ITO