Sitting atop the privilege pile, men rarely get awareness campaigns aimed directly at them. Movember is one of the few, yet now a brand of women’s razors wants that for itself, too. Why?

Prostate and testicular cancer are, obviously, men’s issues. So too, predominantly, is suicide, which kills one man every minute of every day around the world. In the Western world, men are three to four times as likely to die by suicide as women. 

Since 2004, men worldwide have been growing their mustaches out for ‘Movember,’ all in the name of promoting men’s health and raising cash to tackle these problems. Until this year, when one women’s grooming company came along, took a look at Movember and decided it needed a good dollop of feminism.

“Women have mustaches too,” a hirsute model tells viewers in a new ad by razor company Billie.

“We’ve been hiding them all our lives. But newsflash: we’ve got them,” another fuzzy-lipped model says, before exhorting the women of the world to join them and kick in funds to their Movember campaign.

To be fair, these funds do go towards tackling the men’s issues mentioned above. And Billie will match all donations up to $50,000. But you wouldn’t know this from the ad. Instead, it looks like yet another piece of woke posturing, deliberately released during Movember to remind us, in case we forgot for a split second, that women have problems too.

And, if women do want to grow out their mustaches – thus rendering them completely unattractive to the patriarchal ‘male gaze’ that feminists spend so much time complaining about – then that’s their prerogative. After all, the days of ‘bearded ladies’ being paraded as circus freaks are long gone.

But can’t we just for one month be spared the relentless onslaught of corporate wokeness? Men are rarely treated to awareness campaigns and fundraising drives, so can’t we at least have Movember?

Of course, nobody should be compelled into silence: woman, man, or hip corporation. But while certain groups promote awareness of male breast cancer, male razor companies generally don’t put out ads during Breast Cancer Awareness Month reminding women that “hey, newsflash, we get it too you know!”

It would be completely tone-deaf if a crowd of unwashed incels raised money for National Domestic Violence Month, then put out an ad blasting the women who’ve spurned their advances.

By all means, contribute to Movember if you support the cause. But remember that the cause is men’s health, and the month shouldn’t be a soapbox for a completely unrelated message about body image and the empowerment of the female mustache.