Do most women need help with their hygiene?
NICK Cannon has, in the past week, earned the wrath of so many women, that if comments could kill, the American actor and serial father would be a dead man. Nick was brave (or stupid) enough to comment on women’s hygiene matters on video recorded by podcaster Angela Yee, and reported by the JASMINE BRAND, claiming that women need to work on their hygiene.
“It will be some of the most beautiful women… she will be acting like she has no idea,” Cannon said. “Eighty per cent of women probably need assistance when it comes to female hygiene.”
He added: “Men, [we] talk about this all the time, do you all know when you’re all [reeking] up the room?”
On social media sisters fumed. They sulked. They retorted with evidence that Nick was talking bull, and that in fact, it was the male species for whom hygiene was a concern, and who were probably infecting their women by passing around various ailments through cheating and unprotected sex. Yet the more practical women, though few in number, agreed that the messenger may have been someone who wasn’t well liked because of his propensity for having multiple children, but that didn’t change the veracity of the message.
I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that both women and men need to take stock of hygiene matters, and it sadly didn’t have to reach this far, for someone in the public eye to point out what is, in fact, not as untruthful as some people have claimed. Yes, a man can throw off a woman’s pH levels, yes, a woman’s odour is determined by many factors, but one can’t ignore what’s at least partly true.
And in the same vein, hygiene-averse Jamaican men need to discard this way of thinking that has them believing that taking care of themselves, beyond bathing, is girly. Good hygiene includes taking care of the skin, mouth, hair, and privates, and it should be a routine that time is spent on daily.
That’s just my perspective.
Jevaughnie Smith is a second year communications student. Send feedback to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com.
