You can vote for If men had periods - manpons by WaterAid to recieve this year's Golden Radiator Award here.

This is exactly how tampons would be marketed if men had periods. They would be presented as signs of toughness and confidence with all sorts of high-tech details, not as signs of weakness and embarrassment to be considered on fluffy couches with pink pillows.  

WaterAid’s video hilariously exposes how gender stereotypes box people in.

But it also has a subtler criticism. Would access to healthcare and sanitation be more available to women if men also had periods? The answer, I’d argue, is yes. As the video points out, 1.25 billion women do not have access to a toilet when they get their periods. That needs to change.

My colleague Michael Wilson explored this topic further. 

You can go to TAKE ACTION NOW to call on world leaders to ensure access to clean water and sanitation for all

What are the Radiator Awards?

Maybe some volunteer is spending her spring break in post-ebola Sierra Leone. Maybe she refills a hand sanitizer container and unloads some water from a truck. Clearly, the country would be doomed without these vital contributions and, clearly, the only sensible thing to do would be to capture it all with Snapchat.

Or perhaps an NGO wants to replenish its budget as the holiday season ramps up. Footage of starving and smiling children set to uplifting hymns should do the trick, right?

In the humanitarian world, the traps of self-satisfaction and misrepresentation are everywhere.

And The Radiator Awards wants to change that.

Started in 2012 with a humorous video called “Radi-aid Africa for Norway,” the organization aims to humorously challenge harmful stereotypes of Africans because, in their words, “stereotypes and simple solutions to complex problems are more damaging, than helping.”

Each year, “The Rusty Radiator Awards” recognize (and skewer) three videos that use stereotypes. For example: a guitar-strapped white guy singing a cheesy song of hope while walking through an impoverished camp in Africa.  

“The Golden Radiator Awards,” meanwhile, celebrate videos that accurately and creatively depict a situation or bust stereotypes.

This is one of the 3 Golden Radiator finalists for 2015. (You can vote for the winner here.)