There is a very good post over at Owning Pink – it had me at the title: Want a Raise? Wash Your Vagina. The post is about a full page ad in Women's Day magazine for Summer's Eve Feminine Cleansing Cloths. In that ad (a scan of which is on the blog post), there are 8 tips for asking your boss for a raise, the first of which is to use these cleansing cloths. Yes, the ad suggests you are more likely to get a raise if you "wash" your vagina.

Lissa Rankin of Owning Pink is pissed off and I agree with her. Be prepared, in her post she uses the word "pussy" a lot. With (great) respect to Eve Ensler, I don't use the word "pussy" to describe my vagina. I am not particularly offended by it. I just don't see the need to nickname or euphemise my body parts. I don't have a problem with using or hearing the word vagina and, used to accurately indicate a vagina, it seems entirely sufficient.

But back to the ad. Anyone here ever been sexually harassed at work? I have. A lot. Even after clawing my way through law school and getting hired at a major corporate law firm, I still faced a superior who ogled me, left me inappropriate notes and touched my body at every opportunity. Did he actually smell my vagina before giving me a raise? No. But he certainly made it clear that he wanted to. And the fact that I didn't let him smell my vagina didn't alter how my co-workers treated me since when a superior makes it clear he finds you sexually attractive, co-workers tend to assume you are giving in to his advances. So add social ostracism to fear, despair, humiliation and self-loathing. It was a sad, painful experience and one I don't wish on anyone.

There is a good deal to find offensive in the Summer' Eve ad. Rankin's Owning Pink post does a great job of addressing the whole notion that we need to change the way our vaginas smell. To suggest we do so is sexist AND unhealthy.

But this ad strikes a different nerve of mine. At 25, I graduated from law school at the top of my class, a law review editor, thrilled to be leaving a not-so-nice childhood behind. And I had barely passed the bar before I discovered the world up there with the rich folk wasn't much different from the world I came from. I grew up sleeping with one eye open, waiting to see if some stranger would reach under my sheets in the night. I was often homeless and hungry. My law degree, I was to discover, didn't change things all that much. I had a place to live and food to eat but I still had to endure sexual harassment. It was still all about my vagina. And Summer's Eve thinks it still should be.

Among the comments to Rankin's post is one by a person who says she is the Brand Manager for Summer' Eve. Her name is Angela Bryant and she says: "I want to know what you would like to hear and see from Summer’s Eve, so send me an email at summerseve_cares@cbfleet.com." So let her know what you think.

And let me know what you think. Tell me your sexual harassment stories. Do you think things have changed much since the 1980s when I was told nothing could be done and a lawsuit would destroy my career? Can you be valued for your work and not your sex?