New hotel with female empowerment theme features massive portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg made out of tampons

We’re old enough to remember when it was fashionable to wear tampon earrings in support of Wendy Davis and her 11-hour pro-abortion filibuster in Texas; then-MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry wore them on air to show her support. Since then we’ve heard a lot about “tampon justice,” but this one came as a surprise to us: A hotel in Washington, D.C. with a “female empowerment” theme features in its lobby a massive portrait of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg made out of 20,000 hand-painted tampons.

This revamped D.C. hotel opened with a “female empowerment theme” that features:

• A portrait of RBG made out of 20,000 hand-painted tampons
• Cocktails named “the huntress” and “empowermint”
• And a head chef who is male. https://t.co/xMfkTfY2Lq pic.twitter.com/Jvhuy8MpYq

— Eater (@Eater) October 9, 2020

Yeah, and they’re very sorry that the head chef is male. Hotel Zena “missed an opportunity to place a woman in a public-facing leadership position,” reports Eater.

This is the boutique hotel with $16 cocktails that America's struggling women, grappling with illness and death and unemployment, have been waiting for https://t.co/s2ljcyzgBO

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) October 9, 2020

Eater reports:

The hotel did hire a women-owned design company and created opportunities to pay female artist for their work. Andrea Sheehan, the founder of Seattle- and London-based Dawson Design Associates (DDA), commissioned a massive pointillist portrait of late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that’s made out of 20,000 hand-painted tampons (the release notes organic tampon company CORA donated them all). All of the 60 art pieces on-site were painted, photographed, sculpted, or stitched by “feminists of both genders around the globe fighting for human rights,” the release says.

…

In a quote attached to the release, the CEO of publicly traded Pebblebrook Hotel Trust says the hotel is a “safe gathering space that celebrates diversity, respects different points of view, and opens the floor to topics worthy of meaningful conversation. We know we’re pushing boundaries and might even make some people uncomfortable — and we’re okay with that.”