Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
Via Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet, I learned of this new internet campaign from Stayfree.
At last, my girlish fantasies realized! I have always dreamed of a man who would have dinner almost ready when I got home, and then mansplain the intricacies of feminine hygiene products while the risotto simmered.
Except I grew up in the 1970s, so my fantasy man shaved his face, not his chest, before our date.
[See also A date with Ryan and A date with Trevor.]
Found on the web
Women are sadly accustomed to encountering menstrual prejudices, negative stereotypes and condescending attitudes in movies, TV shows, ads, jokes and causal conversations. But, there’s one place you’d think would be free of menstrual malice: women’s public toilets. Here’s a place protected from the intrusive male gaze, a place where women often engage in conversational bonding, where secrets are shared, where pads and tampons are given to the friend or stranger caught unprepared by the unexpected arrival of an early or first period.
This phenomenon is captured sensitively in an episode of the Canadian situation comedy, DeGrassi: The Next Generation, titled “Coming of Age,” that depicts the story of Emma, one of the featured characters, when she gets her first period. She stains her pale skirt (a detail that is shown explicitly) and races to the bathroom with a friend. Neither girl is carrying the needed product but a girl with whom Emma is in conflict comes in and, setting aside their enmity, provides her with a pad. The menarche story is told with candor, and the bathroom scene captures the special nature of the kinds of menstrual transactions that occur in the sheltered environment of the “Women’s Room.” An earlier posting on re:Cycling portrayed another such menstrual transaction with humor.
Sarah Thomasin at Bluestockings
Last Sunday evening, at the Lower East Side bookstore (and feminist Mecca) Bluestockings, Chella Quint attempted to begin her 5th installment of a performance built from her zine Adventures in Menstruating. However this piece, Here’s The Science Bit, was quite rudely interrupted by Mother Nature, in tweed, presenting a pink and red wrapped box. Mother Nature who typically appears in Tampax adverts, exclaimed “It’s your monthly gift!” Chella seemed pleased to accept it. This confused the woman. “But…but, she stammered. It’s your monthly gift?!” Chella reminded her that she was quite happy taking it, thank you very much, and proceeded to open up the box (wondering why boxes are a running theme in fem care advertising.) For the next hour, as the paper flew and big red bows zoomed around the room, the gifts kept coming from Chella and co-performer, Sarah Thomasin, now donning lab coats.
Chella (a contributor to this blog) and Sarah’s writing on the fem care industry is spot on. Since 2005, they have produced the zine and now a blog which attempt to poke and prod the hawkers of pads and tampons out of their shameful marketing strategies. This evening they re-examined ads from the 1950’s for Zonite, a douche so powerful yet “safe to tissues” (??!) and Modess, a menstrual product pre-wrapped (i.e. disguised) in plain brown packaging. Of course, as Quint pointed out, the only other product to be wrapped in this manner were bombs.
I’m surely not the only fan of Amy Poehler and Parks and Recreation around here, am I? (Oh, Amy Poehler, have you been reading my mail? Leslie Knope is more like me than I care to admit.)
As I’ve written elsewhere, menstruation is seldom mentioned or represented on television outside of femcare advertising. The one notable exception has been when a girl’s menarche is played for laughs in the family sitcom. Now there’s another exception, in last week’s episode of Parks and Recreation.
In this episode, Leslie brought together all the surviving Directors of the Pawnee Indiana Department of Parks and Recreation, hoping for some inspiration for the catalog copy she needed to write. Instead she found a lot of bullying, misogyny, and other bad behavior.
In clip at right, the oldest of the former directors advises Leslie to stay away from leadership roles because the intellectual demands will interfere with her reproductive abilities. Leslie politely dismisses this by explaining that times have changed, and she aspires to greatness. But more importantly, she turns off the tape recorder, letting viewers know that this retrograde attitude is so unacceptable that she won’t be recording it for posterity. Having such views expressed by the oldest character also makes them easy to dismiss.
Over the last week, I thought I had participated in enough discussions of Kotex’s new “Break the Cycle” campaign; we had a lengthy discussion here at re:Cycling, and I’ve joined in the comments at several other ladyblogs, as have my co-bloggers. But then I discovered there are more videos!
Don’t expect to see any of these on U.S. television, but they’re definitely worth checking out: in one, a man seeks the advice of other shoppers in selecting the right tampons for his girlfriend (hint: her height and weight really aren’t relevant); in another, people appear reluctant to identify ink blots that resemble a human vulva, more so than identifying those that resemble a human penis. And you won’t believe the names for both. But I think this one is my favorite:
I want to be able to just press the play button on this one the next time I hear someone say, “What?!? There’s a Society for Menstrual Cycle Research?!?”
Introducing Leak Chic.
Chella Quint celebrates Fashion Week, recently ended in London and New York, with clot couture.
StainsTM. A removable stain to wear on your own clothing as you see fit. A fashion statement that really says something, and that something is, ‘Screw you, Madison Avenue. I’m taking this one back. I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve and my blood on my pants. I’m gonna reclaim the stain, reclaim my blood, and reclaim my period.’ Because people, I’m telling you red is the new black.
Read more at Adventures in Menstruating.
The iPad is not even available yet, but there are already iPad accessories on the market. Be the first on your block to get the iMaxi – the Apple iPad Case with Protective Wings.
With its durable vinyl outer layer and plush, quilted-cotton sleeve, the iMaxi helps keep your iPad clean and dry. Plus, the iMaxi’s Velcro-latched, advanced wing design wraps snugly around your device, so your iPad always stays where it should. Best of all, it shields it from all those unsightly and embarrassing data leaks that would make any motherboard worry!
But hurry and order – the red iMaxi is already sold out!
[via Jezebel]
So last week (and yesterday on Twitter) I was griping about missing out on the panel discussion “That Not So Fresh Feeling: Marketing Embarrassing Products To Women” at HousingWorks in New York. Muchas gracias to Jessica Grose of Double X for taking video and posting them online. This one features all four panelists – Allison Silverman, Susan Kim, Sarah Haskins, and moderator Hanna Rosin. Allison Silverman comments about aspirational tampon ads: “I was struck by all the horseback riding. Things I would never, ever want to do when I was menstruating. I was surprised there was no person comfortably reading a book.”
More video available at Double X.
ETA 02/24/10: There’s additional commentary from some who attended the event at Jezebel and at The Pursuit of Harpyness.
Ha ha! It’s funny because PMS turns women into hideous monsters! Just like Mexican wrestlers! Get it?
Yeah, I’m not laughing either at this ad for Kitadol. Neither is Copyranter.
[via Glad Rags]
If you watched the Super Bowl this year, you likely saw the new Dodge Charger ad “Man’s Last Stand.” If not, drop what you are doing and watch it right this minute and sound the gender panic alarm!
There’s a crisis!
Masculinity is endangered! The women are taking over!
Men are-day in and day out–emasculated by the nagging, demanding, self-centered women in their lives and their trivial concerns (vampire lust! hairless sinks! fruit for breakfast! civility toward family members!)
It is so bad out there, apparently, that men need to recapture their manliness by “driving the car (they) want to drive.” (I don’t know what’s more offensive here, women-as-problem or car-as-solution)
The blogosphere and its environs is a-buzz with the work of MacKenzie Fegan who found, in her words, the commercial uh….“oft-putting”. She posted this response. Not sure I would have chosen the same complaints to highlight, but I did cheer with this dig:
“I will get angry and you will ask if it’s that time of the month.”
Crisis? If only there were one and that tired old excuse for not taking women seriously was on the way out!
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