Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
Is it wrong that I like this ad because it makes men look foolish for fearing tampons? It’s not that I mean to endorse mocking men as a class, it’s just that unlike the Kotex “Ridiculous” ad, this new ad frames something other than menstruation as this lady’s biggest problem.
Mooncup, shown actual size.
A small study published this month in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology tested effectiveness of the mooncup. The results won’t surprise anyone who has used one: “The Mooncup leaked 0.5 times less frequently and required to be changed 2.8 times less frequently, on average, during one menstrual period than regular sanitary protection.”
Or coochie, or bajingo, or vajayjay, or any other term for female genitalia. The big news in U.S. femcare this week is the launch of Kotex’s new “Break the Cycle” campaign, and the refusal of American television to air commercials that use the word vagina. As Amanda Hess put it, “you know, the place where the fucking tampon goes.” Meanwhile, Mooncup has launched new ads for their menstrual cups with a “Love Your Vagina” campaign in the UK. The campaign includes posters all over the place with different names women have for their vaginas – fru-fru, bajingo, coochie, lady garden and vajayjay – and the domain name LoveYourVagina.com.
According to this article in Marie-Claire,
Mooncup intend[s] to stimulate debate and encourage women to care about their vaginal health as much as they care for their hair, nails and make up. Kath Clements, Campaigns Manager for Mooncup, says: ‘We hope the ads will get women thinking, smiling and talking about their vaginas.’
No word yet on whether British media are permitting television ads.
Magazine advertisement for Stayfree Maxi-Pads, March 2010.
In the ongoing femcare arms race, manufacturers compete to promote the latest technology in menstrual wear. We’ve seen LeakLock®, Four Walled Protection®, Built-in Backup® Skirt, Clean SorbTM Cover (I am not making this up, to borrow an old line from Dave Barry), and now THERMOCONTROLTM technology.
But it’s illustrated with one of the world’s oldest technologies for period management: Just tear off a piece of your shirt. There. Isn’t that nice – soft and absorbent?
By the way, the fine print at the very bottom of the ad reads, “DRAMATIZATION. Stayfree® Ulta-Thins are not made from the same material as athletic fabric.”
This week, Kotex is launching a new campaign “that aims to encourage women to talk candidly and without embarrassment about periods and vaginal care”. Research statistics from the brand indicate that “vaginally-aware women” are more likely to have a positive body image (40% vs. 31%) and to be satisfied with their level of self-confidence (64% vs. 43%) and ability to express themselves (76% vs. 55%). In the same survey, 70% of women said they wish society would change the way it talks about vaginal health, but less than half feel like they can do anything about it.
Of course, this means new products from Kotex. But from where I sit, there’s little new here. The products seem to be the same old Kotex pads and tampons, now individually wrapped in bright, “fierce” colors instead of the usual pastels. The same old plastic applicators are now yellow, blue, or green, instead of just pink. The anti-ad advertisement technique (see video at right) was pioneered by Sprite (a CocaColaTM product) in their mid-1990s “Image is Nothing. Obey Your Thirst.” campaign. The Sprite ad was featured in Douglas Rushkoff’s 2001 film, The Merchants of Cool, as an example of how corporate advertising appropriates youth culture to appeal to young people.
And that seems to be what Kotex is doing with “Break the Cycle.” The new web site has a hip, blocky style and multiple ways to interact with the company and with other customers (hello, Twitter! hi there, Facebook!). Quotes from girls and young women appear throughout the site, many in handwritten fonts. The FAQ file (“Real Answers“) features three answers to each question: one from a peer, one from a mom, and one from a health expert.
At the same time, this looks likes an honest effort to increase education and honesty about menstruation and vaginal health. Kotex surveyed 1,607 North American girls and women aged 14-35 about their knowledge of menstruation, vaginal health, and self-esteem and body image. The findings won’t surprise anyone at re:Cycling:
The specific findings about menstruation are sadly familiar; I recall finding similar statistics in a widely-cited survey conducted in 1981 on a similar population when I first began studying menstruation 20 years ago.
In a controlled study of 268 Australian women with surgically confirmed moderate-to-severe endometriosis (cases) and 244 women without endometriosis (controls), researchers found that characteristics of a woman’s early menstrual cycles were associated with later development of endometriosis. Data showed those who did not start their menstrual cycle until after they turned 14 had a significantly reduced risk of later developing endometriosis.
Duration of the cycle, intensity of flow, and preferred choice of menstrual product showed no association with endometriosis.
The results are published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, December 2009. You can read the abstract here.
In the grand tradition of Ms. magazine, we present the latest installment of SNL’s “Classic ESPN Women’s Sports Tournament” with NO COMMENT.
(OK, if you really want to know what we think, see our previous posts about this misogynist series. We’re just too tired to say it again.)
Specifically, we’ve questioned the assumption that menstrual FLOW management is girls’ biggest menstrual problem (it is not, says at least one recent study–cramps are!). And we’ve been MORE critical of so-called altruistic solutions that are, underneath the (silent?) disposable wrapper, little-more than consumer socialization. Menstrual shame, sexism and poverty are not ameliorated though the cultivation of brand loyalty. Girls need information, support and the tools to develop awareness of their bodies while learning to live sustainably–this does not come in the shape of a box of single-use products that ends up clogging landfills.
Making green products available to girls while supporting economic growth and self-sufficiency in the Global South seems a more enduring and girl-centered initiative and there are number of projects that are doing just that. There Elizabeth Scharpf’s SHE initaitive in Rwanda and Lunapads donation program in collaboration with a number of related initiatives:
Yesterday, the NYTimes reported on a new study of Ghanian girls that found: ” Many schoolgirls from poor families stay home up to five days each month when they have their period.” (but could cramps be the culprit as they were in the study released in December 2009?)
The same piece described another cloth- pads- for- girls outreach effort, this one organized by a group called Huru International and supported by this eclectic list of backers: President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Sunflag Steel, Warner Brothers. Huru International developed washable cloth pads and packaged them together with a few pairs of panties, laundry soap and HIV/AIDS info into kits for school girls in Kenya. Cloth pads–though admittedly not every menstruator’s preferred menstrual care option, does make sense especially for girls who lack the resources to buy single use products (one Kenyan girls reports that a box of pads costs is equivalent to the cost of a bag of corn flour).
It seems that the good ole’ time-tested cloth pad is emerging as a viable option for girls throughout Africa.
We think that’s encouraging news, for the planet AND for girls.
An Israeli inventor has applied for a patent for a device to shorten the duration of menstrual flow. Apparently it works by insertion into the vagina and “delivering pressure oscillations and/or acoustic waves and/or shock waves to the vagina and cervix to change the flow properties of menses fluid”, which causes the rate of blood flow to increase so that total time of bleeding decreases. Also, “the device also includes an absorbent member attached to the pressure oscillations generating unit for absorbing menstrual secretions.” In other words, there’s a built-in tampon to catch the increased flow.
For my money, that little device looks and sounds a lot more uncomfortable than wearing pads or tampons.
Word on the street is that Apple is introducing their first tablet computer today. With their usual flourish, they’ve named it . . . wait for it . . . the iPad.
ETA: The ladies at Jezebel have published more than one compilation of period-related iPad jokes. A sample:
Are you there, God? It’s me, Marketing.
Don’t make fun. The iPad is the technology of the future. Period.
Can I get a scented iPad for when my data feels not-so-fresh?
Edited again to add: The Week has an interesting comparison of historical femcare slogans and Apple slogans – more similar than one might expect.
[Video via Lunapads]
Remember my rant about “vagina wash” back in November? No? I’ll wait while you read it.
Anyway, it’s not just a political rant: there are new data that indicate that douching probably causes bacterial vaginosis. A research team studying the association between douching and bacterial vaginosis published their findings in the February 2010 issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The researchers were interested in determining whether the association between douching and BV is causal, or if the association exists because women douche when they experience symptoms of BV. They compared numerous personal hygiene practices with douching.
A longitudinal study of the vaginal flora of 3620 women – involving a whopping total of 13,517 gynecological visits – found that that only one personal hygiene behavior correlates strongly with bacterial vaginosis: douching. The researchers found no statistically significant correlation between BV and type of underwear (nylon vs. cotton); menstrual product (tampons vs. pads; pads and tampons vs. pads); use of pads or panty liners when not menstruating; weekly or greater use of hygiene spray, powder, or towlettes; or daily versus less than daily bathing and showering.
The researchers concluded that “[d]ouching, but not other feminine hygiene behaviors, is significantly associated with BV, providing additional evidence that douching may be causally associated with BV and is not simply a response to BV symptoms.”
So let’s reserve douche and douchebag to describe anti-feminist people and actions: douches are unnecessary, harmful to women, and sold to women in insulting ways.
First, it was Tampax, and then it was Vagisil. But it’s good they didn’t leave out Summer’s Eve. And I expect Midol (for those irritating PMS-y women) and something about menopausal women’s hot flashes (can’t they control themselves with hormone therapies?) to be next. Although probably SNL writers aren’t savvy enough yet to even contemplate what menopause is or how they feel about it, so they’ll probably stick with skits that revolve around women’s body parts and younger women’s reproductive experiences.
I was frustrated with SNL’s skit about ESPN’s coverage of a women’s billiards tournament, “Tampax to the Max Tournament of Champions” (see my blog post about it). I was disgusted and concerned that SNL writers revised this skit for a second airing, to include a spoof about women’s yeast infections during a Women’s bowling tournament, “Vagisil Superstars of Bowling Tournament”. After seeing the second skit, I (along with many other critics) knew that the power of the skits was not in jokes about women’s menstruation alone but, rather, in jokes about the disgusting nature of women’s bodies more generally.
This past weekend, SNL revised the skit once again to be a skit about ESPN coverage of a women’s darts tournament, and the main sponsor was Summer’s Eve, “Summer’s Eve Stars of Darts Competition”. The skit was as dumb as it was the first two times, but the one-line jokes within the skit carried even more jarring phrases in my opinion (e.g., “when your situation down south makes him breathe through his mouth” or “when your man’s in a coma from your panty aroma”). As a trio, these skits point to the fear, dislike, and disrespect for women’s bodies. The three skits also all revolve around talk about women’s vaginas, and the mysteries, misunderstandings, fears, and disgust surrounding this body part. As a trio, the skits produce the message that vaginas are gross, that men do not understand women’s reproductive processes and conditions, and the not-so-subtle message specifically to women is that women should keep their vaginal “conditions” private and not bother men with them. Indeed, the message in the one-liners this time around is that vaginas should be good-smelling, unbloodied, and available for men’s use at all times (and no other situation is acceptable).
After watching all three skits, I think we can safely conclude the following:
We at re: Cycling have been tracking the African-girls-miss-school-because-they-menstruate equation for a while now.