Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

House of (Menopausal) Cards

March 26th, 2013 by David Linton

(Spoiler alert: if you haven’t finished or intend to watch the show discussed here, you might wait to read this post until later.)

The premises of the much-discussed new series House of Cards hosted on Netflix, are that no one in the world of politics can be trusted, that alliances are fragile, and that disaster looms at every moment. Beneath the surface of beautiful buildings, attractive people, glamorous receptions, and rousing rhetoric lie depths of deception and betrayal.

At the heart of the intrigue are the central power couple, US Congressman Frank Underwood and his wife, Claire, who heads a non-profit NGO dedicated to providing clean water to impoverished African villages. They appear to be well matched and unified in their ambitions for both personal power and their pet projects while expressing benign neglect toward each other’s outside sexual pursuits.

All is well in the Underwood cacoon until perimenopause makes its destabilizing entrance. There’s a concept that’s sometimes referred to as “Chekhof’s Gun” that goes something like this, “If you show a shotgun on the wall in an early scene, someone better use it before the play is over.” Well, the menstrual shotgun first appears in an early episode when Claire is seen standing before an open refrigerator door and she’s not looking for a quart of milk. Frank notices, says little, and the moment passes. Four or five episodes later Claire makes a deal to accomplish one of her goals, knowing it will undercut a grand scheme he is working on. When he learns of the betrayal, he employs the deadly menstrual shotgun, “Is it the hot flashes?” Whereupon she throws him out of her office and departs for New York to be with a long-time lover.

But this is only the first season of what promises to be an ongoing saga, so following yet another political crisis, she returns to Washington. But something has changed. She has been having dreams about saving a child who is being choked by vines and, in a final scene, visits an ob/gyn to discuss having a baby, despite the fact that she has had three prior abortions. Perimenopause has suddenly altered her perspective. As viewers have already learned that her husband hates children, the set up for next season’s drama is well established.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Independent Film, Perimenopause, Television | No Comments »

Early German Menstrual TV Advertising

February 26th, 2013 by David Linton

It is axiomatic that advertising commonly reflects and reinforces social values. At other times, by introducing new products or new perspectives on existing products, advertising serves as an agent of social change. Nowhere are these two phenomena more evident than in ads for menstrual products.

On one hand, when ads tell consumers that a particular device will guarantee secrecy or the avoidance of embarrassment, they perpetuate the shame factor that is deeply embedded in the social construction of menstruation. But on the other hand, when ads promise greater freedom of movement and social engagement, they make a contribution to undermining the notion that the period is a physically and socially debilitating event.

It is especially interesting to observe these processes at work in the context of varied social and historical settings. Though the menstrual cycle is a biological universal, its cultural significance is as mutable as any other human condition. For instance, consider the attached TV ad for Tampax, which is the first ad for a menstrual product to appear on German television.

Before we even know what the product is we learn that it has to do with some sort of perfection. Against a black screen the following words appear:

Stets Makellos. . . (Always Impeccable)
Freiheit in Sauberkeit (Freedom via Cleanliness)

Three brief vignettes follow set in countries that only a decade before were mortal enemies and are now depicted as role models for modern women. In the U.S. we see that modern women work in an office and that there’s a peculiar new word that has something to do with relieving work pressure: “Tampax.” Next, we visit a jazz club in Paris where sophisticated women also share the secret magical word that seems to make it possible for them to hang out in nightclubs. It’s some kind of password or incantation. Then we hit the beach in Italy, which was at the time this ad was created in the mid-1950s, was becoming a favorite destination for German tourists. Again the magic word, “Tampax,” has something to do with the fact that these attractive young women in their two-piece bathing suits can frolic in the surf.

Finally, we are told, “And now also in Germany,” accompanied by an image of a damaged Brandenburg Gate and two other German landmarks, and we get to see the product and find out what it is. By now the product is nearly a magic wand which, when waved while whispering the secret word “Tampax,” can result in an easier work day, fun evenings of dancing, and worry-free days at the beach. But while those are the characteristics of American, French, and Italian women’s lives due to Tampax, German women, if they adopt this “world brand, with applicator,” are promised “perfection of female hygiene.” And to drive the point home, a stern looking woman dressed in what looks like a nurse’s uniform, assures the women gathered around her and watching at home on television that if they use Tampax to manage their periods they will be, “Safe and Clean.”

There are many striking things about this ad, not the least of which is the stereotypical view of German concern for cleanliness which, in this case, takes precedence over the hedonism of those French and Italian women — although American women are depicted as hard workers (note the way the office worker assaults her typewriter). And note the specific reference to the fact that Tampax uses an applicator. The chief competition for Tampax in Germany was the o.b. tampon which was invented in 1947 and does not use an applicator. At the time the marketers of Tampax believed that German women would respond to the same appeal to fastidiousness that American women exhibited in their desire to avoid touching themselves too intimately. However, o.b. did become the German tampon of choice, far outselling the American competitor. Though the woman at the end of the ad is costumed like a nurse, the appeal to hygiene and hospital sterility did not tip the scale in favor of Tampax.

About thirty years later a reversal of this tampon competition occurred when the owners of the o.b. brand tried to take on the American market by promoting the superiority of using a tampon without an applicator. That campaign also failed, though its story reveals more nuances regarding the ever-evolving role of menstrual perspectives across cultures. A future post will delve into that chapter of menstrual history.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Advertising, Disposable menstrual products, History, Menstruation | No Comments »

A Quiet Celebration of the Horny Menstruator

December 28th, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Lauren Rosewarne

Courtney Cox shocked America in 1985 when she became the first person to say “period” on TV. Period, at least, in the context of menstruation and not punctuation.

 


Tampax, 1985-style

 

Flash forward a couple of decades and this year the same daring word (along with a couple of other doozies) ruffled a few feathers in a Carefree ad. At least it did initially. The furore quickly dissipated and the ad now runs regularly, uneventfully, in Australia. We’ve seemingly learnt how to cope without the conniptions.

 


“That bit of discharge” ad, 2012

 

I daresay it’s the ingratiating of the Carefree ad – with its references to the bits of ladyhood ironically considered least feminine – into our landscape that’s paved the way for another revolutionary down-there-business ad going undetected. Undetected and surprisingly, unwhinged about.

 


Libra “Bootcamp” ad, 2012

 

The new Libra ad dares use the P-word again – sure, itself a euphemism but a) “menstruation” is probably too many syllables for a short ad and b) I’d still rather hear period than any other sanitised circumlocution.

The truly startling bit about the ad however, is the way female sexuality is presented.

For most of last year I was living and breathing menstruation while writing a book on it. My focus was on media presentations and sex n’ blood got treated to a whole chapter.

While there are signs that our culture has become more menstrually mature – we’ve evidently learnt not to dial 000 when discharge is mentioned on TV for example – some menstrual taboos remain. Menstrual sex is a biggie.

On one hand thinking of the menstruator as sexy seems outlandish in the context of film and television. A couple of wonderful Californication scenes aside, periods on screen invariably and inevitably disrupt sex lives and give women – and men – an excuse to restrict it to spoonin’.

On the other hand, feminine hygiene ads are in fact full of attractive ladies peddling products to help menstruators stay sexy all month long. In advertising, the idea of the bleeding woman as outwardly desirable is effortlessly detected.

A much more shocking – and far more insteresting – construct however, is the idea of the menstruator herself feeling sexy. By sexy here, I’m not referring to the way others see her – to her objectification – rather, to her being in touch with her own horniness at a time when women often feel – biologically or because society has coerced it – dirty and out-of-action.


“It’s like a crime scene in my pants” – No Strings Attached (2011)

 

The Libra ad involves a woman who, while initially reluctant because of her period, eventually joins her friend to perve on male boot campers.

Lecherous ladies in advertising are nothing new of course; Diet Coke has long been flogged with some mildly hideous Sex and the City-style male sexualisation:


Diet Coke, 90s style

 


Diet Coke, 00s style

 

My concept of feminism doesn’t deem women panting over men as something inherently progressive. It’s not the ogling in the Libra ad however, that interests me. Rather, it’s the act of ogling for the purposes of arousal while the woman has her period.

I can’t help but be charmed by TV offering us a horny menstruator.

While a niche genre, menstrual-themed porn – here, I refer to the indie material, rather than, say, the buckets-o’-blood-fetish stuff – hints to the idea that some women are, shock horror, actually randier during their periods. Mainstream pop culture and vanilla porn however, routinely give the idea a wide berth. As in No Strings Attached (2011), menstruation is apparently a time when a bloke is just not gonna get a look in.

Just as I’m delighted when I see a woman on TV who deviates from the young/thin/white archetype that pop culture so adores, equally happy am I to see an example of female sexuality presented as a little more complex – and a tad more messier – than what’s normally on offer.

A small win, but I’ll take it.

Republished with permission from The Conversation

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Media, Menstruation, Sex, Television | No Comments »

Where have all the menstruators gone?

July 18th, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Lauren Rosewarne, University of Melbourne

Exploring missing menstruation on screen

Periods are depicted far more often on screen than I could have ever imagined; perhaps the biggest surprise I got from spending a year researching the topic.

Less surprising however, was that most presentations depict menstruation as the messy, embarrassing, sex-interrupting, mood-swing-inducing week-long hell ride that women have grown to expect from Hollywood.

While 200 scenes were many more than I expected, given that nearly all women will menstruate monthly for some thirty-odd years, 200 scenes actually isn’t all that many.

While most of Periods in Pop Culture focuses on what those scenes themselves reveal about society’s fraught relationship with periods, one chapter in fact explores the why so few portrayals. Given how very common and normal it is, why is the topic so frequently eschewed?

I proposed a handful of reasons including Hollywood’s aversion to telling female stories, narrative distraction, and the show don’t tell nature of the screen. In this post I offer  two other explanations: menstruation as a non-event and political correctness.

As one of the millions of girls who got an (albeit long outdated) menstrual education from Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?, I learnt that some girls apparently eagerly await their first period kinda like Christmas. I wasn’t like Margaret. I didn’t pine for it, and when I got it I didn’t look down at my underpants and throw my head back in delight like Debbie (Nell Schofield) in the Australian film Puberty Blues (1981): for me it was a non-event.

The non-event nature of menstruation appears a central explanation for its absence.

In an episode of sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–1992), Sophia (Estelle Getty) reflected on her periods: “I got it, no one told me. I didn’t get it, no one told me. I figured, this is life, and went back to my meatballs.” In this scene, Sophia reflects that many women don’t see any overwhelmingly need to talk about menstruation or complain about it or even to honor it, but that it is simply something that needs to be gotten on with.

Aside from those times when pregnancy is feared or desired, there are few occasions when menstruation is experienced as particularly memorable or gets bestowed with any great significance. I think this fact significantly underpins its absence on screen.

Thinking of menstruation as somehow naturally insignificant or uninteresting however, would be premature. In the film To Sir With Love (1967), there is a scene where teacher Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier) reprimanded girls who he believed burnt a menstrual product in his classroom: “A decent woman keeps things private. Only a filthy slut would have done this!”  Here, Thackeray refers to the most important rule of menstruation: concealment. On screen, if audiences see menstruation or if a character identifies as bleeding, she has neglected her most important gender burden. By infrequently portraying menstruation, the secrecy imperative is upheld. When women downplay the significant of their periods, when they believe their periods are uninteresting, internalized sexism is highlighted.

Another explanation for missing menstruation is so-called political correctness; that avoiding it reflects the contemporary dictums of liberal feminism: shunning topics which play up differences between men and women.

Given that menstruation is so common and that so many taboos exist surround it, it might be assumed that including it in narratives would be a feminist act. The flipside of this however, is that doing so might do gender equality a disservice; that presenting it reminds audiences of biological inequalities between men and women.

In a scene from the series Californication (2007-), Hank (David Duchovny) is about to have sex with his daughter’s teacher Mrs. Patterson (Justine Bateman). As they undress, Mrs. Patterson says, “Just so you know, I’m on my period.” Mrs. Patterson didn’t – and likely in our culture couldn’t – automatically assume that Hank would be fine and thus gave him an exit strategy. By mentioning menstruation in a sex scene, it existed as a glaring biological power imbalance; that an opportunity was offered for Hank to reject her on the basis of her biology.

By excluding menstruation, a female character can be interpreted as having the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with her male counterpart; that she can be as sexually aggressive as she likes and not have to query whether her partner is bothered by her period. In turn, she doesn’t get limited by her biology.

Predictably, there are some serious limitations to this argument. On screen and off, women’s biology is ever present. Eliminating reference to menstruation certainly doesn’t make female characters any less female; in fact, disproportionate inclusion of, and focus on women who are stereotypically feminine demonstrates that biological differences between men are women continue to be crucially important on screen.

Over 200 scenes of menstruation did indeed surprise me, although admittedly it’s quite a bit sad that it did. Given how common menstruation is, given that the good majority of women cope each month without drama, fanfare or hijinks, one might expect that more presentations – notably more normal presentations – would redden our screens.

 

Dr Lauren Rosewarne is a political scientist based at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of four books; her newest, Periods in Pop Culture: Menstruation in Film and Television, will soon be published by Lexington Books.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Film, Media, Menstruation, Television | 3 Comments »

Politics and Sex Education Make Strange Bedfellows

June 6th, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Lisa Leger

Yesterday (June 4) on MSNBC-TV, my girl Rachel Maddow interviewed New York Times columnist Gail Collins, author of the new book, As Texas Goes. The book criticizes the state’s politics and morality laws and their impact on the rest of the country. Now, I’m all for slagging the state of Texas for its abstinence-only sex ed policy, and I look forward to reading Collins’ book (which Maddow called “the funniest political book of the year”). However, my problem started when Maddow read a quote that seems to mock a piece of sexual health information that is actually correct.

The statement in question is “if the woman is dry, the sperm will die” , followed by the interpretation that it is some sort of colonial-era notion relating to the woman’s enjoyment or collusion in the sex act. Of course, the quote refers to fertile mucus and not lubrication or ejaculate, as the rather garbled interpretation seemed to imply. It’s a shame that a piece of perfectly useful information about fertility is confused with some arcane puritanism to make the [valid] point that abstinence-only sex ed is backward. I’m also disheartened [and vindicated] to see my assertion that mucus is either left out of sex education or inadequately taught being demonstrated once again.

In this story, though, my concern is not for the un-informed teens I champion in the blog linked here — but for the many adults who worked with Collins on her book and with Maddow on her show who let that reference get by them. Are we to assume that none of them ever learned to chart their cycles? Could there be no one on either staff trying to get pregnant? How can not a single one of the likely dozens of professional writers, fact checkers, and other staff members not have noticed that the reference they chose to hold up to ridicule is actually valid information about sperm survival in mucus?

A “Strange Bedfellows moment” for me as a Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) teacher is when what we teach is lumped in with what abstinence-only courses teach.  Another example would be finding oneself in favor or opposed to something like hormone pills for entirely different reasons.  As a Justisse Method teacher for 20 years, I’ve watched how charting is portrayed as some sort of Vatican roulette and how mucus is hidden away even more than menstrual blood is. I wince when I see perfectly good educational opportunities go by the wayside like that. How do the biological facts of fertility (sperm need mucus to survive) become invalidated simply by being taught from an authoritarian religious perspective?  I usually see the humor in a strange bedfellows moment, but hearing an evangelical Texan being mocked for teaching kids some mystical version of what I teach — this one stings a bit.

Lisa Leger is a member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and a Justisse Fertility Awareness teacher on Vancouver Island.

 

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in anatomy, Birth Control, Ovulation, Television | 2 Comments »

Tina Fey’s Menstrual Musings

January 31st, 2012 by David Linton

Tina Fey, true to her reputation for being feisty and transgressive, tells two amusing menstrual tales in her recent bestselling book, Bossypants.

 

The first is, appropriately for a “tell all” memoire, about her menarche.  The story, familiar to thousands of other women, relates how her mother gave her a “first period” kit from the Modess company that contained two pamphlets, “Growing Up and Liking it” and “How Shall I Tell My Daughter,” and pretty much left her on her own.  Fey’s humor derives largely from exaggeration and in this case she compares the Modess box stashed in her closet to a Freddy Krueger nightmare figure lurking in the dark: “Modessssss is coming for you.”

 

She goes on to describe the moment of the period’s arrival when she was ten years old and performing in a choral concert.  She claims that her surprise was not so much that she got her period but that the fluid wasn’t blue as she’d been lead to expect from TV ads.

 

The second, and more interesting, story is about how as a writer for the long-running TV series, Saturday Night Live, she managed to get the Kotex Classic sketch on the air.  Fey refers to it as “my proudest moment as one of the head writers of SNL.”  (The anecdote was also published in the March 14, 2011 New Yorker.)  The ad parody has become an SNL classic in itself and an indispensible inclusion in any discussion of the history of menstrual references on television.

 

The Kotex sketch is a send-up of the trend at the time for nostalgia sales pitches such as the Coke Classis campaign.  Written by Paula Pell, it features women proudly flaunting their Kotex belts and bulging sanitary napkins, even in a swimming pool and while wearing low cut, tight evening wear.  A man in the ad comments approvingly, “Them  girls are Old School!”

 

Fey describes how the men at the studio who had to approve the scripts balked at selecting it.  Their resistance was eventually overcome once the women explained the exact nature of the unfamiliar menstrual technology and how it was worn.  As Fey puts it, “They didn’t know what a maxi pad belt was.  It was the moment I realized that there was no ‘institutional sexism’ at that place.  Sometimes they just literally didn’t know what we were talking about.”

 

Beyond the fascinating behind-the –scenes access that Tina Fey’s book provides to the working of an influential TV show – and lots of other settings as well – she has also offered a glimpse of the menstrual social gap, the chasm of ignorance that separates women and men when it comes to understanding even the most rudimentary details of menstrual management.  In this case she was able to educate the men and succeed in producing a memorable – and perhaps even liberating! – piece of TV comedy.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in books, Celebrities, Humor, Menstruation, Television | 2 Comments »

Menopause Isn’t for Dummies

September 23rd, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

Roseanne’s Nuts was one of the delights of summer 2011, especially for those of us who have missed the comedic talents of Roseanne Barr. If you don’t watch television (or are outside the US), Roseanne’s Nuts is Roseanne Barr’s return to episodic television, this time in the form of a reality show set on the star’s 40-acre macadamia nut farm in Hawaii. When her eponymous sitcom ended in 1997, she made a couple of attempts at talk show hosting, then left L.A. and the limelight to raise her youngest son and macadamias in Hawaii. He’s now a teenager, and the nuts are ready to harvest.

An ongoing thread of the show is Roseanne’s plan to harvest and distribute her nuts as a low-cost protein source for impoverished people. Each episode also has its own self-contained, seemingly unscripted plotline. Unlike many of today’s popular reality shows, however, there are no manipulated showdowns or drunken feuds. Much of the time, Roseanne and her family seem like everyone else’s family — if only the rest of us could live off sitcom residuals and were followed around by a camera crew. There is laughter and teasing, and some conflict underpinned with genuine affection, but everything isn’t always tidily resolved in 22 minutes.

In the Episode #15 (original air date September 10), 58-year-old Roseanne copes with continuing symptoms of menopause. It’s handled so honestly (for the most part) that I’m going to overlook the fact that the episode was titled “Menopause for Dummies”.* The episode opens with Johnny Argent, Roseanne’s manpanion**, sharing a list of menopause symptoms he has found on the internet. Roseanne acknowledges having them all, except for tingling in her extremities, and decides to visit her friend, Dr. Allen, and to investigate whether she should receive hormone treatments. (The full episode can be watched online at Lifetime.com until Oct. 11; preview a short clip at right.)

-+-+-+- SPOILERS AHEAD -+-+-+-

Roseanne visits Dr. Allen — on camera, of course — this is a reality show — and explains her concerns. He asks about her libido and her sex life, and she replies, “It’s like an old person’s”. She responds forthrightly to his suggestion that dryness may be the cause of her ‘feminine itching’: “that’s all dried up like a sonofabitch”. Dr. Allen wants to measure Roseanne’s hormone levels with a 24-hour urine test, as he believes that will provide more precise information than any blood test. Roseanne is horrified by his description of her contribution to the procedure (“You pee in a bucket for 24 hours”), but even more horrified by his other recommendation: she needs to exercise.

Roseanne tells the camera — the proxy for us, the audience at home — that she doesn’t know if she’ll go on hormones or not. Her women friends recommend red wine, saying it’s bad for menopause (“because it makes you sweat”) but good for the libido. Her eldest son Jake is delighted to hear that his mom is considering hormones, telling the camera, “After eight years of being batshit crazy, I think she’s finally ready. I’m so happy — once she gets hormones, my life’s gonna be a lot easier.”

Some of my SMCR colleagues who study menopause may cringe at these scenes, but I think they’re representative of the kind of communication many women experience around menopause; that is, well-meaning, if ill-informed, advice from friends and family. It feels like the kinds of conversations lots of us have in our own living rooms and front porches. It is this feeling of unscripted authenticity that draws viewers to Roseanne’s Nuts. I also note the special irony of menopause; after 20 or 30 years of our hormones being blamed for erratic and irritable behavior, we’re now advised to consume hormones to rein in our erratic and irritable “batshit crazy” behavior.  Continue reading...

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Celebrities, Media, Menopause, Television | 2 Comments »

Curb Your (Menstrual) Enthusiasm?

August 9th, 2011 by David Linton

From time to time menstrual references show up in TV programs, mostly on situation comedies and, unsurprisingly, they are usually played for laughs.  The most common inclusions have had to do with menarche with menopause coming in second.  First periods have provided laughs and plot material for the writers of DeGrassi, Roseanne, Californication, Seventh Heaven, The Cosby Show, Beverly Hills 90210, King of the Hill, and others.  In nearly every one of these episodes the humor and plot tension derives, at least in part, from an exploration of male response to unwelcome exposure to the cycle: close encounters of the menstrual kind.

The most recent, and most daring, occurrence appeared in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 8, Episode 1) involving a girl selling Girl Scout cookies getting her first period standing in the foyer of Larry David’s home while writing up a cookie order.  Rather than dashing off to find a woman to “take care” of the situation, as depicted, for example, in King of the Hill and Beverly Hills 90210, the protagonist rushes upstairs to get a box of tampons, left behind by his wife who has left him, and stands outside a bathroom door shouting instructions to the bewildered girl inside.  Apparently she knows what the period is but has never been told how to use a tampon.

The episode is extraordinarily daring.  Even the simple detail of having an older man hand a young girl he just met a tampon is startling, given the depth of social taboos requiring strict gender separation in matters menstrual.  But to have him stand outside the bathroom door shouting instructions and reading the sheet packed in the box about placing the tampon in the vagina while the girl inside responds with confusion and frustration is risky indeed.  But the most striking thing of all is that while both characters find the situation awkward, neither one is overly embarrassed, particularly the girl who calmly announces, “I think I just got my period for the first time.”  Though she has apparently received little education about the technology, she is fully aware of what is happening in her body and accepts the fact that the adult she happens to be with when it happens is able to help her out.  The fact that it’s a male, and a quirky older one at that, seems not to matter at all.

This indifference on their parts is both a source of the humor and, perhaps, an indication of a watershed in menstrual decorum.  Or is that too optimistic a reading?

Cross-posted at The Communicated Stereotype

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Humor, Media, Menarche, Television | 2 Comments »

“Hail to the D” Wins the Day

July 29th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

There is much cheering in the feminist blogosphere this weekend, for good reason, as Summer’s Eve has removed three offensive vagina puppet videos from their “Hail to the V” website and their YouTube page. My co-blogger, Laura Wershler, will have a lot more to say about the Hail to the V campaign next week and I don’t want to steal her thunder, but I can’t help feeling a little cranky about the response of the Richards Group (the ad agency responsible for these ads). For more than a week, many feminist critics have written eloquently and angrily about how these videos are offensive on several levels, and the company continued to defend them. But a finally, a dude mocked them, and Stan Richards decided the ladies have a point.

Yes, Stephen Colbert’s satire was great, and I’m a fan — but if I had a nickel for every time a feminist critic said something about it would be obvious how ridiculous these ads (and these products) are if we saw comparable products marketed to men, well, I’d have a lot of nickels. I’m just sayin’.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Activism, FemCare, Humor, Internet | 6 Comments »

How much blood is too much?

January 24th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved tranexamic acid tablets as treatment for heavy menstrual bleeding more than a year ago, but you probably haven’t seen much of this television commercial to promote the drug (brand name Lysteda). Matthew Arnold reports in Medical Marketing and Media that television network executives are put off by the ad’s explicit mention of “periods” and “bleeding” combined with the symbolism of fall red rose petals.

(The article appeared in the December, 2010, print issue of MMM, but online October 20, 2010.)

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Advertising, Media, Menorrhagia, Menstruation, Pharmaceutical, Television | No Comments »

“They Don’t Spoil”

January 15th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

Like Sheldon says, you could save a lot of money if you buy tampons in bulk. Lots of women are probably wishing they’d bought o.b. tampons in bulk, now that they’re going for $20 a box on ebay.


Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Advertising, Disposable menstrual products, Men, Menstruation, Television | 2 Comments »

Menstruating Women are Like Vikings!

December 13th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

At least according to the newest ad for Kitadol, a menstrual pain reliever sold in Chile.

According to The Viking Network, Viking women retained property and inheritance rights after marriage, plus the right to divorce a husband who mistreated her or their children, insulted her family, or failed to be a good provider. These are considerably greater legal rights than most women had in that era (approximately 800-1050 CE).

I can think of worse metaphors for menstruating women.

(So can Kitadol.)

[Via Copyranter]

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Advertising, Media, Menstruation, Pharmaceutical, Television | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.