Guest Post by Jennifer Aldoretta
Since my upcoming book about menstrual stigmas and the symptothermal method of fertility awareness is getting close to launch, I thought today’s blog post would be the perfect opportunity to provide a short excerpt for your reading pleasure. I’m excited to help debunk some menstrual myths and break some menstrual stigmas, and I hope you enjoy this little taste of what’s to come:
Menstrual advertisements and commercials are quite possibly the biggest contributors to modern menstrual stigma. I know what you’re probably thinking: “Menstruation ads are everywhere! How could they possibly create stigma?” While it’s true that television commercials, billboards, and other types of advertising are riddled with menstrual messages, they aren’t the type of messages we should be sending or receiving.
The first big qualm I have with menstrual ads is the strange blue liquid we always see in tampon and pad commercials. Watch as we pour this weird blue stuff on this pad to show you how absorbent it is! What the heck is that, anyway? Maybe that stuff is accurate for Smurfette, but that’s definitely not what my menstrual blood looks like! Part of the reason we find the idea of using a red liquid in these ads so revolting is that their use of this odd blue stuff makes us uncomfortable with the liquid that is actually absorbed by these products. One of the other major problems of advertising with this mysterious liquid is the message we’re sending to young people. When I was a kid, of course I remember seeing these ads, but I couldn’t have begun guessing the purpose the products actually served. When young girls see their first fateful stain, panic ensues. Many of them, like myself, may not even realize the purpose pads and tampons serve until they experience Menarche, or their first menstrual period.
Not only do ads never show anything that even slightly resembles blood, but I have yet to see an ad or commercial released by Tampax, Playtex, or Kotex that makes use of correct terminology. Words like “vagina”, “menstruation”, and “endometrium” (the scientific term for menstrual blood) are glaringly absent from product ads. And yet commercials and ads for products like adhesive bandages and antibiotic cream are riddled with bloody knees and scraped elbows. Beating around the bush about an event like menstruation that will play such a prominent role in women’s lives isn’t doing us any good.
I made a trip to the public library in search of some resources to use for this very book. I knew I wanted to find books or journal articles about menstruation, but I wasn’t sure where to begin looking. Luckily, most libraries come complete with a handy computer that informs you of the sections in which you’ll find certain topics. As I was approaching said computer, a woman who worked at the library insisted on helping me with my computer search. Being that she had a lot more experience with this than myself, I happily accepted her help. She asked, “What topic are you searching for?” to which I replied “menstruation”.
She looked at me a bit funny, which, at this point in the game, I was used to; people tend to get uncomfortable when this particular subject is mentioned. Then she asked, “That’s a period, right? Like…what a woman gets?” Upon hearing this question, I figured that, like many people, maybe she was hoping she misheard me so she would be spared an uncomfortable conversation. “Yes ma’am, it is,” I said. It wasn’t until I saw her struggling to spell the word that I realized she had not misheard me. Sure, not everyone is great at spelling, but when I began chatting with her about the topic, it quickly became apparent how little she really knew about it. Eventually we got everything figured out, but I found myself extremely distraught by the fact that an adult woman had such a poor understanding of menstruation. But it wasn’t her fault. In a society where it’s beyond taboo merely to utter the word, it’s no wonder so many know so little.
Another of the many problems with menstrual advertising is the way companies design and advertise their products. Advertising that calls a product “virtually undetectable” (Kotex) or claims that the product is designed with a “discreet wrapper” to ensure “discreet protection” (Tampax) is toxic. One of the only goals this sort of advertising achieves is making women feel as though they must hide the fact that they are menstruating. Plug it up, and don’t you dare tell anyone about it. Why is it made to be such an embarrassing thing? This doesn’t make the menarche experience any easier for young girls. They are told that menstruation is a huge life event: “You’re a woman now.” And yet every message they see and hear tells them to do everything they possibly can to hide it.
