Tag Archives: women’s bodies

Menstrual Cups? Cloth Pads? Non-corporate, Non-disposable Solutions to Age-Old Problems?

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Debbie says:

I found India Kushner’s article in the Tempest right after I finished reading Michael Lewis on the experience of Kathy Sullivan, one of the first female U.S. astronauts. Here’s Lewis, from his book The Fifth Risk:

It was an open question as to which was more mysterious to a male NASA engineer [in 1978]: outer space or the American female. … Of course, the male engineers were seriously worried about what might ensue if a woman had her period in space. … [Sullivan said] “The male world’s response was, Oh, that’s ok. We’ll just suppress their periods. We all looked at each other and said, ‘You and what other army, buddy?'” The engineers finally agreed to pack tampons in the supply kids. The first time Kathy opened her kit she saw that each tampon had been removed from its paper wrapper and sealed in a plastic fireproof case. Heat-sealed tampons. Each plastic case was connected to another. She pulled on the top one and out popped this great long chain of little red plastic cases, like a string of firecrackers. Hundreds of tampons, for one woman to survive for a few days in space.

Men’s misconceptions about menstruation are often that funny, though Lewis’s writing helps. Women’s misconceptions are more complex, and more disturbing.

So I was pleased to find Kushner dispelling not one, not two, but thirteen stereotypes and myths about cloth menstrual pads.  And she starts with lauding her own menstrual cup:

I learned my friend used a menstrual cup.

Never having seen one before, I imagined a paper cup tied around her waist so it dangled right below her vagina – a horrifying image. I couldn’t imagine it being very clean or practical. Flash forward to a few years later, and I couldn’t have been more wrong- I’m now a total convert.

So, now you have me using a menstrual cup. Natural next step?

That natural step was cloth pads. Here are two of the myths she tackles:

Myth #2: They’re awful for the environment.

I’m currently on birth control so my period is sometimes lighter than it would normally be. But, there are still days where it can be very heavy.

So if I’m using tampons, that means I’m using anywhere from 11-30 tampons every cycle (over 300 tampons every year).

I didn’t realize just how many tampons that was until I did the math. That adds up to between 5,000 and 14,000 tampons in your lifetime. So the switch to cloth pads? That was easier to make than I thought.

and

Myth #13: You will spend the whole day feeling like you’re sitting in a pool of blood.

Uh, not true.

Reusable pads absorb as well as regular disposable ones. I recently switched over to only using Performa pads, and had to get used to a concept called “free bleeding.”

(Quick PSA: It’s not the type of free bleeding where you’re bleeding through your clothes.)

But I’ll be honest: I was more aware of my period, which meant that I got more in sync with my flow.  Early on, I would flee to the bathroom because I was sure it had leaked through, but – surprise, surprise – it never did.

Thank god, right? Right.

I never noticed this before with throw-away pads, because there’s so much material down there that you never get that feeling. After I got used to the sensation, though, it was smooth sailing. Though sometimes I can feel that there is, in fact, blood in my pad, the pad itself doesn’t ever feel like it’s soaked or wet.

Score.

The other 11 are equally informative, and equally fun to read. I’m long past needing this advice myself, but if I wasn’t, Kushner would have convinced me by now.

What’s more important than the content of Kushner’s article, and Lewis’s excerpt, is their existence. Menstruation is simply and unconfusingly a human experience, which more than half the population either has dealt with, is dealing with, or can expect to deal with. Absolutely nothing is gained by refusing to discuss it — except the continued protection of fragile male sensibilities and the ongoing reminder that in too many places and contexts, women aren’t really considered fully human — in fact, to many men, we’re still stranger than outer space.

Follow me on Twitter @spicejardebbie

Menstruation: Not a Fit Subject for Tender Male Eyes

Debbie says:

thinx_periods_1

Outfront Media, which places ads in the New York City subways for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, thinks this ad “seem[s] to have a bit too much skin.” As Christina Cauterucci points out at Slate, “The ads that plaster New York City’s subway system have shown women in the throes of passion, showing off most of their breasts, and wearing just a skimpy bikini—or nothing at all.”

I never gave a thought to blood-absorbing underwear until I saw Cauterucci’s article. Now I wish I had been able to try it when I needed it. If it works, it would be amazing. And if it doesn’t work, it’s probably the forerunner of something that will–if Thinx and their competitors can get enough exposure and customers to keep experimenting.

So if Outfront Media claims that woman is showing too much skin, what do they think of this ad?

thinx_periods_2

“Regardless of the context,” Outfront wrote about this ad and one with an egg dripping out of its shell, “they “[seem] inappropriate.” Sure they do. We all know Outfront wouldn’t have an issue with an image that looked like a penis, as long as it wasn’t an actual, human-skin penis.

“Regardless of context,” is a big lie. Cauterucci relays from Thinx CEO Miki Agrawal that

the rep also asked what a 9-year-old boy might think if he saw the ads and how his mother could explain them to him. One imagines that a 9-year-old boy who rides the New York City subway has seen more objectionable images and heard crasser language, both in ads—such as one for the Museum of Sex that depicted fleshy, intertwined body parts inside the words “Hard Core”—and from fellow subway patrons.

Note that it’s a 9-year-old boy and his mother, which exposes some assumptions. And I bet the Outfront rep isn’t a parent, because parents quickly get good at dodging questions they don’t want to answer. Not to mention the huge benefit some parents might see in *gasp* answering the question.

Outfront Media, a company with predominantly male leadership and a completely male sales staff, isn’t reacting to the visuals of the ads, all of which they would accept without question for another product.  They say “regardless of context,” yet context is the only issue in play here. They just plain don’t want to imagine menstruation, and they don’t think subway riders do either. Of course, more than 50% of subway riders are women, and a very substantial proportion of those women don’t have to imagine menstruation; they think about the subject approximately four days out of every 28. But that doesn’t matter to the dudebros at Outfront.

Underlying the general (male/commodified/corporate) perception that sex is okay but menstruation is disgusting is this underlying dogma:

Women’s bodies are interesting and important when the context is looking and handling.  The same women’s bodies are not fit for public consumption when the context is lived experience. The power structure that can keep these ads out of the New York City subway  is dangerously close to the power structure that closes abortion clinics and tries to defund Planned Parenthood.

The same women’s bodies that adorn the sexiest posters, the most enticing porn videos, the most lust-inducing wet dreams are the bodies that drip blood once a month for forty years or so. And after thousands of years of letting men turn away from this information, maybe it’s centuries past time to have menstruation ads be at least as common as Viagra ads.