As odd as it may seem, for several years, I noticed every, single menstrual product advertising that came my way. Actually, I analyzed the ones that were out of my way, too. I bought magazines that I wouldn\u2019t normally peruse and paid attention to television ads that I would usually mentally tune out. I wasn\u2019t just obsessed; I was on a mission. My mission was to research and to shine a spotlight on the messages about menstruation that are routinely sent to girls and women.<\/p>\n
Initially, this official investigation interested me one day when I bought a box of organic tampons from my local grocery store in Pennsylvania. The tampons were quite expensive (because they have dioxins left out, for crying out loud), but the biggest insult was that, at that time, I was charged a sales tax. Yes- taxed on something that is a necessity for over half of the population. In Pennsylvania, there is neither a sales tax on food (of course) nor certain clothing. That makes sense, but a tax on tampons- really? Those, or some kind of substitute, are absolutely a life necessity at some point for the female population. The inherent unfairness of this scenario sent me reeling, because what does that say about how the state views girls, women, and their worth? The bottom line is that to unfairly tax more than half of the population implies that the state doesn\u2019t care or recognize that women live with a special circumstance. This got me thinking about how women and girls are routinely treated in the culture because of menstruation. What other \u201cinvisible\u201d discriminations are imposed upon women?<\/p>\n
Well, what I found through my examination of menstrual product advertising was not pretty. Some of the messages were shrouded in humor but capitalized on the \u2018irrationality\u2019 of women, especially during their period. Overwhelmingly, I found that the advertising was (and still is) a constant bombardment of messages either implicitly or explicitly stating that the menstrual cycle is dirty, to be kept secret, and a source of shame . Women in the ads (just as they do in real life) participated in this cycle of shaming and hiding, and then men did, too, by just wanting periods out of sight and out of mind. Often men in menstrual product advertising are placed in the role of the dunderhead or dope, not knowing what the woman is up to and that she juggles to keep her period hidden- just as it is done in actual life, right? In advertising and in real life, to state to a man that you are having your period may be taken as offensive, vulgar or just \u201ctoo much information.\u201d Unfortunately, with such dynamics in and out of advertising, hiding and keeping the \u2018bloody truth\u2019 under wraps and being ashamed of this normal, healthy bodily function has continued to be the norm in our society.<\/p>\n
So the question is, and became for me, how do we begin to turn this around? The first answer is that each woman or girl, and hopefully men and boys, too, can begin to notice the messages of negation and shame that surround this natural experience called menstruation. Even to become aware of the fact that these attitudes, ideas, and cultural taboos surrounding menstruation are also in us because of the constant bombardment and repetition that blasts out of advertising, family traditions, media, popular culture, and the \u201cfeminine hygiene\u201d industry is a very big step in the right direction. By noticing these attitudes and ideas as delivered to us from outside and felt by us inside, we can begin to see them as pieces of a false \u201cbrainwashing\u201d that has surrounded us. Furthermore, only by seeing the idea that menstruation is dirty and shameful clearly as fiction and seeing clearly that the blood of menstruation is the creative blood through which all of us are born, can we affirm and value our periods as well as our womanhood.<\/p>\n
This information is part of the research and the realization which led me to create Ruby\u2019s Red Wash, a handy, natural product for women which easily removes menstrual stains from underwear and other clothing. After talking with multiple women at length about their periods for research, I realized that not already having a product like this on the market for women was another one of those \u201cinvisible\u201d discriminations against women and their menstrual cycles. (You know that if men bled, there would be 200 products on the market for menstrual blood, yes?) For that reason, I like to think of Ruby\u2019s Red Wash as a bit of liberation in a bottle. The product is extremely useful and liberating in itself, but the message of bodily self-acceptance that comes with every bottle is equally important. Every time a woman goes to my website or every time I sell one bottle, I like to think that I am doing my part in the world to help reverse a certain kind of suffering for women that was created long ago.<\/p>\n
By Carolyn A. DeForest, Ph.D.
\nFounder\/President, Ruby\u2019s Red Wash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As odd as it may seem, for several years, I noticed every, single menstrual product advertising that came my way. Actually, I analyzed the ones that were out of my way, too. I bought magazines that I wouldn\u2019t normally peruse and paid attention to television ads that I would usually mentally tune out. I wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[61,1],"tags":[90,182,183,26,184,28,92,65],"class_list":["post-3059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-menstrual-product-reviews","category-periodtalk","tag-menstrual-product","tag-menstrual-product-advertising","tag-menstrual-stains","tag-menstruation","tag-organic-tampons","tag-periods","tag-rubys-red-wash","tag-tampons"],"yoast_head":"\n