Period Drama

Chris Bobel, in the “Radical Menstruation” chapter of her book New Blood, explores a punk-inspired feminist movement urging women to reclaim their bodies from corporations (among other things) that shame and harm them in direct and indirect ways. She talks about grassroots efforts to push back a capitalist agenda that inhibits women from being comfortable with and in control of their bodies.

Her mention of the exploitation of young girls through cheeky (yet extremely sanitized and trustworthy-sounding) advertising encouraging them to buy products she points out as harmful, is all too relevant and relatable. She notes that manufacturers often gear their advertising and packaging to a teenage audience, a large chunk of their market (108). Immediately, the classic happy-looking-conventionally-attractive-girl-doing-something-bold-in-all-white ad came to mind, along with an important revelation: A woman showing absolutely no outward sign of the process her body is undergoing. While this suggests happiness and perhaps comfort (thanks to the awesome product she’s using!!) on the woman’s part, the important thing here is that nobody knows she’s on her period, because it is supposed to be kept secret. The white skirt is meant to provoke fear in the viewer, maybe even awe and respect for the girl, a “She’s so bold! Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if blood showed through!??!” response, because the manufacture relies on cultural stigma to sell products; it’s in their best interest to promote period shame. This concept is insidious because it is thinly veiled in the half-heartedly portrayed “we know periods are rough but we’ve got your back so you’ll be happy, especially because we won’t let your secret (literally) show” message, while also ignoring the reality of physical discomfort that can accompany a period, that a tampon or pad most certainly will not ease, and emphasizing that there should be absolutely no noticeable cues that a woman is menstruating.

1980 Advertisement 

Now’s the annoying (but in no way shocking) part: while searching the internet for the ad that I’d seen in a magazine several years ago that immediately popped into my mind when I read Bobel’s piece, I found an almost identical image, but it had circulated as an ad in the 1980s, disappointing proof that at least in the case of the feminine care industry, messages pertaining to how women should feel about their periods and methods of dealing with them haven’t changed at all. The advertisement from the 1980s is blantant with its assertion that periods are not something to be on display, captioned “With Stayfree Mini-Pads the only thing shows is your confidence,” implying that the knowledge of a well-hidden period empowers women because they don’t have to worry about bloody evidence betraying the shameful secret of their reproductive organs. The more recent ad- nearly identical in terms of visual content- for Tampax tampons, makes a jab at u by kotex’s branding techniques, something only women who had seen kotex ads and products would understand, saying “at a moment like this, I don’t care if my tampons came in a little black box,” meant to imply consumers of Tampax care more about functionality (and the reliability of the brand, though Bobel, and many of the people she interviewed would likely scoff at the concept of cooperations that use potentially dangerous materials in their products could in anyway be reliable) than they do cutesy packaging (maybe suggesting periods are decidedly not cute..)

Looks familiar... this ad from 2011 is written about on The Society For Menstrual Cycle Research's Website

The catchphrase on this ad leads me to my moment of pondering. It reads “outsmart mother nature,” a subtle argument that the natural process of menstruation is at best a nuisance, at worst some type of negative experience being forced on women by biology. This calls to mind Bobel’s juxtaposition of two understandings of periods: what she describes as the “feminist-spiritual” understanding of menstruation and the more radical view sometimes adopted by third-wave feminists that refutes the former’s tendency to attach periods to something mystical and distinctly feminine, instead viewing it only as “a bodily process” and nothing more, but being concerned with what it means in the context of larger institutions (100-103). 

This brings me to Dominque Christina’s “The Period Poem,” performed as slam poetry (video link here, transcript link here), with a message that embodies both concepts. She emphasizes her belief that women are “made of moonlight, magic, and macabre,” proclaiming that monthly encounters with blood bring insights about life (and perhaps death, too). She doesn’t see menstruation solely as a spiritual experience though, bringing in some of the concepts third-wave feminists would be more likely to find important in period discussions like a society in which some have “disdain for what a woman’s body can do,” along with touching on women’s basic human rights in her conclusion. I think the period can be understood through both lenses simultaneously, or just one way, but ultimately whatever way any menstruating person is comfortable with.  I find it hard to embrace just the radical view that Bobel documents one activist saying: “it is blood. Period. We bleed,” as it seems to minimize the body’s capabilities and also the experiences associated with the period, whether they’re bad, neutral, or good (100). Regardless of politics, I still find the body’s cyclical natural rhythm fascinating, along with this cycle’s possibility of supporting new life. I think it’s amazing on both biological and spiritual levels, and certainly not something to be disdained as Christina mentioned, or to be stigmatized and hidden. It is what it is to the individual experiencing it, and I think Bobel’s main point is just that; the period and its meaning belongs to the person, not the system.