A Tampon Is So Much More Than A Tampon-.2

I usually ignore the Business section of the New York Times.  After the sections on New York City, The Arts and Health, I see no interest in reading about how Google is buying the world.  However, recently, the business section has been calling to me in a way that it never had before.  Because everything seems to funnel back into business including news, health and art all have to do with it in some way.  Business that concerns women has always been a touchy and somewhat forbidden subject, after the women's feminist movement, it seems that businesses stay away from any kind of "feminist" subjects so as to not enrage any radical activist.  In Tuesday's New York Times I read the business section, along with every other section on a two and a half hour trip from West Palm Beach back to New York City's LaGuardia Airport. 

         What caught my eye was an article in the business section discussing the new Kotex label: U by Kotex.  The executives at Tampax are rethinking ways to market to women by using a more upfront tone in their advertising as opposed to the euphemisms of the past tampon and pad advertisements.  The box is black with an assortment of many pastel colored tampon wrappers inside. In a grocery store, aisles are filled with little messages and pictures that whine longingly for groups, genders, religions, ages, endlessly.  However, these messages are constantly changing.

        Of all the women's products on the market feminine hygiene products have been a constant aspect for society to deal with.  Tampons and pads are an interesting group of products nestled between the shaving cream and tooth brushes.  In the 1930’s women were embarrassed to buy tampons and there was a little box that allowed them to buy them discreetly.  Though that is not the case anymore, there are always ways to hide the reality of periods, whether it be with scented tampons or symbolic ads that use symbols.  At 12 I bought what I thought were pads, they were in a pink package next to the o.b. tampons and had a little flower growing at the side.  To my shock and horror, when I got home I realized by the blue scented areas and the vast and thickness of them that they were not pads at all.  In fact these monstrous things were for older women who could not hold their bladder through the night.  It is true that this tidbit of misinformation was partially on my account because I did not yet know the right period lingo, I did not yet know the brand names.  But why was there so much confusion, why did a product that was meant for a woman in menopause bought by a girl who had just gotten her period?  This seems to be the history of tampons and pads, a constant flow of mis or vague information.

        I was then lead through an interesting journey through the internet with ridiculous tampon commercials and the history of periods.  Menstruation has always been really awkwardly handled.  After the Industrial Revolution, when everyday objects would be discarded of easily.  Feminine menstruation products were officially put on the market.  A 1966 Glamour magazine had a tampon ad with a suspiciously beautiful nurse saying that “it's recommended by doctors!” as if it was a medication for an illness.  More recently, in 1979 an ad came out for o.b. tampons, the only tampon that is not inserted with an applicator.  Some women are uncomfortable with this because it requires a more intensive relationship with ones nether region, it is the most discreet and boasted being recommended by a woman gynecologist.  Into the 1990's many of the tampon and pad ads have become vague euphemisms of a period, whether it be Tampax's red present given by an older woman to a young beautiful woman, or a young girl out in the rain with an umbrella.  What are we?  Five?  All of these seem to add up to the fact that menstruating women need to be taken care of.

         This Kotex by U is an interesting new look at how women a viewed.  My friend said it looked like a cigarette box, and, indeed, compared to the way tampons were marketed before, these have a much harder look to them.  I got to the website and it began to describe in (relatively) shocking detail, the importance of our "vaginas."  A word that has long been avoided by companies that make products for women.  If companies feel safe getting that experimental with the discussion- and by discussion I mean the simple word of female genitalia it is apparent that young girls are being exposed to a female body in a much more open-or perhaps, explicit- way than they had before.

         But other tampon companies are right about one thing when they wrap themselves in all these euphemisms like rain and greenery and red boxes.  Tampons are so much more than tampons.  Women's need for tampons represents the difference between men and women.  In a time when differences are to be stifled there is no way to avoid a woman's menstruation.  With the amount of significance on one small and funny looking product euphemisms seem inevitable.  But U by Kotex is a new kind of advertising that completely avoids the rain showers and red boxes of the past.  This bluntness appears to be addressing the amount of exposure a young girl is getting about women’s bodies and the language used to describe them.  It’s a wonderful thing when a girl can buy a box of pads and know it’s a box of pads because the people around her give her enough information to know the difference between two flowered boxes.