Go with the “flow”

Take a look at this commercial by UbyKotex.  It shows how ridiculously male-driven the media is in this day and age.  Although a menstrual cycle or for better lack of words, a period, is a normal thing that all women get (which is half of the world population), television  broadcasting companies still refuse to allow tampon and pad commercials to say the word “tampon” or “vagina”.  Our society seems to take on this NATURAL occurrence of the female body as a sham, similar to the “don’t ask don’t tell” slogan in the military regarding homosexuals.  The above commercial was also initially refused by three different broadcasting companies because it included the word “vagina”. Even after Kotex changed the script to say “down there”, two of three broadcasters refused to air the commercial.  The UbyKotex commercial’s purpose isn’t a “look what they [other tampon commercials] are doing”, but rather “look what we’ve done in the past” (Andrew Meurer, VP for North American feminine, adult and senior care for Kotex’s parent company, Kimberly-Clark).  It serves as sort of a parody of what tampon commercials are, while at the same time, attempting to adapt a more direct approach towards periods.

“Fem-care advertising is so sterilized and so removed from what a period is,” said Elissa Stein, co-author (with Susan Kim) of the book “Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation.” “You never see a bathroom, you never see a woman using a product. They never show someone having cramps or her face breaking out or tearful — it’s always happy, playful, sporty women.” And this is true,  I mean, a show of hands, who feels like dancing in white spandex while on their period? Another peculiar trend I noticed in all the tampon and pad commercials was the substitution of red to blue liquid.  As for me, I have never seemed to encounter this “mysterious” blue liquid.  Why does our society feel so uncomfortable, as if being on your period is such a sham?

Take a look at a few social experiments that UbyKotex has posted on its website.

I feel like UbyKotex is going in the right direction, trying to promote awareness of periods and female-health.  Check out their website: www.ubykotex.com.  You can take the pledge, where every girl that signs, they will donate $1 towards Girls For A Change, a nonprofit organization that empowers young women to take the initiative for social change.

I just took the pledge, your turn