We've come a long way
I was reminiscing the other day about an unusual and in a sense landmark decision I was once involved in when I worked in the marketing department of a multinational pharmaceutical and personal products manufacturer. A couple of the women I was chatting with encouraged me to recount the episode here.
During the early 1990s I was brand manager for Ireland’s leading sanitary towel brand, a product that commanded an overwhelming share of the Irish market and was manufactured in Dublin, thus providing significant employment locally. This brand was the default choice for Irish woman for decades, the package that hundreds of thousands of mothers discreetly handed to their daughters in a rite of passage akin to Dad buying junior his first pint.
Tradition, word of mouth and lack of an alternative had ensured that this brand held a seemingly unassailable position and it was at the time of my becoming involved with it one of Ireland’s top twenty brands across every category. Yet in many ways it was the brand that dare not speak its name. However, trouble was brewing. We were no longer living in two channel land and alien brands of towel and tampon were being advertised on foreign channels making lofty claims of unencumbered roller skating and dance filled days.
Here in Ireland there was a ban on the television advertising of these “personal hygiene” products as to do so was deemed inappropriate. Fearful that a generation of young woman would learn of alternatives and abandon their mother’s and grandmother’s favourite we attempted to break this taboo.
I remember attending RTE copy clearance meetings, awkward, uncomfortable sessions facing a panel of squirming men of a certain age and disposition who regretted turning up for work that particular day. We scrutinised the proposed script line by line, crossing out our tentative boundary-crossing suggestions as we went. No red liquid – blue if you have to show liquid at all, no overt showing of the offending item, sensitive treatment of this shameful reality and a strict ten o’clock watershed. The resulting ad was so innocuous as to be almost invisible but it was approved. After all the committee had to demonstrate pragmatism; we had money to spend and times were tough in TV land.
The day after the first broadcast the letters began to arrive and worse still the phone calls. Every single one was from a shocked and offended woman and all were directed my way. I recall spending almost an hour talking down one hysterical woman who explained that her husband could no longer go to the pub to watch the football in case one of these hateful ads would be broadcast; that they could no longer watch television as a family as they had a teenage boy. She made it quite clear that this was ALL MY FAULT. The letters were rambling and irate. One enterprising bunch had photocopied a crude drawing of a television set and scrawled their message within – I received dozens of them. It seems comical now but it was rather unnerving at the time.
We have come a long way since and advertising for sanitary towels and tampons is commonplace. However, some rules still apply. I am conscious that some people may feel that this is reasonable; that these intimate products should not form part of the mainstream. Yet would we apply the same rules to toilet paper? Should there be a watershed before which this distasteful product cannot be discussed? Should we employ coy euphemisms, extolling the benefits to users who yearn to skydive and skate with confidence, knowing that their bottoms are pristine?
A year or so after this bizarre chapter in my working life I had moved on – a circumstance unrelated to the opprobrium showered upon me by a faction of “Mná na h-Éireann“. On one particular occasion I was passing through a small town on my way to Wexford when I got caught short and my period was upon me. I popped into the local grocers, handed a pack of sanitary towels to the taciturn man at the register and watched in amazement as he wrapped the package in layers of thick brown paper, secured with metres of sellotape. The whole shameful exchange was completed in silence and I’m sure I caught him suppressing a shudder. Perhaps certain parts of Ireland weren’t ready for innocuous blue liquid and skateboarding woman after all.
Wow, this is amazing. I suppose it’s because I grew up in Dublin where we always had access to British channels but I never remember ads for sanitary towels or tampons being in any way controversial. I’m genuinely shocked that in the early ’90s – a time when I myself had already been using these products for several years – that people were to enraged by the very mention of periods – or at least products used during periods, because I bet the word period wasn’t mentioned – on the telly. In the ’90s! Even as a 15 year old who would have been v embarrassed if a sanitary towel had fallen out of my bag and who wasn’t exactly going around advertising the fact that I was on the rag, I would have been enraged by that sort of ridiculous prissiness.
Was the brand Vespré, by any chance? That’s what everyone I know used in the late ’80s/early ’90s, until the magic arrival of Always with Wings.
In her book “The Female Thing,” Laura Kipnis cites a study from 2002 in the U.S. about reactions to menses. Among university students, if a woman dropped a tampon, folks moved further away from her in class. 69% of subjects would not place a new, unused tampon wrapper in their mouths, that’s how repulsed folks are by sanitary products and menses.
Great post, Eleanor.
Megan, 2002! That’s shocking. Must seek it out, it sounds interesting. Imagine if our reaction to a packet of tissues was similar. They’re used to collect all sorts of nasty gunge & germs yet no one bats an eyelid.
I thought some of the Ads fricken hilarious, especially Bodyform.
Mostly I think they are still absurd and ridiculous, espeically
that Rodeo one FFS.
Anna, that was the young, trendy brand – also mine. I was sorry to see new brands arrive and displace Irish manufacturing but it’s a free market so what can you do. At least my employer and RTE attempted to safeguard an Irish brand and it was a progressive step.
Cannot believe this is about Ireland in the 1990′s. Excellent post.
@Megan,
I dropped a box of 20 Lil-lets outside the UCD Campus
Library when a first year, people scrambled all over to
pick them up.
BUT
In work (building site) when I left ‘em on a shelf in a bag,
I found little erectile drawings all over my workshop
and outside in the mud, until a boss had to intervene
and reprimand some of the guys. Mostly , the girls I knew
growing up referred to periods ‘as on their flowers’ cos
a popular brand had tulips on the packaging and shrugged
it off
= just a fact of life and a bit of a pain in the arse when
you had to do sports
On a slightly different topic, I moved to Ireland in 2002, having lived in Scotland from 1998 till then. After my last script of the pill ran out, I signed up with a local doctor and got my new 6-month script, then went to the chain pharmacy several doors down.
I’d only ever paid money for the pill once previously, when I was studying in France for a year (and after paying once I stocked up on return trips home after that) as it’s free in NI & Scotland. I wasn’t sure if you had to pay in Ireland or not, and didn’t want to embarrass my new boyfriend by asking him.
The pharmacy assistant took my script and I paced up and down looking at the displays while I waited for it to be filled. She walked back to the counter and caught my attention, so I approached her, to be greeted with a mumble. After getting her to repeat her sentence 3 times, I finally understood that she was asking if I just wanted one month worth. I was confused and said no, I’d take all of it, and paid my way and left.
I finally asked one of the hubbie’s sisters about it a few weeks later and had the whole system of “leaving your script in the pharmacy” explained to me!
Basically, I was completely shocked that in 2002 a grown woman would feel the need to whisper when discussing the pill in a pharmacy – it wasn’t like she even needed to say what the brand was!
Brilliant post Eleanor! I remember as a teenager being MORTIFIED at the thought of anyone so much as glimpsing a pad in my bag. The horror! And use a tampon? Put it up THERE!?
Fast forward a decade and now I’m one of those crunchy ladies who waxes lyrical about using a mooncup! (They are awesome).
I think it’s sad that we can be so ashamed of our periods, though of course there are centuries of patriarchy and cultural taboos etc to blame for that.
I linked on my twitter account last week to a Jezebel post about a woman using her menstrual blood to paint with…the reaction was a resounding ‘erughgggggghh’ as though she’d had the temerity to paint with faeces using her own hands.
Maybe I’m just a hippie at heart but I think saying that menstrual blood is disgusting is like saying women’s bodies are disgusting.
It’s not like I’d expect people to start hanging menstrual art on their walls or throwing menses parties, but the comments on the Jezebel post and on twitter were enough to assure me that I’m very much in the minority for thinking there is absolutely nothing shameful or gross about periods or menstrual blood.
Aoife, Intrigued by the mooncup as I’ve heard so many positive comments. However, the painting is probably a bridge too far for me – akin to sculpting in snot or something.
Ha! Aw I see it as a positive thing but then I know I’m in the minority there. I will not be making my own paintings though, I’ll leave that to the experts
The mooncup is genius, it takes a bit of getting used to but I can’t praise it enough! It costs about 26e but it lasts for up to 10 years. The amount of money you save is amazing. Plus it is incredibly eco-friendly – no dumping of towels or tampons.
Alternatively there are companies like Luna Pads who do washable pads http://www.lunapads.com
Or you can get eco-friendly unbleached tampons & pads in health food stores too, which are pretty good but not as fancy as Always etc.
Of course, all these eco-friendly, purse-friendly companies don’t have a lot of money, as Emma points out below, so we never see them advertised. But they are so much better for your health and the environment in my book.
I am firmly in favour of the Mooncup – I’m not freaked out by menstrual blood at all, even a little cup of it (though I am very squeamish about blood from actual cuts, oddly enough). I draw the line at the lunapads, though – I’m old enough to remember the days before sanitary towels contained whatever magic they now use to draw the moisture away from the surface, and the thought of returning to that horrible damp chafing awfulness appalls me. Just the thought of wearing a late-1980s slimline Vespré makes me shudder.
(Oh and I have to add these companies like Mooncup, Lunapads and Divacup etc are usually owned and run by women who care about women’s health rather than large companies trying to make a buck.)
Yeah Anna the Lunapads aren’t for everyone – I bought one to try it and I way prefer the Mooncup.
But I think it’s a really great company and the products are lovely – they’re really soft and fleecy…!
So if people want to be eco-friendly but don’t want a mooncup it might be the way to go.
But, as always, each to their own
Menstrual cups rock!!!! I’ve a Diva cup and I’m trying to convert everyone I know
. I’m a very open person, and bringing this up to people…oh the reactions. It’s kinda funny, but the few who have started using them are now advocating too. Next step is getting my niece to use one once her cycle starts.
I LOVED this article. Thank you for writing it!
When I was a kid in the UK I never saw sanitary products were advertised on telly, it was the government AIDS public health campaign that allowed it to happen. The towel and tampon manufacturers must have approached the various TV companies and pointed out that if condoms could be promoted (no matter how obliquely) then there was no logical reason for banning tampons.
This would have happened when I was teenager at a (secular) all girls comprehensive and even there nearly all of us hid our sanitary products as if they were shameful. All apart from one girl who would proudly walk from her locker to the loo openly carrying a tampon. Man I thought she was cool.
I use a Mooncup now and they don’t really have the budget for TV.
Emma, that’s interesting about the sanitary ads coming in after the AIDS ads – I was about 12 when the AIDS ads appeared and before that I didn’t really watch telly in the evenings (after Children’s BBC/ITV stopped its programmes) so wouldn’t have really registered if there were ads for tampons on or not. The ads were definitely on TV by the time I actually started my periods in the late ’80s.
It’s possible the ads were allowed on late at night (when I probably wouldn’t have seen them) but I definitely remember it being new that they appeared during the day and early evening.
Great post! My family owned a grocery shop in the Midlands in the 70′s/80′s and I used to help out as a young teenager. The Sanitary Towel Ritual was closely observed.
The customer stood at a corner of the counter and whispered that they wanted “a packet of ST’s”. The shop assistant would then grab several sheets of old newspaper and disappear to the far end of the shop where the offensive items were stocked. With their back to the customers, to provide maximum discretion (!), the shop assistant then wrapped the bulky packet of thick sanitary towels (with loops that were attached to the belt, definitely NOT young, trendy brand!) in the newspaper. This package was then handed to the customer who quickly put it in their shopping bag. Operation Sanitary Towel successfully completed.
Brilliant anecdote Maureen. “Operation Sanitary Towel” – I love it.
Oooooh that reminds me – in secondary school, in about 1993, I forgot to bring enough pads to school, so went to buy one from the vending machines – only for one of the old ones with belt loops to come out! I showed it to all my mates and pulled aside a friendly young teacher to ask what on earth it was! Turned out that not many people had been buying from that machine and it hadn’t been restocked in years!
Ha, I remember having to get one from a machine in school and though it wasn’t of the belt variety, it was definitely one of the chunky old-school Dr Whites. It was appalling – it felt like it was about an inch thick. I could barely walk.
Blimey! Do they have a best before date I wonder? Not much use without the trendy “belt” either.
Wowzers, they sound pretty horrific! The first one I used was from a vending machine & it was Dr White’s too, it was like a torture device and not very absorbent! The ones with belts…how did they even work? What could you wear over them? Would it show under your clothes? Mind boggles…
According to the font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia:
The first of the disposable pads were generally in the form of a cotton wool or similar fibrous rectangle covered with an absorbent liner. The liner ends were extended front and back so as to fit through loops in a special girdle or belt worn beneath undergarments. This design was notorious for slipping either forward or back of the intended position.
Later an adhesive strip was placed on the bottom of the pad for attachment to the saddle of the panties, and this became a favoured method with women. The belted sanitary napkin quickly became unavailable after the mid-eighties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitary_napkin
The man in my local chemist (two miles from the centre of Dublin) still places the offending items in a brown paper bag. However, these attitudes pale in comparison to the experience of trying to access contraception back in the day.
In the mid eighties, following a mishap with a condom, I went into a chemist with a prescription for the morning after pill. I will never forget the looks of contempt on the faces of the (female) staff. I may as well have asked them for anthrax.
I hope my mother is not an Anti Room reader.
Alas I don’t think those attitudes are confined to ’80s Ireland. A friend of my sister’s went to get the morning after pill in London a year or two ago and was chastised by the nurse – quite loudly – in the doctor’s waiting room!
Not so surprising since ‘churching’ women wasn’t so long out of fashion. JudeoChristian taboos have some deep roots.
As someone already well into her thirties at the beginning of the ’90s, I genuinely find this astonishing. I was using tampons from pretty shortly after I started menstruating way back in the very early seventies. My mother had been using them for as long as I can remember prior to the nineties also, so it was not like I was some young radical.
There was no embarrassment – myself and my sister just helped ourselves from the big box of tampax that was always there, on an open shelf in the bathroom (I was later shocked at how expensive they were, I’d always considered them a free resource!!). I do recall that there was just one sort then – no light, normal, plus etc versions.
Maybe I was living in some sort of parallel Ireland, but I genuinely don’t remember there being any embarrassment among my friends either. I clearly recall us collecting euphemisms in school and finding them absolutely hilarious, and a phase where we competed the coin the most ludicrous new ones. We thought them a quaint relic of past times – in the seventies, not the nineties.
Thank god for boarding school is all I can say, or I’d have learned NOTHING about womanhood or sanitary care.
My daughter would laugh herself into a hernia if she knew how taboo menstruation was in my teenage years. Ridiculous that we were so shamed about something we had not control over.
Great post Eleanor.
I absolutely love this press ad that @Sinead_McE sent me on twitter.
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess.BH0061/pg.1/
“Maybe the alter is your goal” indeed!
Anyone remember scented Vespre? Because of course, women stink.
And you do still get the hushed ‘do you want a bag for that’? some places. No, no I’m not ashamed of the fact I menstruate actually, and will happily walk home with them in my hand, much as I would do a loaf of bread or loo roll, but dear chemist next door, would you please place an order for something other than tampons for light flow?
Days one and two are usually requiring a little more, even though I know you think we are all delicate laydees with the mearest hint of spotting.
This is slightly disgusting, but truly, there was no less appealing smell than that of scented Vespré mixed with drying blood. Mmmm, feminine!
You can still get scented tampons….utterly bizarre.
I remember when I first moved to this country (early ’90s) being amazed at the whole thing of how a packet of pads would be wrapped in its own separate paper wrapping. So that (I’d imagine), god forbid, the writing couldn’t be read through the thin plastic bag. GOD FORBID anyone know that I have the painters and decorators in! After all, I’m a woman of child-bearing age and so there’s more or less a one-in-four chance that I am entertaining Aunt Flo but GOD FORBID!
I also think you can tell if a corner shop is run by a woman or a man by the women’s stuff they stock. There’s a pharmacy by the National Gallery that only has those mattress-sized things. Ghhh. It’s like the ’80s never happened in there.
There’s a Centra down by me that only has them as well: one day I actually had no choice but to buy them, and when I was at the till I actually said to the guy, You know… not for anything, but no woman uses these any more. With respect, you really need to get the modern ones in. He nearly dropped dead. (He was Indian or Pakistani I believe, not Irish, if it’s relevant)
The “painter’s & decorators”. “Aunt Flo”. Love the euphamisms. Haven’t heard those ones.
Don’t imagine nationality matters much, age more of a factor and young guys seem fairly comfortable about the whole thing. I guess we’ve all been there when buying condoms (which were still outlawed here when I was actually a grown-up. I remember the machines being yanked off the wall in the student’s Union in UCD in the 1980s).
Ha, have you not? They’re as old as the hills! I like them. Happy to introduce you to them..
Ps. Nationality most def matters much. My first job, in Staten Island, NY, in the 1980s was working behind the counter at a pharmacy. My job duties involved running the Lotto machine and selling people condoms. I was 14. Fast forward to Ireland, 1990s.. I used to tend bar at the Rock Garden.. I remember when they started selling condoms behind the bar. It was the biggest deal. Both for customers and staff. It was like they’d started selling arranged mafia hits behind the bar.
On the scented tampons note (eeuuuw for so many reasons), a small rant about Tampax Pearl.
Excerable ad campaign aside (you’ve got your peeeeeeeriod sweeeetie, drop everything, wear a red flower, lock your husband out of the bedroom, avoid vampires for the duration), the amount of completely unnecessary packaging on them is a shocker – card box, fine, but each tampon is individually wrapped in soft plastic, and the applicator is a pearlised plastic yoke, which comes in two bits, neither of which can be flushed or are easily biodegradable, as far as I’m aware.
Oh, I quite like the ad campaign. I think that’s the point. ‘Mother Nature’ is supposed to represent the old idea of ‘Now, remember, you’re a *girl*, and this is your woman time. You couldn’t possibly go swimming/ sleep with someone/ wear revealing clothing/ leave the house.’
ha! Good point – I think I’ve always been so transfixed by the truly awful makeup I’ve failed to notice the, ahem, message.
Hey…! are you Kirstie of beaut.ie? Thank you in advance for the light summer-weight foundation I will be buying, Max Factor Second Skin in creamy ivory…! I’ll let you know how I get on.
Memories of loops come flooding back here… Going to the chemist or local grocers for my mother (early 80′s) and them being wrapped in newspaper before going into bags.
Dr Whites – who were the manufacturers that I remember had a nurse who went to do talks in schools – I remember a talk in 1st year this was the most sex education we received until 6th year and it was not sex ed but marketing.
All of this was lost on me who was into early menopause throughout my teens and never had the ‘right of passage/purchase’ until I was 35 and put on HRT. And that brought a whole new world without any shame of those ‘sweet lookalike’ things falling out of my handbag. Clumsy as I am it happens a lot and older women scuttle towards me like I’m carrying a nuclear device.
Suzy, I completely forgot that we had a helpline & address on the packs for “Nurse Margaret”. A lot of the letters that used to come in were genuinely desperate for information as there was no source of even the most basic info at that stage. As far as I remember one of the women in the office who had trained as a nurse used to answer them in as sensitive & helpful a way as possible. We also produced a booklet on periods which I had to update – in fairness it was quite detailed & probably the only source of information for a generation of school girls. However, at the end of the day it was a commercial enterprise and heavily branded – & I certainly never broached the “S” word.
And of course the brown paper bag would go on to represent something far more cloying and scandalous in Irish society only a few years later! This is a great ‘time-warp’ post Eleanor! I still attribute at least 22% of my neurosis to those brown bag years when my mum would say ‘this is for Your Friends’ and I’d belt upstairs and hide them in my wardrobe, with the 2-litres of cider. My mum was so ultra paranoid about disposing of sanitary towels in ‘ordinary rubbish’ in case mean wolf-like dogs would rip them from the bins in the dead of night and then the neighbours would know we bleed, that she burnt them in large heaps, on the open fire. She always managed to start this process only minutes before her intoxicated husband or three sons arrived home…veritable flags of Japan steaming away on Bord na Móna peat briquettes with C4′s Countdown tick-tocking in the background. There was also a blanket ban on talking about ‘Your Friends’ when they did dribble into the arrival lounge. Fond memories too of the very first time when I’d no precursor to the blood. She shoved one of these white flags in my knickers and said, “You are grown up now” and off I went to Brendan Smith’s Academy of Acting on the 19A…with IRA men hanging off the roof of BHS on O’Connell Street, feeling very chuffed that I didn’t have to wait ’till 18 to be an adult. Though no-one explained the bleeding. It’s great to be reminded of how far we’ve come.
June, Your stories are priceless. I can’t get the image of the pads smouldering away on the fire as the wolf-like dogs howled outside having picked up the scent out of my head. You should write a play called the “Menses Monologues”. We could all stand up on stage & tell our tales.
As a non-Irish person I think I am even more chocked about this information and it made me think about another question related to the issue: in Brazil it’s not even that unusual to see men (fathers, brothers or husbands) buying these kind of products in the supermarkets or in the pharmacy. How does it sound here in Dublin?
My Dad? Never! My husband? No problem. My sons? I would imagine will be perfectly happy to do so. The times they are a changin’.
Really interesting post (and comments). The burning reminded me of a marvellous true story, of a friend who worked as an au pair one summer in the US, for a very prissy, Waspy family. Her family had always disposed of sanitary towels in the range, and at a loss to know what the American equivalent was, and too nervous to ask, she waited until everyone was out one day and burnt them in the fireplace. Sadly, the fireplace was purely decorative, the chimney blocked up, and as smoke poured out and smoke alarms rang all round her, a crew of firemen burst in to find the offending articles smouldering, still all too recognisable…
I think Emma is right – advertising of sanitary products in the UK is relatively recent too (1988 says the UK Independent). I remember a discussion programme talking about introducing the advertising and one man speaking against it. He had a young daughter who would ask questions. I remember thinking, she’s going to find out some time.
Times may not have changed that much – there were complaints about “jam rags” appearing on screen as part of a shopping list in Emmerdale this week.
I remember condoms coming on sale here too. My memory is that they were only supposed to be in pharmacies. Then Virgin Megastore arrived – all their branches sold condoms and the Dublin branch did the same. And then got in trouble for it. seem to recall them stocking the condoms then but not selling them – instead you gave a donation.
Oh, and another vote for the Diva cup here – best thing ever
(well, in the line ofProducts That Dare Not Speak Their Name)
You can still get the sanitary towels with belts! Boots have them. My colleagues and I were fascinated to know who is likely to be using them, given the availability of so many other methods of managing one’s period.
Great post! We had “the Tampax Lady” at school as well, cunning – or accidentally successful – branding there, as Tampax was synonymous with tampon. She handed out tampon samples with little navy blue plastic carry cases with flip-top lids. To the best of my memory the sex bit was dealt with through a diagram of cells, though there must have been a stick figure or two involved. I don’t know if she really was a Tampax rep or not. Sadly crap if she were, though for our sex education to be subcontracted (Dublin, 80s) shouldn’t make me fall off my chair in shock.
Superb post. An original way of explaining how we used to be in Ireland and in particular how women were treated….or maltreated as the case may be.
I meant to comment on this earlier in the week but….!!! It’s all been said. Brilliantly. I can understand why menstruation was once seen as a terrible, fearful thing – blood is an obvious signifier of human suffering, in most cases equal to death and disease, not to mention the cramps and pain that accompanied the monthly letting – so I don’t begrudge the cavemen and women their terror or even medieval folks their superstition considering practically all western civilisations were bound to Rome and the agonies of the flesh. But since medicine stripped away the myths and proved menses to be the natural, normal bodily functions as harmless and wonderful as the release of semen, mucus and any other function, it beggars belief to think this ridiculous ignorance was still widely acceptable in Ireland in the 90s. It still goes on…I notice women hurrying through sanitary sections of supermarkets with a haunted look in their eyes lest they bump into a neighbour – waaah! Pure silliness. Fabulous post
Belts and looped towels are great reminders of my school days when the girls and their mums wore them . I have always had a period interest and try to encourage my girtlfriend at the time to be open about it and allow me to participate in changing them for her as well as buying them.