My flatmates and I sit in our front room waiting for GBBO to return to our screens, (honestly, Channel 4 – we just aren’t used to these breaks), when an Always advert begins to advertise its latest product – Their most comfortable towel yet! Fresh Scent! Superior protection! In the demonstration a lab-coat wearing lady pours a small glass of pretty blue liquid on to the product. Ah yes, I think, the translucent blue fluid of the average girl’s period. Right?
Wrong.
Now I can see why Always, Lil-Lets, Tampax and so on craft their adverts around happy-go-lucky, white-jean-wearing socialites. What girl wouldn’t want to have a period as enjoyable as that? It is important to remember though, that just like any other big-name brand, these companies have only one goal at the centre of their campaigns: they want to sell us their products and for us to keep buying them, not for us to have Happy Periods™
Unfortunately, it is the carefree characters and blue liquid wielding scientists we see in these ads that contribute to the widespread and complex taboo surrounding women’s periods. The message that this sends is obviously clear: it is embarrassing for a girl to be on her period and that periods themselves are in essence, gross. Why else should companies choose thin and visually appealing blue liquids when period blood is, wait for it: red!
See, that wasn’t too bad, was it? There has, for as long as I can remember, been some sort of taboo discussing the menstrual cycle. A late starter myself, I can clearly remember a conversation with my best friend in high school – we were in the toilets when she leaned forward, away from the surrounding cubicles, and whispered, “You’ll tell me when you’ve started, won’t you?”. We were thirteen and had no idea what the patriarchy was, but the discomfort I felt discussing it even with her and the hushed ‘Yeah, obviously’ I replied indicates how girls are made to feel about their bodies’ natural cycles before they have even finished puberty. I am sure lots of girls often find themselves concealing in one way or another the fact that they are on their period.
‘It’s…you know…that time of the month’ is a whispered phrase often met with understanding nods and a swift move away from the conversation. But can anyone give a good reason why we shouldn’t talk about a natural bodily function? We are not talking about shouting the intricacies of your last period from the rooftops here! If one mention of a period is met with:
‘Yep. Thanks for that.’ ‘Woah…TMI?’ ‘Yeah but, like, we don’t need to know.’ ‘Just keep that to yourselves, yeah?’ ‘Ew’
Then the person speaking is openly admitting that they find a NATURAL bodily function, and the female body as anything more that an object, disgusting. God forbid that a woman’s vagina might be used for anything other than sex.
But I digress, these points simply serve to illustrate the wider taboo that the blue liquids of the standard sanitary product advert feed into. This is an issue I am constantly aware of. So just imagine how happy I was when, scrolling down Facebook the other day, I saw Bodyform’s latest advertising campaign, looking something like this:
Finally, a brand capable of convincing women and girls to buy their products at the same time as ripping away the hush-hush cloak draped over women’s menstruation. Interestingly, when I tried to search after seeing this for adverts showing the mysterious blue liquid in action, I couldn’t find any; presumably, they had been removed. I take this as evidence of the fact that other companies are aware that Bodyform has been praised by many customers with this new stance – also, as a potential indication of a step forward in the future on their parts too.
The Bodyform video I saw is part of a bigger campaign, Blood Normal, that is attempting to actively start conversations about periods in order to normalise the process. This is going to help change’s people’s perceptions of periods for the better, and is a positive leap forward for normalising natural bodily processes and women’s bodies generally. Congratulations, Bodyform.
Remember girls, your period is natural. Not enjoyable, but inevitable, and something you should not be ashamed of. Talk about it without embarrassment and educate others on how to do the same.
Disclaimer: if your period blood is blue, go and see a doctor.