For years, I have used menstrual products with female-focused advertisements.
Until recently, this was something that I had never thought much about. As someone raised as a woman, I’d never had to devote much attention to gendered language, or its connection to advertising. One major example of this link is menstrual products being marketed for “biological” women. The privilege of not needing to consider gendered language as an impactful and damaging thing is one that I possessed for many years, and one that I am re-evaluating now.
In 2014, AlwaysⓇ launched a campaign featuring the hashtag #LikeAGirl. This advertisement was centered on the goal of female empowerment, encouraging confidence among young women and decreasing the stigma associated with menstruation. Today, AlwaysⓇ continues to sell menstrual products that use gendered language, and print the female gender symbol on their merchandise.
While AlwaysⓇ has succeeded in many of these goals (the company has reported that 94 percent agree that #LikeAGirl has “encouraged girls to be more confident”), there are many consequences that result from companies marketing menstruation as a gendered process.
Presenting menstruation as an experience had by all women excludes significant groups of women and feminine-aligned individuals. Not all women have the ability to menstruate, including but not limited to menopausal women, women who choose to have a hysterectomy, women who stop getting their periods due to outlying medical conditions and women within the transgender and intersex communities. The association of femininity with menstruation excludes all of these women from an experience that is marketed as an essential aspect of womanhood, isolating them from their own gender.
While not all women menstruate, not all people who menstruate are women. The association of menstruation as an essentially female biological process can be especially harmful for individuals with varying gender expressions, such as non-binary, transgender or genderqueer, or people who just feel generally detached from their femininity.
For non-women who menstruate, getting one’s period can be an extremely dysphoric experience. Menstruating can make some individuals feel invalidated in their gender expression, or as if they are “not trans enough.” This language can bring up uncomfortable questions and gendered notions that individuals using these products may not be in the headspace to address.
The dysphoria associated with this experience is only exacerbated by gendered marketing—through companies such as AlwaysⓇ presenting their menstruation products as something that is for girls specifically, individuals who do not identify as female are reminded of the gendered association of menstruation. This reminder can be incredibly harmful for folks questioning their gender identity and for folks who do not identify as women, but still get their periods.
Gendered language as a concept is incredibly problematic—however, in the case of menstruation specifically, it is essential for companies that produce menstrual products to be addressing the associations and exclusions that their languages forces certain audiences to consider.