"Gendered periods"

[Lamaha]

This Twitter thread. "Always" is offensive because they market their period products to (gasp) girls.

twitter.com/VetNurseVibes/status/1130584532237856768?fbclid=IwAR1o-y94Cp9P38gFaWzk8xmez8qNkzTqleU_ohUHeV9VRWgQO1Rx1Jlagzo

Just purchased #Period supplies for myself & my #Trans son. After being a lifelong user of @Always* products, I am profoundly disappointed in this trans/non-binary/queer-exclusionary design. “Bold Like A Girl”? “Strong Like A Girl”? “Brilliant Like A Girl”? Come on, #Always!

Can it get any more ridiculous?

"but these are tampons not cheerleader pom poms or barbie dolls. I wasn't a girly girly teen and had a crew cut and wore 'mens' jeans and DMs (hey it was the 80s). I never had a minutes' distress."

I think these days things are very different. The pinkification of girlhood is rampant. I'm not "triggered" by pink packaging etc, but I do get sick of it being the only option eg when I was trying to find a period tracking app I liked, and they're all pink and floral...I just don't like it, I could not feel less pink and flowery when I'm on my period. If you grow up in that culture, where every single thing is themed like that, I can imagine it starting to cause distress, especially when being a woman is clearly a second class status.

You'd be hard pushed to find many teenage girls who would dress like you did and if they do, they'll just be transed by society anyway.

Psychology is weird and it plays out in all sorts of weird ways. You might not be affected by pink floral packaging, a girl suffering dysphoria may be. I'm not saying that means Always need to introduce camouflage packaging, I'm saying that these girls need serious therapy and that society needs to stop making everything so madly gendered.

I am not dysphoric, I don't know what it's like to be so, I don't discount it as an experience that causes some people problems - but there are options.

Surely if you're 'dysphoric' the mere fact that you are bleeding from your female uterus through your female vagina is going to be much more of an issue than a swathe of pink on your tampon box?

It's ok for some things to be for this group, and some to be for that group.

Transmen make up a fraction of 1% of the tampon market. Why should packaging be altered to appease such a tiny minority?

It's also why JK Rowling used initials.

George Eliot did it too. Probably same as it ever was for years before her as well.

I just buy the tampons that can handle my The Shining flow. I wouldn't care if it had bunnies, pin-up girls or tanks printed on the wrapper.

When my baby was stillborn I had to use maternity pads with smiley babies plastered

Oops

...Plastered all over them. Didn’t complain to the makers that I they weren’t being inclusive, because my baby was dead. I knew I was sadly in a very small minority. Such bullshit.

I've just bought pads, the packaging was grey with a bit of orange, no references to girls at all. That said only those with xx chromosomes can have periods therefore they are female by sex (whatever gender they choose to aspire to be)

catinavan that's so shit

Always are not going to do a range of 'male tampons' any more than they are going to bring out a range of ones for redheads.

Some people need to give their heads a wobble they really do.

catinavan

I am the great auntie of three nieces, the first was stillborn but she was my first great niece.

(I'm not as old as that post sounds)

I can't say I've ever come across floral wrapping on sanitary products. Tampax and Lil-Lets were blue. Tampax still is. Lil-Lets comes in orange, green, yellow and pink. Green seems a popular choice for many products.

My fucking eyeballs!

Not all those who menstruate identify as women.

They are female though.

I call out transphobia on that advert Lord

Quite a few people were in twittersland. A thing of beauty. Not laughed as much since the Budweiser gender beer tweets.

At least they say that not all identify as women. Not this 'menstruating people' or 'not only women menstruate' nonsense.

But the pretty stripes keep changing and flashing. It’s almost as if the ad is trying to brainwash...

Besides - where does the male insert his, er, apparatus?

They do not need to, and should not, ask for the packaging aimed specifically at making females feel better about their bodily functions to be removed. Everything does not need to be for everybody.

But transmen do not feel good about their bodily functions, so to have other females not feeling good about their bodily functions would validate the transmen's feelings. But

My body doesn’t do what it’s suppose to sometimes.

At the moment my lungs are pissing about. I therefore must lobby the makers of balloons and kazooos to make ‘low puff’ or ‘puffless’ ones, lest I be traumatised in a toy shop. I’m about to picket the woodwind section of Chapels...

I always thought that pads with wings might stick better on men's cotton briefs, bigger gusset, less slippery fabric...