Apr 2, 2018
When the Media Keeps People Helpless
Koreabizwire.com published this article reporting on issues that lower income Korean girls are having with managing their periods, what with being unable to afford the Lamborghini-or-nothing style sanitary pads sold in stores for roughly 15 bucks a package.
It’s a crucial news item — firstly, because it’s highway robbery. More importantly though, these teens are missing days and days of school to lie on a towel all day because they do not know what to do to manage their cycles and they are economically shut out of the store-bought solutions shoved in their faces by the media and everyone around them, touted as their only options.
There’s a subliminally manipulative message in the article that needs to be called out. It appears neutral at first, citing the need for greater provisions for women while passively advocating to keep women small and mentally enslaved by implying that we need cheaper but still economy driven-products.
I suspect that no matter how conscious the reporter, Ms. Kim may be, she too has to play by some unspoken professional rules. I’m disappointed that the media outlet didn’t use its platform to rise to the occasion and offer people some much needed perspective.
To be clear, I have profound sympathy for these poor young teenage girls who simply cannot afford the expensive, high-tech feminine hygiene products sold by the Korean economic machine. I empathize with the mentally and emotionally crippling shame and panic that at some point in our lives keeps all of us from wandering outside the box and critically thinking out way out of our dilemmas.
This is just one example of an economic system that keeps people mortified, horrified of their true nature, brainwashed into submission, afraid to create, shamed for having the audacity to solve their own problems without spending money, shamed for their inventiveness, disconnected from history and the earth’s bounty and disconnected from themselves.
Women do not “need” the feminine hygiene products that the commercial industry provides. Mother Earth does not need its entire population of women mindlessly polluting her land and waters with used pads that will clog our landfills for centuries to come due to their plastic content.
Women have been bleeding monthly since the beginning of time. Our lives are not over and we don’t need to crawl into a hole to die each month because we don’t have conventional sanitary pads bought from our local big-box store to make ourselves neat, clean and presentable each day.
Tampax, Always-Ultra-Thin-Long-With-Wings, Yuhan-Kimberly or whatever corporate brand is trying to shove the You need me or else nobody will love you for you are an evil, unclean woman propaganda down our throats at the moment, have been around for a comparative blink of an eye.
Centuries ago, women pulled moss off of trees and shoved it up their yoni for free during their moon. I get that many women now live in cities and moss growing on trees is no longer a realistic option anymore, but as it so happens, one can also take clean recycled cotton cloth from an old garment, mold it into the relative shape of a tampon, and shove it up there too. It’s tidy, odor-preventive, allows for freedom of movement and a few hours later, one takes it out, rinses, washes and repeats. This works reasonably well with paper towels or even wads of toilet paper. What I’m about to say next may be require it’s own separate blog post, but I realize the thought of putting the absorbent material on the inside is terrifying for most young girls and some women because almost everywhere on earth, we have not been taught that it’s okay and natural to touch ourselves.
We can also, with our sewing skills passed down since nearly the beginning of time from our mothers, take clean recycled cloth and make our own cute and environmentally conscientious reusable sanitary products.
I’d go so far as to say it’s increasingly trendy, nouveau and cutting edge to be off-the-feminine-hygiene-grid and have the entirety of our maintenance and self care be one budget-conscious closed system of self-empowerment and sustainability. (This is to offset the budget-draining aspect of life in half the major cities in the U.S., if nothing else!) It’s also our collective stand against a mentally and emotionally abusive economic system fueled on fear.
Take this from someone who hasn’t spent a single cent on feminine hygiene products in over 13 years now and I bleed like a motherfucker every 30–35 days. Thank you Diva Cup. You were an initial investment of $30 that continues to serve me and the earth well.
It is my greatest hope for the future that we can empower young girls to believe in their own inventive nature and not shame and brainwash them into economic codependency and environmental apathy.
