The Tampon String That Made its Way on the Cover of a Magazine
A Public Outrage and A Menstrual Shame Inquiry
The image above appeared on the cover of The Village Voice issue on February 7th 1995 with the title Embarrassed to Death: The Hidden Dangers of the Tampon Industry. The image, taken by photographer Robin Holland, featured an extensive article on menstrual hygiene products and industry written by reporter Karen Houppert. In the article titled Pulling The Plug On The Sanitary Protection Industry, Houpert (1995) raised entitled concerns about the negative effects on women’s health, like toxic shock syndrome and traces of dioxin, and its connection to the tampon manufacturers policies indulged by lax governmental regulations.
Houppert argues in her piece that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) trusted the tampon industry’s statements regarding the presence of dioxin — a potential carcinogen substance, and neglected to conduct their own tests on the products. An article that was supposed to raise questions about the risks women are exposed to by the negligence and indifference of the FDA, had unwanted reactions directed not towards the points raised by Houppert, but towards the image used on the cover. New Yorkers were not prepared to see the actual image of a menstruating body together with an article on the risks of tampons.
The tampon thread that caused a public debate
As Houppert (1999: p. 8) notes in the preface of her book The curse: confronting the last unmentionable taboo: Menstruation published 4 years later în 1999, following publication of the article the newsroom received letters from readers that were deeply offended by the image. The readers were offended not by the nudity, they were accustomed with that. The showing sign that the naked body was menstruating was too much for the New Yorkers to accept. A naked female body on the front cover? Acceptable. A naked menstruating female body on the front cover? Too much. The outraged letters that arrived to The Village Voice newsroom were debating the image featured, not the subject Houppert was trying to cover. The message that tampons were unsafe and that the government knew this and reinforced the industry passed unnoticed. People were more interested in the outrageous image chosen for the cover, starting a debate over why menstruation should be kept an intimate and personal affair.
People freaked. The New York Times reporter wondered whether anything was sacred after that image — they couldn’t get past the cover to the article inside. Which was, and is, my point. These taboos matter because they prevent consumer debate and scientific research, as well as safety monitoring of the sanitary protection industry. said Houppert for Philadelphia City Paper in May, 1999 (Detweiler, 1999).
People were horrified. I think the reaction today would be similar. People are perfectly happy to see women as sex objects, but the actual biology of our bodies is apparently gross and unmentionable. — photographer Robin Holland later recalls the reactions raised by the cover (Jupp, 2015).
What Was Going on in the World
The Village Voice was an American newspaper that was published between 1955 and 2017. According to their official website, The Village Voice was the first American alternative newsweekly. The Village Voice received many recognitions for journalism during the years it was active: three Pulitzer Prizes, The National Press Foundation Award and the George Polk Award, as we can find from the About section on the website.
The image discussed here and the article it featured was published in 1995, in the midst of the third wave of the feminist movement and it was written by a female reporter that was concerned about the way FDA managed the tampon crisis and women’s safety. The Village Voice was an alternative New York newsweekly that covered stories on controversial affairs and heated debates. The large circulation of the newspaper made it possible for the stories to reach many New Yorkers, even the mainstream readers.
To understand the image and the reaction it caused in the public space, we need to take a step back and see what was actually going on in society at that time. Feminist health activists were questioning menstrual product safety since late 70s (Bobel, 2006; Bobel, 2010: p.8). As the third wave of feminism began to emerge in the late 80s and the beginning of 1990, the political menstrual product activism rose. Menstrual activism has its roots in third wave feminism and is both an anti-consumerist and environmentalist movement (Lorbel in Bobel, 2010: p. xiii). The menstrual product activism of the third wave feminists is also referred to as ‘radical menstruation, ‘menstruation anarchy’, ‘anti-tampon activism’ or ‘alternative menstruation’ (Bobel, 2006: p. 333).
Third wave feminists integrated menstrual activism in their political agenda — they started to talk about menstruation in public and moreover, to show it — something that was previously unimaginable. As Bobel (2010: p. 8) notes, talking about menstruation was the first step needed to produce the change women wanted. They were claiming safer products and freeing their bodies from the menstrual shame society had long imposed on them. Their activism consisted in refusing to buy and use the menstrual products of companies led by men and finding alternative ways of managing their menstruation: cloth pads, reusable pads, menstrual cups and sea sponges or even ‘menstrual extraction’, a practice developed by feminist Loraine Rothman in 1971 (Bobel, 2006: p. 337).
The third wave feminists were trying to reclaim menstruation. That meant empowering women and educating them about their bodies — taking control over menstruation that was capitalized by big companies that were not serving women’s needs, but following their profit interests. The menstrual products they were offering were a potential hazard to women’s health and the environment. Houppert herself wrote the article as an exposé of the industry that was endangering women’s bodies for profit. I believe the image that featured her story in The Village Voice was chosen on purpose: a bold image to send a bold message — we are in danger, our bodies are in danger.
The visual stimuli — extensive image description
The photograph shows what appears to be a nude able white female body, photographed from below. The main focus of the image is the naked lower torso viewed from profile, and the grey background doesn’t incite the viewer in any way, serving only as context.
The way the photograph was shot, allows the viewer to only see the profile, with the right leg in the front slightly raised and the left one keeping equilibrium on the ground. The legs are not fully visible and only the thighs are framed. Part of the torso is visible, but the image is cropped near the belly button, so the full nudity is only imagined. The breasts might as well have been covered, but the buttocks are visible, as there is no underwear. The only visible sign that the body is menstruating is the white thread that hangs between the legs — suggesting a menstrual tampon inserted in the vagina. There is no other sign that could tell the viewer that the body is menstruating: there are no blood stains and the vulva is not exposed at all.
The image is rather sterile and aseptic, but the angle the photo was framed and the position of the body could have sent a sexual message. However, what makes the image transgressive to the viewer is not the nudity nor the sexualization of the female body, but the implications of the tampon string — the body is menstruating. In a period where menstruation was advertised as a woman’s issue that had to be kept hidden, seeing an image of a menstruating body on the front cover of an American newspaper was too much. In the absence of any other particular signs, we cannot be sure that the body shown was actually menstruating.
The title that features the front cover sends a clear message — women are at risk. The words ‘Tampon’ and ‘Death’ appear larger than the others — sending the message that the menstrual product is a threat to women’s life. The title also uses the opportunity to reinstitute the problem of menstrual shame.
Internalized menstrual shame, a personal history
I was twelve years old and I didn’t even have my first period yet, when I encountered one of the most powerful images of menstruation — a used pad lying on the floor in the girls bathroom during a break. All the stalls had squat toilets or ‘turkish toilets’ as we would call them. The space was too narrow for a trash can, so it was assumed that you had to flush away the toilet paper as well. This also implied that once you get your period you had to take the walk of shame twice. First when you had to sneak the pad with you in the toilet, and the second when you had to leave the stall with the used tampon and pray no one was near the sinks area where the closest disposal bin was available. Seems that this girl didn’t want to go through that again and she just abandoned the pad on the floor. The pad was left wide open in whan I now can interpret as a statement, with the sticky part attached to the floor. I felt shame and a sense of distress, like I was the accidental observer of a scene I was not entitled to see. The pad wasn’t even full, it only had a small amount of blood gathered in the center. It wasn’t even bright red as I would have expected, but a brown red — that I could now recognize as specific to the last days of menstruation.
Where did the feeling of shame come from? It wasn’t even my pad and it’s not like I walked in on this girl half naked. I didn’t even know whom the pad belonged to. Or used to belong. However, I felt like I was entering not only the bathroom she just used, but her intimacy as well. I was taught that menstruation is something private — something you should keep for yourself only. I closed the door gently, my eyes still fixated on the pad and I decided that this girl’s intimacy was not my problem, but hers.
However, the example discussed here on the cover of The Village Voice shows that people don’t even need to see the actual menstrual blood in order to be offended by it. They can easily be offended by the idea that menstruation takes place in a woman’s body and that this physiological function is made public. In the image depicted here, the other way harmless tampon thread becomes the object of public consternation.
What makes it a transgressive image?
The shame that surrounds menstruation is rooted in the stigma associated with the menstruating body. Goffman (1963) described stigma as an attribute that one carries and that makes the individual stand out in a derogatory way. The concept of stigma has its roots in Ancient Greek and refers to signs present on the body that reflect the moral status of the individual. Cuts and burned marks on the skin were tokens that signaled to others that the bearer of stigma should be avoided (Goffman, 1963: p. 1). From a social perspective, stigma is a trait one should seek to hide from the others, in order to appear the same as them. Goffman (1963: p.4) mentions several types of stigma, one of them being the abominations of the body.
Pads visible through clothing, stains, tampon strings, odors, and the menstrual hygiene product themselves are signs of menstruation that lead to social stigma. Johnston et al. (2013) argue that the menstrual blood fits all of the three categories described by Goffman (1963: p. 4) — the abominations of the body, the blemishes of individual character and the tribal stigma.
When menstruation is revealed by these signs, the woman’s social image is discredited. Because stigma is a trait that makes the one who possesses it stand out from the crowd in a negative way, women should do everything in their power to avoid making it visible to others: use tampons rather than pads, as the later one may be visible through clothing, use menstrual products with perfume to hide odors, avoid stains at all cost, hide menstrual products from the others, especially men, hide the symptoms associated with menstruation like dysmenorrhea. Menstruation itself is not a stigma, but the signs of a menstruating body are. They signal that the body is weakened, as menstruation is sometimes treated as an illness.
The menstrual taboo and stigma related to periods are maintained through popular myths and misconceptions. The shame related to the visible signs of a menstruating body are perpetuated especially by the media.
Menstruation is a normal bodily function but there are many misconceptions abou it. Some of them are perpetuated by myths and others by the media through menstrual product commercials. Menstruation is a physiological function so poorly understood that it is sometimes perceived as a mystical quality that associates femininity with Mother Nature. On the other side, there are the ones that believe menstruation makes women dirty, being a constant reminder of their sins. This idea has its roots in the religious beliefs responsible for perpetuating the myth that menstruating women should not enter the church. Menstruation has long been associated with the release of toxic substances from the body or a monthly ‘bad blood’ (sângele rău).
In the Romanian culture there are many myths or popular misconceptions regarding menstruation and most of them are constructed as interdictions: Women should not wash their hair while menstruating. Women should not do sport while menstruating. Women should not enter a church while menstruating are some of the most common myths regarding menstruation. Some of them travel between cultures but some of them are merely autohtone. Most of the myths are based on completely wrong beliefs, but some of them are partially sustained by accurate information.
These myths may seem harmless and some of them can be easily invalidated. But what they actually do is maintain the people’s reluctance about talking openly about menstruation or seeing images that depict menstruation in such a bold way. Myths are powerful because they reinforce and maintain menstrual shame, making it an institution, internalized by women and passed on by both men and women. Sometimes, the menstrual taboos can be real threats to women’s lives and well being.
In Nepal it is a common practice, especially in the rural communities to force women to spend the night in a ‘menstrual hut’ or ‘menstrual shed’ during menstruation (Atreya and Nepal, 2019). Nepal is still a patriarchal society, and the practice, called Chhaupadi has its roots in the hindus culture (Atreya and Nepal, 2019; Kadariya and Aro, 2015). The practice is based on the belief that during menstruation women are dirty and impure and they can bring bad luck to the family (Amatya et al., 2018: p.8). Even if the practice is illegal since 2005 and punishable from 2018 (Vaughn, 2019), it still continues today.
The media also plays a big role in maintaining the menstrual taboo. Advertisements often reinforce stereotypes about menstruation and teach women that they should be ashamed if they are ever found in the position to show any signs of their menstruating bodies. When the image discussed here appeared in The Village Voice the media was already flooded with advertisements that reinforced the menstrual shame and stigma. Research showed that secrecy was one of the most highlighted topics in menstrual product advertisements (Merskin, 1999). Such advertisements teach girls and women they should do their best to hide menstruation in public (Merskin, 1999; Simes and Berg, 2001). Sometimes advertisements advise young girls to choose tampons over pads as menstrual products because they better hide menstruation signs to others (Merskin, 1999). Silence, shame and embarrassment are other major themes found in menstrual product advertisements (Simes and Berg, 2001).
Sometimes advertisements use suchs phrasing so that the words ‘menstruation’ or ‘period’ are not even present: for example, stains are referred to as ‘accidents’ in Always advertisements (Simes and Berg, 2001: p. 458). Raftos et al. (1998) argue that when a woman fails to avoid such accidents, her femininity is diminished as a result of her inability to keep her menstruation hidden. Advertisements urge women to preserve their femininity during menstruation by keeping themselves clean and dry (Courts, 1993: p. 185).
Today’s advertisements did not change dramatically. Some companies started to shift their attention to important issues like period poverty, but some of the stereotypes can still be found in today’s commercials to menstrual products, reinforcing the same ideas about menstruation as a women’s issue. For example, an Always advertisement for Radiant FlexFoam Pads urges women to fight all signs of menstruation: stains and odor being the most obvious ones. The pads promise ‘up to 100% leak & odor free protection.’ The advertisement continues ‘You can stay protected and wear what you want.’ These fears are created and maintained by the media itself. In fact, menstruation doesn’t smell, and perfumes some brands choose to integrate in their products are potentially harmful and could cause irritation.
The brand Kotex continues the practice Houppert was talking about in her original piece in The Village Voice in 1995 — even today Kotex prefers not to mention menstruation in their commercials to menstrual hygiene products. In the advertisement for Kotex Luxe the word ‘menstruation’ is not mentioned at all. Instead, the metaphor of ‘red days’ is chosen. It appears that women still need to use their intuition to understand that the commercial addresses menstruation as Houppert (1995) observed. In Kotex commercials, the focus is not on product characteristics, but on the cinematic presentation. Sequences are changing rapidly and show mostly women in motion, practicing sport, dancing, jumping — not something you would see a woman do on a daily basis. In the attempt to send the idea that their products offer protection in any circumstances, they portray menstruation as an exceptional event, when in fact, menstruation is a part of women’s lives.
Patriarchy made women believe it’s their duty to hide menstruation and transform it into a lady issue. Laws (1992) talks about the etiquette of menstruation — a set of rules and expectations that have to be attained both by women and men. Women should not let men know about their menstruating bodies and men should be at least disturbed by signs of menstruation or even disgusted. No one wants to hear about menstruation pain or see the signs of a menstruating body. This attitude can be described by what Raftos et al. (1998) called ‘menstrual-denial’ — the women won’t feel they are menstruating if they use certain types of menstrual products and the others (men) won’t know they are menstruating. If no one feels it and no one sees it, menstruation is reduced from a normal body function to something invisible. The menstrual-denial approach is often found in menstrual product advertisement.
Discussion
The female nudity displayed in media was no longer a novelty for the average New Yorker in 1995 when The Village Voice decided to display a naked female menstruating body on its cover. What transformed the image of a naked female body in a transgressive image was the small detail between the legs, the tampon thread as a menstrual stigma. In a society that teaches women the correct way of managing their menstruation is to make it invisible to others and especially to men, the image of a menstruating female body on the cover of a magazine is an audacity — even if the image features an extensive journalistic documentation of the threats the industry and the government have on women’s health. The efforts of third wave feminists and menstrual activists to transform menstruation in a common experience one should not be ashamed of, were just beginning at the time the tampon thread in cause made its way on the cover of The Village Voice newsweekly.
The image had unexpected reactions. Even if it was supposed to cause astonishment to an extent, it wasn’t supposed to shift the public’s interest completely. The image was so transgressive that the initial message was lost in the outrage of the moment. I assume and I might be correct that the image was chosen on purpose, to feature Houppert’s claims that the capitalization of menstruation was a threat to women’s health and to the environment. It was supposed to cause a reaction and to draw attention to Houppert’s article inside, but readers were so disturbed that they didn’t even make it to page 31 where the actual story was. Instead, they were so fixated on the image, that the message failed. The mainstream New Yorker reader was outraged. The image broke the menstruation etiquette and the viewer was forced to come out of the menstrual denial it was accustomed with.
Social norms dictate that menstruation should be kept private because it is a lady issue no one would be interested in, and this magazine had the audacity to present an obvious sign of menstruation — the tampon string coming out of a female body on the cover. It doesn’t matter that there was no blood, no genitalia shown, because menstruation had been uncovered. The controversy the cover raised in this case is not related to nudity — we can understand that the public did not have a problem with being exposed to it. The detail that offended the viewers was the visible and intrusive tampon thread, a reminder that female bodies menstruate. The reactions the cover received are also a sign of internalized menstrual shame and in this case, the tampon thread becomes a visible stigma — a detail one should seek to cover at all costs that when becomes visible on purpose, causes a public consternation.
Reference list
Always. (April 23rd 2020). Always Radiant FlexFoam Pads | Stay protected so you can wear what you want! [video] available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtYeyvtAAwM [accessed January 17 2021].
Amatya, P., Ghimire, S., Callahan, K.E., Baral, B.K. and Poudel, K.C., (2018). Practice and lived experience of menstrual exiles (Chhaupadi) among adolescent girls in far-western Nepal. PloS one, 13(12).
Atreya, A. and Nepal, S., (2019). Menstrual exile–a cultural punishment for Nepalese women. Medico-Legal Journal, 87(1), pp.12–13.
Bobel, C., (2006). “Our revolution has style”: Contemporary menstrual product activists “doing feminism” in the third wave. Sex Roles, 54(5), pp.331–345.
Bobel, C., (2010). New Blood. Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of MenstruationI. New Jersey, Rutgers University Press.
Courts, L.B., (1993). The portrayal of the menstruating woman in menstrual product advertisements. Health care for women international, 14(2), pp.179–191.
Detweiler, M., (May 1999). Seeing Red. Talking with writer Karen Houppert about that time of the month. In Philadelphia City Paper. [archive copy] available at: https://mycitypaper.com/articles/052099/feat.nc.tampon.shtml [accessed January 17 2021].
Goffman, E., (1963). Stigma. Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New Jersey, Prentice Hall.
Houppert, K., (1999). The curse: Confronting the last unmentionable taboo: Menstruation. New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Houppert, K., (February 7th 1997). Pulling The Plug On The Sanitary Protection Industry. In The Village Voice. [online] available at: http://libaware.economads.com/pullplugsanitary.php [accessed January 17 2021].
Houppert, Karen Blog’s (s.a). About. In Menstrual Moments. [online] available at: https://karenhouppert.wordpress.com/ [accessed January 17 2021].
Johnston-Robledo, I. and Chrisler, J.C., (2013). The menstrual mark: Menstruation as social stigma. Sex roles, 68(1–2), pp.9–18.
Jupp, E., (2015). Periods: The Menstruation Taboo That Won’t go Away. In Independent. [online] available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/we-need-talk-about-periods-9638267.html [accessed January 17 2021].
Kadariya, S. and Aro, A.R., (2015). Chhaupadi practice in Nepal–analysis of ethical aspects. Medicolegal and Bioethics, 5, pp.53–58.
Kotex Philippines. (August 26 2020). KOTEX LUXE® Luxurious Period Experience. [video] available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm3nRdkQ5a8 [accessed January 17 2021].
Laws, S., (1992). ‘It’s just the monthlies, she’ll get over it’: Menstrual problems and men’s attitudes. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 10(2), pp.117–128.
Merskin, D., (1999). Adolescence, advertising, and the ideology of menstruation. Sex Roles, 40(11–12), pp.941–957.
R. Simes, DH Berg, M., (2001). Surreptitious learning: Menarche and menstrual product advertisements. Health care for women international, 22(5), pp.455–469.
Raftos, M., Jackson, D. and Mannix, J., (1998). Idealised versus tainted femininity: Discourses of the menstrual experience in Australian magazines that target young women. Nursing Inquiry, 5(3), pp.174–186.
The Village Voice Website. [online] available at: https://www.villagevoice.com/ [accessed January 17 2021].
Vaughn, E. (2019). Menstrual Huts Are Illegal In Nepal. So Why Are Women Still Dying In Them? NPR [online] available at: https://n.pr/2Jy1eUd [accessed January 17 2021].
