Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Tumblr Thread: Origins Of The Pads Vs. Tampons War


This educational Tumblr thread shines light on the origins of the pads and tampons war. For those unaware, apparently there have been tensions between the pads and tampons communities. Due to some sleazy advertising, companies instilled the absurd belief in some impressionable folks that the strong, driven, businesswomen of the world only wear tampons. As so much can be said of advertising, thus is not true. This young woman decided to educate her class on the whole backstory. 

Check out some more gold from Tumblr with this post about how all is forgotten over time.

1.

Text - pesmenos Follow why is there such a stigma against wearing pads? like why is it that people who wear tampons are seen as 'strong' and 'cool? y'all know that someone people can't wear them bc it hurts them or that they just don't like them? stop making it seem like people who wear pads are childish and weak compared to those who wear tampons postcardsfromtheoryland Follow Ok kids buckle up because I know the answer to this question because I am a bitter, vindictive person. So my first seme

2.

Text - this horrible class with a professor that wanted to suck the life out of all of his students by constantly belittling them. We had to write a short paper each week and present them conference-style and then he would tear us to shreds and do it all over again next week. The purpose of the class was supposedly to have us write papers about materials that hadn't really been looked at by musicologists yet, and my class had music in advertisements. I was also the only woman in the class and th

3.

Text - there IS something to be said there (and this gets back to OP's question). Early pad and tampon commercials were very similar to each other; basically here's a product to help you stay clean during your period. But around 1980, suddenly there's public outcry and panic over tampons due to TSS (Toxic Shock Syndrome). At that point no one really understood how TSS worked but they knew it had to do with tampons. So women freaked out and started switching to pads instead. Now the worst offende

4.

Text - Pad advertisements were now about "cleanliness" and "purity" - they knew you couldn't get TSS from pads and they were going to emphasize that fact. You've got women in white dresses with long hair slowly walking through fields of flowers with pastoral-y flutes in the background. And to fight back, tampon companies take it the complete opposite direction - they ignore TSS entirely and start showing businesswomen running to catch the subway, sporty women riding bikes, basically any sort eit

5.

Text - I got done giving this paper and I look up to see my four male classmates and one male professor in varying shades of pale-ness and they just all sort of looked at me for a couple minutes without knowing how to respond. It's one of the proudest moments of my PhD career so far. Anyway the two products have been advertised basically the same ways ever since then. Now pads are much more comfortable and discreet, and we understand how TSS works and how to avoid it, but the commercial strategi

6.

Text - thisauthorisscreaming Follow Reblog if you are happily living in the pastoral field of flowers over in pad-land. lady-byleth Follow I have a little house there

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