A leading international sanitary napkin brand took the first step towards the truth, painting their images red instead of blue for once. The campaign vouched to normalise the notion of menstruation unlike the bizzare advertisements for sanitary napkin we have grown up watching where a blue liquid being poured on to the pad is the norm. The strong visual imagery grows on you as it highlights the colour red repeatedly in circumstances that are particularly familiar to any girl.
Children grow up unaware of what really goes on and although women eventually find out the truth, these girls from the city tell us how they often find that their male peers are clueless of the actual process that a woman goes through. Rapahel Emileena, vocalist of city-based band Perfect Strangers says, “The ad itself was very honest and I liked it. I remember a boy in school who convinced me that women bleed blue and a lot of guys grow up believing it. Children are not disgusted by the truth. Its educational and it will normalise it for them. There is zero understanding about the biological system and people are squeamish to talk about it in school. If you hide something from a child, he gets really curious. Our society and culture deems menstruation to be a female thing and a dirty thing.”
The times have changed and women who have realised the gap in education have come forward to spill the beans to the younger generation. Nivedita Ratna, an engineering student says, “The advertisements usually talk about the product and it’s benefits. There is very little information about what a woman goes through. I grew up knowing that my grandmother and the women before her never had the luxury of a sanitary napkin that we have now. When my mother explained to me what I should be expecting, she also explained the same thing to my brother. The change starts from there. You cannot change the collective mentality of people, but you can influence the next generation as they depend on what you tell them and how you portray it. My mother did that so that my brother would not grown up feeling uncomfortable to talk about it or touch a pad.”
There seems to be some hope in how people perceive the ‘special times’ that women go through. Concepts of PMS and mood swings are still the butt of jokes but more men seem to be comfortable engaging in conversation about it. Bhargavi Murali, an undergraduate student at Mount Carmel College quips, “I find that guys are more informed about it. Even traditonal taboos that condemn this particular biological cycle as ‘dirty’ don’t seem to be very important to people. Talking about it is the only way, stigma around it can be erased which this ad encourages.”
