Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucla-cs.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cepu!ucla-cs!ellen From: ellen@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.women.only Subject: Re: feminine protection Message-ID: <2591@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Tue, 4-Dec-84 17:33:15 EST Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.2591 Posted: Tue Dec 4 17:33:15 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 7-Dec-84 00:43:29 EST Reply-To: ellen@ucla-cs.UUCP (Ellen Perlman) Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 54 i guess that true feminine protection will have pink lace along with the double layered delicate weave, or whatever blarfle the ad-folk say. i agree with Evelyn about protection at the sides, etc. i never had any mentrual blood leak through the middle/center of even the OLD UNimproved kind 23 years ago, when adolescents and pre-adolescents didn't wear such things as tampons (menstrual pontoons?)(i started when i was 10-1/2). but, Sophie, there IS something to protect, one's clothes. but why don't the ad-folk just come right out and say it! of course, at least now menstrual pads and tampons are things that can be advertised, even on TV. if you look at advertisements for the same products a decade or 3 ago, the attitude was QUITE different. ads for pads (wow! what rhythm!) in the late fifties and early sixties merely included the name of the company and a picture of an elegant more-than-middle-class woman. i'm thinking especially of the MODESS ads which featured crowds of stately models in designer gowns posed of curving marble stairways, and the "copy" was only one word: MODESS. i'm not embarassed to menstruate, but i must say that permanent red-brown blood stains do not enhance ANYONE'S appearance, male or female, when positioned prominently on their garments. it's not just a question of teaching women to think that their natural bodily fluids are somehow noxious, 'though i definitely agree with you that this is something that many cultures foist on their women, and definitely unfairly. after all, semen is considered to be great and healthy and wonderful and marvelous and something to be proud to produce, or even to show off. but the "by-product" of the ability of a woman to produce children is "dirty," and "icky," something to be ashamed of and hide, a reason to send women out of the village, or of the religious community (in Judaism and Balinese Hinduism, for example), a cause to call women "unclean," when it is something so wholesome. and necessary and important to the continuation of life: woman: she who bleeds but does not die. i do think, though, that a professional male would be considered less than well-groomed if HE had large &/or persistant blood stains on his clothes. do you LIKE to have large indelible stains on YOUR clothes? (except, maybe for grass stains on the knees of jeans) so, why don't the ad-folk just call menstrual pads and tampons, if they feel the absolute necessity to call them something other than what they are, feminine clothing protectors or mentrual fluid absorbers. in the name of the Goddess in her infinite guises. ///|\\\ /// \\\ //{o} {o}\\ ll " ll 'll ~ ll` lll lll ''' ```