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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.
	    
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