Bodyform's new advert: Good riddance to blue liquid!
- By Catherine Blom-Smith
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- 20 Oct, 2017
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What do we think about Bodyform's new advert at No More Taboo? Catherine blogs about our reaction...
This week, Bodyform released a new advert for its range of sanitary products. So far, so uncontroversial, right? Except this advert features realistic red blood poured onto a sanitary pad, making it the first ever advert shown in the UK to depict menstrual blood for what it is.
It has taken until 2017 to get to this stage of openness about menstrual health, which seems ridiculous, because this sort of story shouldn’t be shocking. It shouldn’t be news. Women (and trans/nonbinary people who menstruate) have been bleeding red blood out of their vaginas since before advertisements, the internet and probably before television (except then they did it in black and white). What this advert represents, however, is the banishment of the infamous ‘blue liquid’ that used to feature as a smurf-esque stand-in. I say good riddance. My friends have told me of younger siblings or even partners who used to genuinely think period blood was blue, because that’s all they’d seen and nobody had taught them otherwise. This sanitisation of the period has led to a lack of awareness of what periods are actually like, which in turn leads on to the stigma, the culture of silence and the idea that a period makes a woman ‘unclean’. Blue gives the impression of sterility, coldness and science. Blood is red, visceral, dark, thin or thick, a sign of vital life. Denying this reality is denying cis women’s natural functions, denying their very vitality. As we moderate and censor periods, the more we strengthen this taboo in society.
The wider question raised here of course is the issue of how much we sugar-coat women’s bodily functions (that way lies a yeast infection, dear reader). It is hilariously absurd the way some companies market tampons and towels – like some sort of mysterious miracle product that will change you from a sad woman who cannot go out to a laughing woman who can skip about and sail and wear white trousers (oh brave person!). All these things are of course possible on your period but to look at these adverts you would think their products contained an unhealthy dose of caffeine.
I have to admit I was nervous thinking about how my partner would deal with this part of life once we moved in together. His acceptance of the messy, emotional, irritable, bloody reality of my period was a relief – but I shouldn’t have been nervous in the first place. Honestly, it cramped (sorry) my style. Acceptance was literally the absolute least he or anyone could do: actually developing an understanding by asking questions and talking frankly is what is now needed.
We should normalise and educate about periods, and hopefully this advert will make more people who live with and around menstruation comfortable talking to each other about it. Ultimately it’s about education – the more education, the better the lives of many millions of women around the world. This is what No More Taboo stands for. It’s one small red drop for woman, one giant leak for womankind.
WOW Women of the World festivals have been popping up across the world, if you get the chance to go along to one we would strongly recommend it.
WOW – Women of the World festival celebrates women and girls, and looks at the obstacles that stop them from achieving their potential.
Around the world, individuals and communities are insisting on the simple proposition that women and girls must have equal rights and asking the question: why is gender equality taking so long?
Southbank Centre's WOW – Women of the World festival is a global network of festivals which provides a platform for celebrating what has been achieved, and exploring all the ways we can change the world for the better.
What’s not to love?
Our Founder, Chloe, and her Mum Angela went along to represent No More Taboo with a stall across the two days. Here’s her highlights:
“Although we didn’t get much time to take in all the discussions as we were kept busy wo-manning the stall (thanks Mum for helping out)! We had some great discussions around gender, equality, inclusivity and of course periods with new customers, supporters, other panellists and some old friends who came to see us.
In fact, we were really pleased to catch up with Plan International UK who were opening the festival with a discussion about Period Activism exactly one year on since the launch of our #BreaktheBarriers research and Period Poverty Conference that we ran in collaboration with Plan.
On the first weekend of September, No More Taboo set up shop at Lush Cribbs Causeway for their Charity Pot weekend.
The Lush Charity Pot is a wonderfully creamy shea-butter hand lotion where all the sales money (excluding VAT) goes towards a chosen charity or non-for-profit. This scheme is designed to help boost grass-roots, small and local organisations, like ourselves, financially so that we can continue to do the work we do such as our Tackling Period Poverty programme.
As we were Lush’s chosen organisation for the weekend of the 1-2 September, one of our volunteers, Iloni, and one of our advisors, Carolyn, went along to wo-man the (suitably Lush-styled aesthetic) stall that Lush had kindly provided for us. We took along a range of our products, stacks of leaflets and information as well as our enthusiasm for talking about all things to do with periods.
Over the weekend, we sold over £200’s worth of stock with Ruby Cups and Honour Your Flow re-usable pads proving most popular with Lush customers. On top of this, Lush sold so many of their Charity Pots that £340.60 was raised for No More Taboo – which was amazing!
However exciting the money side of things were with this event, what I personally took away as being the real highlight of the weekend was the number and nature of conversations we shared with customers.
Mothers and daughters came and chatted to us about how they agreed it was so important to use re-usable products for personal and financial reasons as well as for the planet’s sake. Boyfriends accompanied their other halves as they prodded and probed the range of menstrual cups on display. Older women commented on how it’s such a relief to be able to talk about menstruation in public and with people you’ve only just met. They regaled of a time when periods were even more hush-hush and celebrated with us out mission of there being No More Taboo.
We would like to thank Lush Cribbs Causeway for being such wonderful hosts, encouraging every customer that came through their doors to consider buying the Charity Pot or simply to chat with us. Each member of their staff team was incredibly warm and so keen to find out more about what we do. On behalf of all of us at No More Taboo, thank you.
For more information, take a look at their website: https://www1.uwe.ac.uk/whatson/biggreenweek.aspx
Read more here: https://www.wen.org.uk/environmenstrual-week-of-action/
