Why feminism has interests to attack the industry of tampons?

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What if tampons were actually poisoning women on a global scale around the world? This is a question brought to the public scene by those recent event.

TAMPONS, A PRODUCT THAT IS ABOUT TO BE KILLED BY CONSUMERS

By dint of being hurt on different levels by studies, consumers and tragic events, tampons is becoming a symbol of sensibilisation in favor of the feminist cause like it has never been.

For now, the topic is not hot enough but is becoming more significant each day. If we put the VAT affair and the health threat affaire of tampons into one single bucket, we gather several millions of women worried and questioning a product they use for decades. However, involved brands keep strangely silent and discrete, and no official statement is made to respond the criticism of several ten of thousands millions of revenue products.

As an example, the US Facebook page of Tampax with its 600,000 people community; despite many questions asked publicly to the brand by consumers asking about composition and safety, the brand only respond by launching competition game asking people to try to remove their tampons with no hands. Many people states that the absence of official report or response to the argentinian study shows that the study report is guenine and right, and that brands were actually aware of the contamination.

At this point, keep silent might be a way to play for time, hoping that the tampons controversies get weaker and weaker to no controversies at all. But nothing can attest that it will be this way, because each day is a day where petitions get more signatures and more visibility. It only requires another event arounf tampons, like another death or the intervention of a famous celebrity who stands against tampons to bring the world eyes on this affair and to create a tampons crisis. Brands and industrial groups should get closer to their consumers in order to start a discussion about the loopholes of their products and to reassure them. Being fully transparent about the composition of tampons and publicly supporting the VAT tax change of tampons would considerably bring the two parties together, fighting for the same wars. But at this point, is it still possible for those industrial groups and brands to attract consumers’ sympathy once again?

It is very peculiar to see that contemporary affairs are consumption affairs. Today, more than ever, we actually are what we buy; our whole identity, our values and our position depend on what we consume, how and for what price. Feminism is now a cause taking action on the market scene and asserting the position of women seems to be indissoluble from gaining the same appreciation from the market than men have. Is our (self) identity a construction made by consumption and brands?

SOURCES

• Tampons trop taxés : quand le sexisme se cache dans les détails, Les Inrocks, 20/02/2015

• Le tabou des règles, ça suffit !, Osez le féminisme, 31/07/2015

• Les tampons contiendraient du glyphosate, quel risque pour la santé ?, Sciences et avenir, 30/10/2015

• Brûlez votre serviette, jetez votre tampon : révolution sur le marché des protections féminines !, Marketing Professionnel, 01/10/2015

• Sales share of the leading tampon brands in the United States in 2012, Statista

• Toxic Shock Syndrome, Tampax website

• FAQs, Kotex website

• Une mannequin parle du Syndrome du Choc Toxique, qui lui a coûté sa jambe, Madmoizelle, 22/06/2015

• IARC Monographs - Glyphosate, Report of the WHO about Roundup