Woodchopper wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 11:16 am
Grumble wrote: ↑Mon Mar 08, 2021 10:07 am
What’s the difference between thinking there’s a stigma, and there being a stigma?
In a survey it’s much easier to ask about the interviewee’s perceptions.
That feeling doesn't come from nowhere. Even if there is no direct evidence of stigma in a woman's workplace, the general societal attitude creates one.
Not so long ago there was a stigma around periods - which does still exist but less so. You would never have seen ads for menstrual products on TV. There's a good piece here looking at ads in all media:
Despite the fact the television and sanitary napkins are around the same age, it took until 1972 for the latter to be advertised on the former.... Despite getting the green light, brands were restricted from what they could say on air and could not make any reference to absorbency, cleanliness, anatomy, comfort, insertion, application, duration or efficacy leaving them with just generalised statements. While the TV ban was lifted in 1972, it wasn‘t until 1985 that the word ‘period‘ was used, by non-other than a pre-Friends Courtney Cox.
The first in the UK to depict real period blood, Bodyform’s ’Blood Normal’ sent well-needed shock waves in 2017. Up until that point, references to period blood were only permissible as a watery, blue, Windex-type liquid
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/10/12 ... 20on%20TV.
Menopause still lags well behind, possibly because there's less money to be made from it. It's not like menopause means you have to buy products every month. Although, as I wrote over ten years ago, some people are doing their best to make money from it. Ladycare magnets you put in your pants. Yes, really.
https://tessera2009.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... gnets.html
I had a quick look and Boots no longer sells them but other sites do, along with magnetic menopause bracelets.