2000

Above: Boys and Menstrual Pads

The third wave of feminism emerges in the 1980s and it is still continuing today. Born with the privileges that first and second feminists have fought got, third wave feminists generally see themselves equally capable, strong and assertive as men. Women then are already earning over half of the master’s degrees and increasingly they entered into professions such as law, medicine and business. Their increasing financial independence and aspiration for a quality of life make them want to be empowered and proud of their femininity. Therefore, in line with the change, feminine hygiene product advertisements have also began to serve as a barometer for a social striving for homogeneity. Therefore, they have come up with a new tactic, which is the appearance of men instead of women.

The change in marketing strategy is to run parallel to changes in women especially in the modern society. Therefore, it aims to portray a man’s admiration and respect for women’s independence, intelligence and empowerment. These are qualities that traditional menstrual pads adverts failed to identify. Menstruation used to be a persistent taboo and an issue closely linked to feminism. Therefore, if one were to view the advertisements from another perspective, masculinity can also be seen to be under some kind of threat.

The adverts also reflect a new phenomenon where there is a shifting of the “monthly problem” to the men. In year 2000, there is a series of Netherlands advertisements titled “Boys and Menstrual Pads”. In Figure one, statistics are shown to display men’s understanding on menstruation. The questions range from the basic scientific aspects to menstrual products and the results in general are not desirable. For instance, 13% of them thought that menstrual pads are thicker than it is in reality. Therefore, the other adverts in the same series featured man explicitly showing the menstrual pad and the captions also demonstrate their initial ignorance. The whole idea behind the adverts is to encourage men to understand the biological and emotional changes that occur during women’s menstruation. This is so because gradually more women seek understanding and comforting from their men during their time of the month. Though, at the same time, women are also starting to use PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) as an excuse to gain an upper hand.