Sanitizing Norms: Menstrual Blood, Media, and the Ideas of Purity

 

Youth Ki Awaaz

This image is from an advertisement in India portraying menstrual sanitary pads. The ad is produced by the brand "Stayfree". Overall, it aims to represent their brand in a positive light, showing how their sanitary pads are the best when it comes to absorption. It contrasts their product with regular paper towels that most people can find in their homes. It shows a well-manicured, well-kept hand highlighted with some more feminine jewelry in the frame; the aid is intended for those who identify as female. Moreover, the hand and the blue liquid are the stars of this image. That background is very clean; it represents a very clean, almost clinical background setting. This can be indicated as a very sanitized space, reinforcing their brand as offering a product that allows for cleanliness and something that can help control and contain a menstrual cycle. Lastly, this photo is used in context to further analyze how menstrual cycles and products are portrayed in the media. Showing that menstruation is purposefully portrayed unrealistically. Overall, this enforces a stigma around shame and ‘messiness’ by using blue liquids. 

Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger works deeply to discuss the ideas of dirt. Douglas argues that dirt can only truly be defined by analyzing it in a systematic cultural way, about meaning and order. Statting, “Dirt is essentially a disorder. There is no such thing as absolute dirt: it exists in the eye of the beholder” (Douglas 2001:2). This further ties the maintenance of different symbolic boundaries and protecting one's moral values, creating a sense of purity. Something is considered dirty when it doesn't fit into clear-cut societal categories. These categories are shaped and regulated by gender norms. These norms symbolize ways individuals are accepted or excluded from groups based on their gendered bodies. This is specifically framed through. Dirt can be attributed to bodily fluids, creating a sense of disorder and misunderstanding. Specifically, male bodily fluids are deemed something sacred, and shall not be wasted (Douglas 2021:56). This creates the idea that women are simply just vessels to remain open to acceptance and not allowed to expel anything else, as that could be potentially ‘dirty’, as women are vulnerable to pollution (Douglas 2001:157). They are non dirty and pure when made so from an interaction with a man who possesses this ‘purity’. Additionally, this relates to Douglas's argument around York's work of ‘fluid boundaries’. Different societies have ‘pollution’ rules, the idea of mixing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fluids. Anything leaving the body mixed with pure water, according to Yurok, is bad and dirty. This serves as a metaphor: mixing bodily fluids with purity creates social confusion; menstrual blood is inherently dangerous, creating lethal danger because, in its nature, it is not controlled (Douglas 2001:151). Different cultures deem different aspects of the body dirty and not dirty, impure and pure. This is heavily dependent on gendered roles, class distinctions, and social and moral values. 

Mary Douglas' argument can help explain how menstruation is portrayed in the modern-day media. Female bodies, if not simply serving as a vessel, can ruin cleanliness and purity. Contrary to how men's bodily fluids are conceptualized, menstrual blood is contaminated and embarrassing. This touches on socialized gendered notions that work to control women and shame them for who they are and how they naturally function. Women need to work extra hard to maintain this ‘boundary maintenance’. This is why there are products for women that help control the natural cycle. In most advertisements, blue liquid is almost always used, which distances women and society from the reality of menstrual blood since it is considered dirty. This intentional choice of a different color liquid puts distance between the reality of the product's usage, trying to sanitize menstruation, and how it should be represented. This can be looked at in the sense that the blue color is trying to decontaminate the viewer's sense in the advertisement. Menstrual blood must be visually disguised through products and in visual advertisements. This creates more order and control. This also enforces the notion that women must use these products to be viewed as sanitary and fully put together. Menstruation is already something that is considered inappropriate to discuss out loud. It is something most people and areas are widely ignorant of; it is continually silenced and shown to be something that needs silence. Education around periods and products continues to dwindle amongst youth, and sex ed is becoming more restricted and limited. Ads that are meant to reverse this make the issue even worse in an attempt to control social norms and perceptions. Blood and how it is discussed reflect a given area's moral and social order, alluding to how the social order views and treats women. 

Youth Ki Awaaz. 2020. Used October 9, 2020 (https://s3.youthkiawaaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/09165707/Screenshot-2020-11-09-at-4.55.52-PM.png).

Douglas, M. (2001). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge. https://monoskop.org/images/7/7d/Douglas_Mary_Purity_and_Danger_An_Analysis_of_Concepts_of_Pollution_and_Taboo_2001.pdf