Gypsy Creams
The Obligatory Tampon Ad
Woman's Own / 20th June 1969
Well, I had to do the tampon ads, didn’t I? All discussions of sanitary products reminds me of my mother, who would have started mensurating in the mid-1950s, telling me that she used rags for the first few years, because her family could afford nothing else, and her joy at finally being able to afford a sanitary belt, a contraption that looked horrifying to my teenage self in the early 1990s. I never got on well with sanitary towels, so when the Tampax woman visited our school to explain the use of the product, I embraced them with open arms. Both my mother and my friend’s mother remained suspicious of tampons until their menopause, so it’s probable that these ads were fairly ground-breaking back in 1969.
Tags: blatant sexism, periods, retail, social history, Tampax
8 Comments
Tanya Jones on 20 September 2009 @ 3pm
*shudders* I remember being alarmed by the towels with loops in the supermarket. I wonder if anyone out there still uses them?
Beelzebub on 20 September 2009 @ 3pm
All women are compelled to wear white clothes when they’re on the blob, the tighter the better.
Estelle on 20 September 2009 @ 8pm
I’m slightly unsettled by the implication that she is the tampon in the diving shots.
TheLeen on 23 September 2009 @ 8am
Active woman, facial expression nothing like pms, dressed in white and having a lot of energy, and being really fit, because the shame of her menstruation happens all internally, you’d never know.
Okay, tampax ads are exactly the same nowadays. And that is a bit scary, as it’s been 40-50 years.
geeky bloke on 29 September 2009 @ 9am
at least she gets to drive a 60’s MG Midget sports car !
Jo on 20 September 2009 @ 2pm
Would you believe that in my Girl Guiding days a sanitary belt and towels with loops were kept in the first aid kit. That was in the early 90s! :O We found it both hilarious and slightly horrifying ;)