>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. ^M00:00:03 ^M00:00:23 >> Megan Metcalf: Good afternoon, thank you everyone for joining us today. For those of you who don't know me I'm Meg Metcalf, Women's Gender -- thank you, an LGBT Studies librarian for the main reading room. So today's lecture is jointly hosted by the Humanities and Social Sciences Division and our friends in the Hispanic Division. And we're very excited to welcome Dr. Eugenia Tarzibachi to speak with us today. Dr. Tarzibachi holds a degree in psychology from the University of Buenos Aires and a postgraduate specialization in education from the University Of San Andreas. She was awarded her PhD with honors in 2014 from the faculty of social sciences at the University of Buenos Aires and the results of her dissertation research are the topic of her lecture today. In addition to her many academic achievements Dr. Tarzibachi has also worked in governmental and nongovernmental organizations where she has worked to foster gender equity, particularly in the field of sexual and reproductive health and education. This year she was awarded a scholarship to conduct her postdoctoral research at the University of Buenos Aires and her current research focuses on meanings about menstruation and menstrual management technologies for women of different ages and social status in Buenos Aires. Additionally, Dr. Tarzibachi is working on writing a book based on her dissertation, as well as a documentary film on menstrual bodies and new ways to talk about menstruation with girls and boys. Also just a heads up even though the flyer said 2 to 3, we might also go over a little bit until 3:30 today. So on a more personal note, it is beyond gratifying to see a scholar conduct research here at the Library of Congress and then come back to share their incredible work with us. So without further ado, please join me in giving the warmest of welcomes to Dr. Eugenia Tarzibachi as she presented Feminine Protection, Menstrual Bodies, Gender, and the Transnational Fem Care Industry in the United State and Argentina. ^M00:02:12 [ Applause ] ^M00:02:20 >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Thank you Meg and first of all, thank you all for being here, especially on this rainy day here in Washington, DC. Let me spend just a couple of minutes on the acknowledgments because there are always many people behind the accomplishment we can achieve. So I especially want to thank Megan Metcalf, Catalina Gomez and Mary Champagne because on behalf of the Division of Social Sciences and Humanities in collaboration with the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress they made possible this presentation. So it's a great honor for me to be here with you sharing some of the results of my doctorate of research, which was nurtured by my work here this library that I deeply, deeply love. This institution was so generous to me that this presentation here is a gesture of my gratitude for hosting me in many short-time stays over the years. Here I found some contrary studies of menstruation while in Argentina there was none. My doctorate of research opened a new area of study in the field of feminist academic research in Argentina. So I also want to thank all the researchers on menstrual cycle whose previous work was crucial and helped me arrive to these results. I won't be able to give credit to all of them given the format of this presentation, but here on the screen are some of the most important for me. I also want to thank the Interdisciplinary Institute of Gender Status of the University of Buenos Aires for hosting my doctorate of research and also to my mentors, Monica [inaudible]. I finally want to publicly thank my sister, Elenora [phonetic], who is here and her husband, Indy [phonetic], who hosted me in their house with great love and support all the trips I made to work on my intellectual inquiries here at the Library of Congress. So let's get into what gather us today. The presentation is titled as Meg said, Feminine Protection, Menstrual Bodies, Gender and the Transnational Fem Care Industry in the United States and Argentina. This presentation highlights some of the key findings of my doctoral dissertation that was titled, a genealogy of menstrual bodies through feminine protection in the technologies in the US and Argentina between 1920 and 1980. My doctoral thesis, in this doctoral thesis I use the term genealogy inspired by the work of Michel Foucault trying to understand discontinuities in the discourses about women's bodies as menstruators. So to perform this reconstruction I conducted a thorough analysis from the 1920's to the 1980's as it relates to the rhetoric exposed in advertisements mostly graphic of pads and tampons in the social context where these images circulated in both countries. I review more than 400 ads. I also looked for the most significant patterns, the educational materials produced by the main companies of this industry, and the experiences of women about the menstrual body, as well as the meaning that these modern technologies represented for those who live through the transition from the rag, cloths and cotton or reusable homemade products to manufacture disposable ones. And as it relates to the latter analyses and in order to understand what happened in Argentina I interviewed 30 Argentine women who were teenagers and young adults during the 70's when the tampon was launched in that country. To retrieve equivalent at that time in the United States I relied on background research. I also conducted an interview with managers of multinational brands of feminine protection products in Argentina and in the US. And I also interview Argentine gynecologists who were practicing medicine in the 70's. The transnational dimension of this study is aligned with the idea of understanding the relations between these two countries instead of doing a comparison, although sometimes we know that it's unescapable. I supposed this study in transnational feminist cultural studies, a tradition started by Caplan and [inaudible] in 1994. You may wonder why did I concentrate in the relation between the US and Argentina and I cannot say that the emergence of femcare industry was initiated in the US, but the main companies and brands that introduced the innovation of disposable and manufactured pads and tampons in Argentina were Americans. That is why the counterpoint with the US was crucial. These companies disseminated the disposable pads and tampons in steps first the pads, then the tampons from the upper and middle social sectors to medium and low and from the center to the [inaudible]. This means from the central to the [inaudible] countries and from the central to the [inaudible] areas inside the national borders. Such has been the consolidation of this industry internationally that as [inaudible] said, its annual earnings at the beginning of the 21st century were around $17 billion in global sales and this is still expanding mainly by the growth of emerging economies. Currently in the United States the four major companies competing in this market are Proctor and Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Johnson & Johnson and Playtex products. All by Playtex are the ones that developed extensive multinational corporations and in Argentina, Johnson & Johnson ranked first in the local market of pads and tampons since the early 30's with introduction of modest past brand to the present. So as I mentioned, in my research I focus in the period of time between 1920 to 1980, I wanted to include the whole period of time in which the pads and tampons where launched in both countries. In this presentation I will be extending that genealogy of menstrual bodies to the present to introduce and close this lecture today. The reason for that is that those discourses on women's menstrual bodies are unstable and in dispute nowadays. Also because what is currently going on only can be deeply understood considering what happened during the 20th century. So I want to start this presentation describing three current public situations that took place in Western societies and went viral in social media. Each of them in different ways expose that in the 21st century what is popularly known as the menstrual taboo is not only still alive, but also is regulating women's bodies and [inaudible] in the shadows. So the first situation was in August 2016, the Olympic Games. Fu Yuanhui, a Chinese competitive swimmer got the fourth place in the competition. ^M00:10:00 She apologized to her team because she could not do her best performance given that she had her period the night before the competition and she had menstrual cramps. Let's hear from her about the emotion of shame that so intimately constitutes the corporeal experience of menstruators in our societies and particularly, in traditionally masculine fields such as sports. ^M00:10:27 ^M00:10:34 [ Foreign Language Being Spoken ] ^M00:10:54 ^M00:11:00 Okay, so this disclosure seemed to be a revelation as if it was a novelty that [inaudible] as the majority of women in reproductive age do menstruate every month and continue with their regular activities. So let's move on to the second analyzer also related to sport. However, this one could be considered as part of the current menstrual activism. This is important because what you will see in this situation is social also an emotional self-evaluation, but the opposite emotion to shame, pride. So the second situation was in April 2015 in the London's marathon. Kiran Gandhi had a choice to skip her first marathon because of her period or run the marathon and she decided to run the marathon and practice free bleeding for sisters who don't have tampons. This is the image of the end of the marathon and she was criticized as being disgusting. The third situation in March 2015 Instagram removed twice this picture from the photographer Ruby Kaur for considering it offensive. This picture was part of an essay on a visual rhetoric course at the university she attends. I will read the answer [inaudible] to Instagram by the end of this presentation. So what I would like you could remember of these three anecdotes is that the public reaction to what these women disclosed are proportional to the success of the process that accord during the 20th century and in which the femcare industry had a significant protagonism. The idea that I would like you could gently keep in mind until the end of the presentation is that with the efficient concealment of the menstrual body what was better concealed under the discourse of women's liberation was the menstrual stigma. In other words, we can say that the menstrual closet a concept that I borrow from Iris Marion Young was better locked and hidden. So next in this presentation I will try to show you that the disposable and manufactured pads and tampons which were massively launched in the United States and Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century were far more than innocent modern technologies of menstrual management. Let's remember that before the commercialization and massive consumption of industrial pads and tampons each woman had to handle what to do with its own menstrual blood every month and women weren't allowed to do many activities during menstruation like taking cold baths or doing energetic movements. In the US and in Argentina what women usually used were cloths, rags and cotton. Sometimes they'd [inaudible] to hold their homemade pads in place. The massive dissemination and consumption of these products helped women gain a sense of self-control over their own bodies. They also helped them manage menstruation in a standardized and practical way with increasing comfort and at a less emotional cost. Furthermore, they increased the productivity of women's bodies at different levels by letting them perform a socially acceptable feminine body before others and remain active every day of the month. So the question is how they did all that. And the answer is by normalizing the menstrual body gradually under the idea of a feminine body for which menstruation was under control the processing played two major tactics. The first one and most fundamental was effectively conceding not suppressing all the evident traces of menstruation, even its consideration of abject by letting women be more productive every day of the month. This meant a decreased anxiety related to the subservience over the evidence of the existence of a menstrual body. Manufacturing of disposable pads and tampons helped women avoid in a more efficient way the sting, the smell, the visual traces of a homemade pad and also they were disposable. So women did not have to worry about finding a place to hide the product for store it or where to dry them without being seen by men. And finally the improvements in terms of comfort made women get rid of the permanent self-awareness about the menstrual condition without suppressing menstruation. That's why I conceptualize by using the Freudian concept of denial as technologies of effective denial of the menstrual body traces. The second major tactic was the following. The industrial patent tampons were disseminated alongside a new legitimized way of thinking and talking about menstruation, which was supported by the biomedical modern knowledge. This new way of doing, thinking and talking about menstruation that this industry disseminated transnationally displaced gradually the traditional knowledge of women about menstruation. The work of [inaudible] and Elizabeth Kisling were crucial to understand what happened in the US. The dissemination of industrial patent tampons transnationally helped women disidentify with that old-fashioned menstrual body, but by being commanded by traditional practices around menstruation could not hide properly all the traces of menstruation and remained passive or inhibited during the menstrual period. And finally, the powerful connotation of the disposability of the blood and the products was helpful for that disidentification process. It had resonances with the metaphor of an abject body, an old-fashioned menstrual body that could also be discarded. However, the [inaudible] menstrual body was kept alive under wraps. So in conclusion, industrial patent tampons were and are far more than technologies of menstrual management. I will show you that they are a prism to understand how its transnational dissemination and consumption in the US and in Argentina produce a new disciplinary practice towards women's bodies that normalize menstruation. In a long-term basis this new disciplinary practice not only conceal menstruation in a more efficient way and provided a new way of thinking, talking and managing menstruation. In a broader perspective they also reproduced traditional narratives about gender and helped to conceal the menstrual taboo or a stigma while maximizing women's productivity every day of the month. I would love to share many really fascinating details and complexities of this process, but as I don't have enough time for that this afternoon I will focus on the portrayals of women's bodies as menstruators in the transnational discourses that the femcare industry used to disseminate the pads and the tampons as feminine protectors. I will focus on the two main ways to do this dissemination which were [inaudible], the advertising and the educational materials in both countries between 1920 and 1980. So let's first make some sense about the title of this dissertation or this presentation. This image is just one of the first advertisements of Kimberly-Clark's brand of feminine pads called Kotex. And it is very simple, but it is revealing. I selected it because its main [inaudible] is explicit and crucial to understand the culture and construction about gender related to the menstrual condition of women's bodies that the market and that the feminine protection rhetoric has sustained for almost a century through the technologies in question. Women lose because they menstruate. That is to say that women lose blood and the also lose in the social field because of their natural deficient bodies not because the cultural corporeal idea of Western societies that is a non-menstrual idea like male bodies are. ^M00:20:00 I want to bring here Elizabeth Cross [phonetic] about the continuous transcriptions that the Western culture made about women's [inaudible] as a seepage. According to Cross, women's bodies were socially constructed as some uncontrolled chaotic fluidity, a content with no solid container. Since the beginning of the 20th century that rhetoric reinforced a particular metaphor about women as victims of their natural weak, vulnerable and problematic bodies even that they menstruate. Menstruation was portrayed as an enemy opposed to the social equity of women that is why the patent tampons were feminine protectors. So I won't talk much about the euphemisms that the industry used to refer to menstruation or the products at the beginning of the 20th century. I won't even talk about the [inaudible] to refer to menstruation that is already a fact that many research studies have already concluded. What I would like to do now is to unfold the metaphors of menstrual bodies reproducing the history of pads and tampons advertisings in the US and Argentina using the menstrual taboo to conceal not only the blood, but the menstrual stigma itself. So let's take a look at the story of the feminine protection rhetoric in the advertisements. I organized what you will see in a chronological timeline, so we will be traveling from the 20's to the end of the 70's back and forth between a central country like the US to a peripheral one like Argentina. From the analysis it can be observed that the masculine protective power of pads and tampons over women worked very close to the sanitation of the menstrual body considered dirty until the 50's capitalizing the hygienist discourse. And from the 60's on the feminine protection work in solidarity with the liberation of women from an oppressive menstrual body capitalizing the culture and power of the women's liberation movement. So in the first period, what I call the first period of feminine protection I will be showing you the anachronistic feminine protection rhetoric divided into these two periods in both countries. The first one goes from the 20's to the 50's and the protection of this chaotic vulnerable and problematic menstrual body was linked with its sanitation because that body was also considered dirty. This period coincided with the release of the first generation of both products in the US and just the modern sanitary pads in Argentina. In this period we will see images like this one, a woman in panic because she was discovered by others as menstrual. We can understand the particularity not only as a commercial strategy that worked explicitly around an ashamed and dirty body that could not integrate into the society. This portrayal can be understood as a reflection of an ongoing process of disidentification from that old menstrual body that used to fail in the concealment. That process was not complete yet, disposable tampons and pads were still massively consumed. This is another example of an Argentine advertisement. It says scared, no more uncertainties. Modess the safe sanitary napkin. So the second period of feminine protection that coincided with the second generation of both technologies started in the 60's. By a second-generation of these products, I mean the innovation of the adhesive and later different sizes and wings in the pads. And the second generation of tampons in the US meant tampons that could expand longitudinally not radially and also the tampons with no applicator with [inaudible] that were unnecessary, etcetera. In Argentina the innovation of the tampon as a menstrual management technology was systematically presented in society through advertisements from the late 60's and 70's. Approximately 40 years later than here in the US and the one that is most consumed in Argentina is the OB, the [inaudible] tampon with no applicator. So let's also remember that the tampon as a technology of vaginal penetration awakened many social and individual anxieties related with women's sexualities and is a very interesting analyzer of the social regulation of women's [inaudible] in each of these countries. During this period, the protection of the chaotic and vulnerable menstrual body was linked with the liberation of women considered as objects socially oppressed by their own natural menstrual bodies. In these periods we can't register anymore the representation of an ashamed woman that could be discovered by others as menstrual. This advertising strategy coincided with a process of disidentification of that old menstrual body that was started to be consolidated. So this is just a general classification of two periods to clarify different metaphors of menstrual bodies according to really big tendencies that I could find. Protection, hygiene and freedom were three signifiers that work together and acquire different accents due to the historical context. They were a stable [inaudible] of meanings that the femcare industry used to portray women's bodies as menstruaters. So with these new modern products the [inaudible] oppressed during menstruation that prevail at the beginning of the 20th century started to be fractured. So let's start with the first period. You will see highlighted in yellow the word protection or references to safety and in blue the word hygiene or sanitation. And given the time constraints I will go over each relevant ad fairly fast, but there are many, many interesting about each of them. I will spend just a couple of minutes on these foundational images published in 1921 in the Ladies Home Journal. This is the first ad of Kotex pads which used the discourse of patriotism to launch the brand and the technology into the American market after the First World War. In this ad what was used is an analogy between the pad as a protector of a vulnerable woman that menstruate and the soldiers who were fighting to protect the American nation. A feminized entity as it was under the threat of a war. And also menstruation is along with the idea of the enemy. The word protection you will see that it doesn't have a strong presence in this first ad, but [inaudible] connotation of this image is around the feminine protection given by a masculine and American figure. The ad says to save a man's life science discovered Kotex. And this ad led us to a keynote. You may know that the feminine pads designed to manage menstruation were as many other modern technologies a consequence of war. This is one of the products created for the war that after the end of the war had a civilian use. The [inaudible] higher absorbent material and cheaper than cotton was produced by Kimberly-Clark in 1915 due to the rising prices of the cotton after the American Civil War. So Kimberly-Clark used to sell it to hospitals as surgical dressings. In 1917, when the US entered into the First World War the company started to sell this product to the American army and the Red Cross. And after signing the amnesties in 1918, the Army canceled the contract with Kimberly-Clark and [inaudible] and many fabric that produce it were remaining as a potential business loss. So Kimberly-Clark decided to capitalize both actives and transformed the cellucotton into a feminine pad. As [inaudible] said in their book on Kimberly-Clark the only one factor that could persuade a businessman to think about the menstrual condition of women at the beginning of the past century was a potential profit loss. It is also said that the idea of this derivation of the cellucotton into the feminine pad came from the American fund of wounded women to Kimberly-Clark saying that the nurses of the American army used to improvise the use of cellucotton surgical dressings as feminine pads. ^M00:29:59 So they call it Kotex referring to cotton-like texture. Now the text will have some sense to all of us. I will just read some parts. Our boys were falling wounded in the battlefield of France, army doctors were calling for an unlimited supply of antiseptic surgical dressing that will be more absorbent than cotton. The government said can you give us such a surgical dressing, we could and did. [Inaudible] men working in a feverish pace built a great plant here near the forest district of the north and a wonderful surgical dressing was produced. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were shipped to our war hospitals to save men's lives. Many a sorely wounded soldier has reason to thank American scientific inventive genius to this great practical discovery, a permanent peacetime utility. Now that the war is over we are devoting this great factory to peacetime usefulness we have called this wonderful product Kotex, Kotex Texture and before long Kotex will be available in restrooms, dry goods, departments and drugstores all over the country. So the cost is almost nothing, our plan was to be able to fill a war need, enormous production was demanded, we will keep that production up and keep down the cost. Kotex are cheap enough to throw away. So this is a foundational beginning of the transactional feminine care rhetoric to advertise in this case pads without mentioning not only menstruation, but neither the product they were advertising. So let's move on in this first journey. Next, let's take a look at this ad published in 1927 by Johnson & Johnson in the Syracuse Herald to presenting society it's feminine pad modest, a derivation of the word modesty. At that time Johnson & Johnson started to compete with Kimberly-Clark for market share. It says a personal word to women from Johnson & Johnson we ask you what a modern hygienic convenience should be like and you told us. Then we experimented, our 41 years in making Red Cross cotton gauze and surgical supplies helped us. So Modess [inaudible] comfortable, it gives absolute protection, it is easily disposable. Modess is the truly modern hygienic convenience designed for the active modern woman. Modess is all you need to say ready wrapped at most drugstores designed by women for women. So there is a story also behind this ad because Johnson & Johnson to release this brand they hired a PhD in psychology Gilbert [phonetic] that a study how was the best [inaudible] for the five senses of women. So after that study they released this brand. And there is a beautiful paper made by [inaudible] about this [inaudible] report. So the aim of this new product was more comfort for woman, but also better concealment of the product. The allusion to the active modern women that needed a new way to manage menstruation will remain a staple. In 1928 Kimberly-Clark launched in the Saturday Evening Post many ads like this one in a new campaign that portrayed upper class women using Kotex as a sign of social distinction. Kimberly-Clark made a rhetoric shift from the previous ad Kotex protection and hygiene was no more a matter of national convenience, it was a sign of social distinction. So this one says, this ends the worries of full-time hygienic methods by providing protection but is absolute. And this other one says, the safe solution of women's greatest hygienic problem which 8 in 10 better class women have adopted. So you will see from now on until the 60's approximately that the menstruation was portrayed as a problem, a feminine problem. ^M00:34:40 ^M00:34:47 So let's move to this image. I picked this advertisement published in 1933 in the New York Times by Kimberly-Clark because of this insistence of the protection and the equalizer effect between men and women that this new technology was pretending to bring about for women. Let's remember that the right for women to vote as men did was passed in 1921 and that is another milestone of the American history that was capitalized by the first ads of pads and tampons. It says now great advance in sanitary protection equalizer Kotex gives [inaudible] greater protection. And now we arrive to another memorable advertisement of this story. It is the one that introduced the tampon Tampax in 1936. The quality of the image is not good at all. I can tell you that there are many women represented in action riding horses, playing tennis, using swimsuits thanks to the protection that could be worn internally. This technological innovation was portrayed as revolutionary for women corporeal experience as menstruators. And it was because it gave a step forward not only in the habilitation of doing many activities that require water or any energetic movements because the leaking threat was better solved. Furthermore, the menstrual management technology itself could not be seen by anyone else than a woman. So tampons were launched as a way to remake woman's tortured existence with this new way to fixing their deficient body. But they released Tampax with a nicer translation than what I did. They said, welcome to this new day for womanhood. This summer you can experience the comfort and unassurance of [inaudible] you have never known before, sanitary protection worn internally. Or this other advertisement that says women's world remade. So around the same year that the tampons were launched in the American market. In Argentina Johnson & Johnson was started at least in advertising to release the feminine pads. These ads published in a feminine magazine that still exists that is called Para Ti, For You, are part of the first ads of Modess brand I found. As you can tell in the image on the left they used the representation of the woman with a very short masculine haircut called [foreign language]. The equalizer effect of men and women by the use of this menstrual management technology was connoted here too. It says something like every woman needs Modess, the sanitary napkin that will give you the most perfect and absolute protection during the days of indisposition. This is a traditional way of referring to menstruation in Argentina. Get a box of Modess in any pharmacy or a store and you will prove why Modess gives a complete protection, a product of Johnson & Johnson Modess this modern sanitary pad. The image in the middle of the slide also showed upper class women under a title that says the modern solution of a known feminine problem. Notice the same insistence on the consideration of menstruation as a hygienic problem of female bodies that could turn into a crisis because of what they referred as an accident during those days. And the third ad used the image of a nurse, the only one feminine representation of medicine at that time to declare in the title, a new chapter in feminine hygiene with this safe and comfortable system, Modess the safe sanitary napkin. [Inaudible] with the modern way to manage menstruation of the modern woman in contrast with the old-fashioned methods and women that were prisoners of the problematic menstrual body was strongly emphasized in the Argentine advertisement of the novelty of this product. Let's take a look at these in the first ad of national pad brands in Argentina. The ad on the left, at the left of the slide used a title that resounds with some other ads we have already read. How the modern woman solves her hygienic problem. The ad of the right side of the slide showed a dialogue between Luisa, an old-fashioned woman, and the modern woman. The modern woman who is seated in the chair says, how outdated you are Luisa that is not a reason for not going to the party. ^M00:40:05 What you have to do is try [inaudible] sanitary napkin that is a solution for our problem. This national brand called [inaudible] combines the word sanitation or health and napkin. The slogan was [inaudible] the modern sanitary napkin. And this one this ad, I love this ad because this is an isolated ad of a tampon on the 30's in Argentina or at least it's the only one that I could find in my review published in 1939. It disappeared very quickly from the domain of advertising and I could not find any other ad of this technology until the 60's in Argentina. This advertising reveals something that was not possible yet for Argentine women in the late 30's probably given the more conservative context over women's bodies and the smaller local market compared to the US. It was a national brand of a tampon named Absorbol, the name is a homophone in Spanish of the English word absorb all. As you can tell again, the Anglo-Saxon origin was an important source of legitimacy of these products in Argentina. So let's move on to the ads introduced in the 40s's and the 50's they present many, many interesting stories. In those years the use of feminine pads became products of massive consumption here in the US while in Argentina the companies were still trying to target the middle class woman. And in both countries the increasing participation of women in the workforce as blue-collar workers was represented into the ads to portray these technologies as a way to help women be active every workday. They continued using the representation of menstrual women as a desirable object for the [inaudible] by concealing properly their properly their menstrual condition, but also they were able to be economically productive, not only as consumers but as active workers. There are differences found in the way they portray women working in one country and the other due to particularities of its social context. In the US where women had to occupy men's work position when they were in the battlefield during the Second World War women workers were portrayed with traditionally masculine [inaudible] like overalls and slacks or poses open legs. In Argentina, they continued being represented with the traditional feminine clothing like blouses, skirts and dresses and with all the traditionally feminine gestures like crossed legs while seated. Let's take a look at the images. As you can see in the ad published in 1942 in Women's Home Companion the figure of the traditional feminine woman who is the fan of her husband's furlough while his sword is pointing her sexual organs is balanced with a masculinized [inaudible] worker. Both had to keep going during menstruation. The Tampax ad in the middle says those modern girls as never before need Tampax showing a giant woman as a result of a low angle shot. She's standing with her legs open saying slacks, slacks, slacks. The [inaudible] of this word refers not only to the trousers, but also to a loose part, something like a loose part of our bodies that was [inaudible] by the tampon to become solid and hermetic. Let's remember here the ad women lose and the consideration of women as a seepage. Finally the image on the right represented again the blue-collar workers and Tampax as an ally of capitalists to reduce female absenteeism during menstruation. And in the meanwhile ads like this one were published in 1945, the modern way to think about those days. Physical educators now stress normalcy for this time of the month. As you can see in this ad, this was part of the very strong process that had the intention of deepening the portrayal of menstruation as a completely normal biological process. This is a very -- there is a very interesting story mentioned by some authors like [inaudible] who refer to how in the US, particularly in the US the normalization of menstruation was intense during the World Wars time period and how after the war the [inaudible] of women because of menstruation was highlighted. The psychological distress related to hormones like the menstrual tension created by Grover Frank in 1936 or the PMS created by Katharina Dalton in 1952 are an example of that. This can be understood as a way of displacing women out of the workforce to let the man occupy again their places at work since they were coming back from the war. Aligned with this phenomenon you can see the return of the traditional feminine stereotype of women in the campaign Modess because the Johnson & Johnson released from 1948 until the brand Stayfree was launched in the 70's. So let's move to what happened in these decades in Argentina. There were not as many representations of women working in Argentina. There are some examples of them. The lowest class status of the workers portrayed [inaudible] not only in the types of jobs they were performing, but also in the main [inaudible] of the ad of the left slide of the slide. The buttons of your suit are more expensive. The other two ads showed [inaudible] women at the store. There were also secretaries at the office in other ads I didn't select it for this presentation. But the topic of the absenteeism that pads could prevent remain unmentioned. The pads for workers were portrayed as an ally to perform the idea feminine beauty also during menstruation. So during the 50's there were less workers in the ads and more sense of women's menstrual bodies being active and impeccable housewives like this one. These said -- oh sorry, it says will you be a good housewife and it's like a test. If you answered yes to the second question, then you will be in this case a good housewife. It's like a campaign, there are like five, it's a set of five images. For example in the box, sorry this is a little bit more. In the box number two it says, do you buy things because they are cheap without worrying about its quality or number two, do you prefer to buy many little things products instead of depriving yourself of modest safe protection. Or in box number four, do you allow your discomfort to deny your loved ones of your good mood and collaboration. Or number two, do you know how to take advantage of the comfort that Modess provide and leave your life under its safe protection, just say Modess. ^M00:48:26 ^M00:48:34 Other ads are like this one, traditional [inaudible] women dancing in love with men without concerns with the safe protection of Modess. Modess is simply not cotton its absorbency power is far superior. Modess especially designed for being invisible under the light of stress, just say Modess. So let's move to the second period of feminine protection. Now we will highlight the words protection in yellow and freedom in green. This rhetoric is very much like to what we could appreciate from the last decades of the 20th century until 2000, colorful ads. Women under the water during menstruation, the presentation of new brands referring to freedom. And a second generation of pads and tampons in the US and also the presentation of the tampon in Argentina are the main characteristics of this period. I agree with Shelley Parker in the [inaudible] that we can register in the advertisements of pads and tampons while the women's liberation movement was taking place in both countries. This shift goes from the rhetoric of the sanitation of the menstrual bodies they told you considered dirty to the rhetoric of women's liberation of menstruation as an internal enemy for women. ^M00:50:01 Just keep in mind that in Argentina during the 60's and the 70's we had many dictatorship governments. Let's take a look at the ads of the second period. Nothing holds you back, this is an ad of Tampax published in 1968 in Family Circle. It says whenever you go, whatever you do, you are confident, comfortable, carefree with the cool, clean, fresh protection of Tampax tampons. This is modern sanitary protection, the kind that belongs to the young, the [inaudible], the alive. It even makes you feel more a part of the party. You get total freedom with Tampax. Or these two between 1974 and 1976, these new brands of pads introduced by Kimberly-Clark and Johnson & Johnson were released. They highlighted the word freedom in their own names. New freedom displays Kotex and Stayfree displays Modess. They had of course, this new generation had the adhesive backing as the one that we know in our days. As you can tell, teenagers were a clear target for tampons in the 70's why swimsuits had a very strong presence in advertisements. This is like the new aesthetics of the 60's and the 70's. And in Argentina for example, this ad published in 1976 in Revista Clarin, it's a very traditional magazine. This ad is a national brand of a tampon in Argentina that was called Suavix. The ad says Suavix for women's liberation. The text talks about menstruation as one of the last taboos and the visual connotation of menstruation related to an empty nest, can you see it right there? It's interesting because it refers to the hegemonic way to think about menstruation as an indicator or a trace of a body that is [inaudible] that spoiled its reproductive potential. It's an empty nest. If we have time we will see one of the ways this interpretation of menstruation was disseminated. There are some tampon ads of national brands in feminine magazines during the 70's, but after the OB tampon of Johnson & Johnson was released they disappeared from the domain of advertising. Well this is the second ad that present the OB tampon in Argentina. You can tell that there are women in bikinis running out from the sea. And the last stop in this first journey through the feminine protection rhetoric is the comparison of the simultaneous first ads to present the OB tampons in the US and Argentina and I have to thank here to David Linton for putting me in contact with Robert Wainer, who managed the public relations of OB brand for Johnson & Johnson in the 70's here in the US. And kindly shared with me the first OB American campaign of OB tampons for TV. This is a fixed image just I captured that image that is the end of the advertising. I would like to show you the different ways in which this technology was presented in the ads making a [inaudible] use of women's liberation discourse that was contemporary and also the political use of the dictatorship discourse in Argentina that among other things censored feminism. During this period that goes from 1976 to 1983 Argentina suffered its cruelest dictatorship of its whole history. The state terrorism used the doctrine of national security against an internment enemy and the discourse of the total protection to disappear and kill 30,000 men and women due to their ideological conventions about social justice. So in the US the OB tampon was presented as a feminist technology because of three main things. The first one is that it had to be inserted into the vagina with our own hands. Let's remember that the discourse of the women's health movement here in the US used the symbol of the speculum as a way to call for women to explore their genitalia in 70's. Second of all because they portray an androgynous woman riding a bike, running in a park, and using very, very loose clothing. And the ad [inaudible] of medicine as a figure of legitimacy that they refer to a gynecologist woman as being the creator of OB tampons. This denoted that women could be professionals as men and also that come essence of women's experience of menstrual bodies could understand better women's needs. On the contrary, in Argentina the OB tampon was presented as a feminine technology, not a feminist one. Using the discourse of women's liberation, but in a very different way. It was the first ad of a menstrual management technology that showed the inside of woman's genitalia. I don't know if you can tell right there in the left side. Let me see if I can point it with this, yeah. ^M00:56:06 ^M00:56:11 Right here this is the inside of the genitalia, woman's genitalia. But they showed that image in a very pragmatic way just to show where the tampon had to be inserted exposing that a [inaudible] about women's anatomy was needed. The clitoris of course, was omitted. This ad still used the discourse of the figure of the masculine medicine that they refer to the approval of this tampon by male gynecologists to legitimize the tampons. And the ads portrayed a sexy woman moving with no restrictions, but in the position of objects of male desire. The ad says, tampon OB of Johnson & Johnson asks the feminine protection you use would allow you to pose for this picture. In both cases that's appropriated feminism in a politicized way to promote technology that could hide more efficiently all the traces of menstruation. And something else was found in the ads of OB tampons in Argentina where the society was invented as a told you in a great and social anxiety that is reflected in these women's body's portrayal. The discourse of the feminine total protection to make reference to a bleeding that had to be hidden had a strong resonance with the one that the dictators used to legitimize the aberrations they perpetrate during what they called the dirty war to free Argentina. So what I tried to show you until now at a glance is that the feminine protection rhetoric that the so-called femcare industry used was a constant and it was transnational until our days with some twists according to specific social context where they were presented. These negative connotations about menstruation by giving a technological fix to that object and the [inaudible] menstrual body in order to allow women to maximize their productivity every day of the month. But at the same time it wouldn't be fair with the feminine care industry if we don't say that the companies also worked around the positive connotation about menstruation given its relation with the female fertility. They highlighted this aspect in the educational materials where they continued reproducing traditional narratives about gender while doing its [inaudible] on this new modern way to manage and behave, think and feel about menstruation. Let's remember here that the [inaudible] departments of the companies started their work at the 40's here in the US and around the 60's in Argentina. There are many educational pamphlets and films here in the US from the 40's, but I just found one pamphlet in Argentina produced by Johnson & Johnson at the end of the 60's. So let me show you one educational material, a memorable one is the story of menstruation that Kimberly-Clark asked Disney to produce in order to disseminate its products between the youngest. It was released in 1946. ^M00:59:40 ^M00:59:52 [ Music ] ^M01:00:14 >> Why is nature always called Mother Nature? Perhaps it's because like any mother she quietly manages so much of our living without our ever realizing there's a woman [inaudible]. You wake up with no more conscious planning than we used in [inaudible]. Mother Nature controls many of our routine bodily processes through automatic control centers called glands. The story of menstruation really begins with one particular gland it's located here at the base of the brain and it's called the pituitary gland. In our childhood years this pituitary gland concentrates on producing growth hormones. Busy little messengers which circulate through the bloodstream. They order the various bones and tissues to get growing. And as a girl grows up and [inaudible] to dolls to books that means her body is obeying the orders issued by the pituitary gland. Of course, these orders vary among different girls, some girls grow short, some tall, some heavy and some slight. But there comes a time somewhere between the ages of 11 and 17 though about 13 is average when the pituitary must turn part of its attention to maturing the body which it has grown. So it starts sending out a new type of hormone, a maturing hormone and that is when menstruation begins. When these maturing hormones start coming down through the bloodstream to the ovaries. The ovaries themselves are glands about the size of almonds. And locked within each ovary are thousands of eggs. Although these eggs are too small to be seen by the human eye any one of them has the possibility of someday becoming a human being. Near the ovaries are the fallopian tubes, short canals which lead to the uterus or womb. This hollow pear=shaped organ opens into the vagina which is part of the birth canal and is the external opening for this whole group of organs. So as you see, there is a continuous passage from each ovary through the fallopian tubes, uterus and vagina to the outside of the body. These organs function in a continuous cycle. The pituitary gland starts the process when it sends its maturing hormones down through the bloodstream to the ovaries. Now one of the ovaries passes on an order of its own the uterus. It tells the cells which make up the lining of the uterus to multiply and fill themselves with watery fluids and blood. This begins the buildup, a thickened lining of somewhat velvety material. At the same time an ovary has been maturing an ovum or egg which is magnified here so that we can see it. About once a month one of these tiny eggs passes out of the ovary and finds its way into a fallopian tube where it moves along toward the uterus. If the egg is impregnated, which happens when a woman is going to have a child, the egg will stay within the uterus. Then the thickened lining will provide nourishment for the budding human being through the early days of its development. However, most eggs pass through the fallopian tubes without being fertilized. When this happens there's no use for that potential nourishment in the buildup lining of the uterus. And so in a few days it passes from the body. This is the flow which we call menstruation. >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: And we move forward now because this is what I wanted to just to take a look, you can take a look. And now the [inaudible] towards femininity. >> Of course a girl may be irregular during the first year or so, but after that when her system has settled down into a routine, her period should always be about the same number of days apart and last about the same length of time. Try not to throw yourself off schedule by getting overtired, emotionally upset or catching cold. And if your timing goes seriously wrong or you are bothered with severe cramps or headaches, you should have a talk with your doctor. Of course, you'll want to keep a personal calendar. Mark the first day of each period and check to see that there are about the same number of days between periods. It's not only a useful record of past performance, but it comes in handy when you have to plan ahead. This calendar appears in an interesting booklet called very personally yours. This booklet has been prepared to enlarge upon what you learned from this brief film. Among other things the booklet explores that old taboo against bathing during your period. Not only can you bathe, you should bathe. Because during menstruation your perspiration glands are working overtime. Just be careful to avoid either very hot water or very cold water. In fact, it's not a good idea to anytime to shock your system with extremes anymore to let yourself get chilled or to catch cold. And as for the old taboo against exercise, that's nonsense. Exercise is good for you during menstruation. Just use common sense. When you come to think of it, most of your daily routine is on the mild side. It's going to extremes that's wrong and to be avoided. >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Look at this, look at this. >> To most girls the menstrual period should bring no severe discomfort. Some girls have a little less pep, a feeling of pressure on the lower part of the body, perhaps an occasional twinge or a touch of nerves, but don't let it get you down. After all no matter how you feel, you have to live with people. You have to live with yourself too. And once you stop feeling sorry for yourself and take those days in your stride, you'll find it easier to keep smiling and even tempered. You can do practically everything you normally do. ^M01:07:05 [ Music ] ^M01:07:11 Provided you take common sense care of yourself. Exercises to relieve cramps are illustrated in the booklet try them with the guidance of a qualified person. You may find they help. And do something about that slouch. Sloppy posture is just as bad inside as it looks outside. So stand up straight and let the organs function from the position that nature intended. One way to help them function normally is to avoid constipation. Your reproductive organs lie between the rectum and the bladder and their external opening. And constipation will disturb the relationship between these organs. So you'll find it worth your while to drink plenty of water, eat plenty of fruit and to include cereals and eggs and leafy vegetables in your diet. And incidentally, it's smart to keep looking smart. That well-groomed feeling will give you new poise and lift your morale, especially when it's backed up with year round fresh air and sunshine and plenty of rest and sleep. Because the best possible insurance against trouble on those days is healthy living every day. And that's the story. There's nothing strange nor mysterious about menstruation. All life is built on cycles and the menstrual cycle is one normal and natural part of nature's eternal plan for passing on the gift of life. ^M01:08:58 [ Music ] ^M01:09:09 >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Okay, it might be funny but this was reproduced in the majority of the educational materials with some [inaudible] of course, but until the 80's. So as Iris Marion Young pointed out before, such an insistence of the normalcy of menstruation is an indicator of its pathological consideration. But let's go back to the positive connotation of our menstruation as the one that is generalized today, the educational materials for the youngest. That was crucial to complete the normalization of the menstrual body. The positive connotation of menstruation was portrayed like this. First of all, menstruation was a sign of the welcoming to womanhood. ^M01:09:57 The traditional monism becoming a young lady or [foreign language] in Spanish helped to hide what is a gender identity construction within the [inaudible] norm as a natural derivation from the pretended abstractive reality of the body. And in the place when menstruation was explained in a scientific way from a medical perspective reproducing a gender binaries through the figure of a natural sexy body with particularly reproductive organs and hormones that allows the biological reproductive capability of female organisms. We can continue unpacking the re-inscription of traditional narratives about gender following the brilliant work of Emily Martin. On the one hand menstruation was explained using the feminine stereotype of a passive egg that slowly comes down to the encounter of the masculine stereotype of an active sperm that conquers the egg. Something really interesting in these materials produced in both countries between the 40's and the 80's is that the sperm was never seen in the imagery that they provided. On the other hand menstruation was noted as a waste and natural and [inaudible] chance to be pregnant and be a mother someday as if motherhood was the correct destiny of a woman because of her natural body. I have to say here that menstruation can also be explained within those scientific terms. For example, as a defense from the pathogens transported by the sperm. The biologist Margie Profet had a very, very interesting paper on this topic. Furthermore, the educational materials did something else, they represented an idea menstruator in introducing many other disciplinary practices towards the body apart from concealing menstruation with feminine protection products. The idea menstruator was a desirable and modern feminine young woman from the perspective of the masculine gaze and the strong presence of the mirror in these materials is a strong connotation of that gaze that was portrayed as starting to regulate the feminine existence since the menarche. So let's take just a quick look at the presence of the uterus of course embedded in this narrative about the reproductive capability of women's bodies and the mirror in some of these materials. This was published in 1952 and it had new editions in 1959 and 1961, You're a Young Lady Now. It was a pamphlet produced by Kimberly-Clark. There you can tell that the image of the mirror is a constant. In Molly Grows Up it was another film produced by Johnson & Johnson in 1953. There you have the teacher that is explaining almost the same thing that we saw in the story of menstruation about the body's menstruation related to the reproductive capability of women's bodies and then Molly in front of the mirror when she was just about to have her menarche. This is another pamphlet, It's Wonderful Being a Girl, published in 1986 produced by Johnson & Johnson, the same thing. And this is the only one material that I told you that I found in this period in Argentina it was called Learn to be a Woman, A Confidential Message are Female Teenagers. This was a pamphlet produced by Johnson & Johnson and one really interesting thing is that the imagery of the uterus and the internal part of women's genitalia is not seen in these educational materials in Argentina. So it also [inaudible] make sense with the advertisements of OB tampons that there was a [inaudible] that was still remaining in Argentina for woman, for women sorry. And there is a short, but very powerful paper on this written by a Dacia Charlesworth that applied perfectly well to characterize the idea menstruator in this educational materials. In her study of American pamphlets from 1959 to 1998 she summarized exceptionally well that the idea menstruator had to be a mother someday, had to use the proper scientific names when discussing the menstrual cycle, has to discuss menstruation with another woman and trusted adults only, but will not be confident when discussing menstruation with others. Although she doesn't feel her best she will not use menstruation as an excuse for behaving badly. She will know that menstruation should be kept in secret. She will practice using feminine protection products before the need arise. She will be willing to engage in bodily [inaudible] and she will use the various feminine protection products mentioned in the pamphlets. It's interesting because if you analyze these materials you could tell that in the US until the end of the 50's they just recommended pads for teens and by the end of the 50's they started to suggest the use of tampons for teenagers too. On the contrary in Argentina, by the end of the 60's the educational material that I found was still suggesting just the use of pads for young women. And I have to say here that the companies had a great work in trying to eliminate social and personal fears over tampons as something that could make woman loose something really valuable for our society such as virginity or they could incite masturbation. And I could add one more characteristic of the idea menstruator [inaudible] standard of how normal menstruation should be -- doesn't apply for her particular case, the idea menstruator should go to the doctor. Finally, the educational materials of the companies did one more thing, they prohibited some activities during menstruation that today seem to be ridiculous. Some were very similar as what traditional knowledge used to advise for example, not taking a bath or a cold bath or doing energetic movements. And while the decades passed by they eliminated all those prohibitions and that seemed to coincide with the moment in which the tampon became suggested for teenagers. So I tried to show you how the normalization of the menstrual body during the considerable part of the 20th century helped to maximize women's body's productivity while re-inscribing traditional gender narratives in many different levels. And as a result of these new disciplinary practice towards women's bodies not only all the traces of menstruation were concealed, but the menstrual stigma was better concealed too. So this will present a historical interest [inaudible] frame that allows to understand why this way of menstruating is currently in dispute. I would refer to this point to close my presentation because it opens new questions for further research, the pursuit to continue [inaudible] work about women's menstrual bodies to the present. And there are some new narratives around menstruation in the femcare industry of central countries and I have to say that none of this is happening in Argentina. They still maintain menstrual stigma because they are advertising pads and tampons to efficiently conceal menstruation, but they are deepening the rhetoric of women's empowerment. A couple of examples are the following. The first one an ad of Always brand, a Procter & Gamble brand for the American market shows a generational change in the experience of being a woman towards what we can call self-confidence. But menstruation you will see is never mentioned. Let's take a look, this campaign is called Like a Girl. ^M01:18:33 ^M01:18:39 >> Hi, okay so I'm just going to give you some actions to do and [inaudible] the first thing that comes to mind. Show me what it looks like to run like a girl. ^M01:18:48 [ Music ] ^M01:18:59 Show me what it looks like to fight like a girl. ^M01:19:01 [ Music ] ^M01:19:06 Now throw like a girl. ^M01:19:07 [ Music ] ^M01:19:16 >> My name is Dakota and I'm 10 years old. >> Show me what it looks like to run like a girl. ^M01:19:21 [ Music ] ^M01:19:26 Throw like a girl. Fight like a girl. What does it mean to you when I say run like a girl? >> It means run [inaudible]. >> So do you think you just insulted your sister? >> No, like yeah [inaudible] girls, but not my sister. >> Is like a girl a good thing? >> Actually I prefer [inaudible], it's a bad thing or good thing. It sounds like a bad thing, it sounds like you're trying to humiliate someone. ^M01:19:57 >> So when they're in that vulnerable time between 10 and 12 how do you think it affects when somebody uses like a girl as an insult? >> I think it definitely drops their self-confidence and really puts them down because during that time they're already trying to figure themselves out. And when somebody says you hit like a girl it's like well what does that mean because they think they're a strong person, it's kind of like telling them that they're weak and they're not as good as them. >> And what advice do you have to young girls who are told they run like a girl, hit like a girl, hit like a girl, swing like a girl? >> Keep doing it because it's working. Somebody else says that running like a girl or kicking like a girl or shooting like a girl is something that you shouldn't be doing that's their problem because if you're still scoring and you're still getting the ball all the time and you're still being first you're doing it right, it doesn't matter what they say. I mean yes, I kick like a girl and I swing like a girl and I walk like a girl and I wake up in the morning like a girl because I am a girl. And that's not something that should be ashamed of it, so I'm going to do it anyway. That's what they should do. >> If I asked you to run like a girl now would you do it differently? >> I would run like myself. ^M01:21:18 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M01:21:19 [ Music ] ^M01:21:31 >> Why can't run like a girl also [inaudible] win the race? ^M01:21:34 [ Music ] ^M01:21:38 >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Rewrite the rules. So the second one is another body form from UK and it talks about a blood that should not hold us back, but it is related with the pain and the effort of practicing a sport professionally and menstruation again is still a metaphor. ^M01:22:00 ^M01:22:07 This campaign is called blood. ^M01:22:08 [ Music ] ^M01:23:17 Live fearless. So this is what is new under the sun the femcare industry rhetoric to refer to menstruation in advertisements. But in addition new technologies of menstrual management started to have a strong presence in the market from the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. On the one hand new reusable products such as the menstrual cup or pads made of fabric that you can use, wash and reuse, the panties that include sort of a fabric pad such as [inaudible]. They pretend to break the menstrual taboo, but they are still trying to guarantee the efficiency in avoiding the leaking. So I use quotes in the word new because as you probably know, some of them are not new at all and especially the menstrual cup. Here you can see that there are many patents of menstrual cups in the 30's here in the US. These technologies are supported by discourses related to ecofeminism and some others that relate menstruation with positive, powerful, very essential connotations of women's organisms. These technologies are a real reaction to the menstrual taboo that the femcare industry perpetrated under the rhetoric of liberation not only for concealing menstruation, but also because all the unhealthy issues related with dioxins or dioxins and other toxic substances found in pads and tampons. The most renowned episode was related with the toxic shock syndrome in the late 70's here in the US, but there are still many studies in the US and Argentina that nowadays finding toxic substances in industrial pads and tampons. And just related with the unhealthy issues of pads and tampons there are also new tampons made of organic cotton and some new brands, technologies like tampons with vibrators to relieve the menstrual cramps. On the other hand other significant industry, the pharmaceutical one started to commercialize massively last generation contraceptives that suppress the menstrual cycle. They are supported by minor medical discourses that believe that menstruation is unuseful and even harmful for women's health. [Inaudible] you may know him, is one of the biggest exponents of this discourse. These contraceptive methods are advertised in the US as a convenient way to get rid of the burden of menstruation not only as a way of avoiding very important health issues related with the menstrual cycle. And from the results of my research my hypothesis is that the femcare industry helped women disidentify with the menstrual body during the past century and help the pharmaceutical industry go for a more radical solution, the menstrual suppression. On the one hand the femcare industry needs women to bleed as much as possible and on the other side the pharmaceutical industry needs women to feel blood as an inconvenience. Finally some words about the field of menstrual activism very well understood by Chris [inaudible] as a part of a third wave of feminism. Menstrual activism tends to support the reusable methods that portray menstruation as a positive experience of women's bodies. And they work to do many things, including getting menstruation out of the closet. All the social media reactions related to what I showed you at the beginning of these presentations, I mean the practice of free bleeding, the social exposure of leaking or just the disclosure that women menstruate in certain territories traditionally masculine, such as sports can be read as signs of a well-nurtured and still alive menstrual stigma. In the 21st century we can say that we made great advancements in the feminist agenda. The gender equity is still incompletely conquered, the lethal violence against women is facing them in the more privacy, genital, productive and subtle violence like the symbolic violence toward women as I described it. And the most interesting part of the story is that that violence is concealed under the look of a discourse of women's liberation or women's empowerment. So I would like to end my presentation saying that feminism is not a bad word, we need feminism which is not an anti-man movement as the media and some common sense thinking like to portray it. Feminism is a way to understand and expose social inequalities related with sex gender system in all its intersectionality with different forms of social oppressions. This is to say that if feminism is a bad word, it's an essential bad word. And we need more feminist research, but we also need to take it out of the [inaudible] of the books and the scientific events. We also need action and concrete change. So as I said, I would like to finish with the voice of [inaudible] her public answer to Instagram after they censored her image of menstrual leakage. And I'm paraphrasing Ruby Kaur as if Instagram was just a voice like any other voice of the society that thinks that symbolic violence against women is a minor issue. She said, thank you Instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique. You deleted my photo twice stating that it goes against community guidelines. I will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body under an underwear, but not be okay with a small leak when your pages are filled with countless photos and accounts where women so many who are under age are objectified, pornified and treated less than human. Thank you. Thank you so very much. ^M01:30:01 [ Applause ] ^M01:30:10 Okay. >> Megan Metcalf: Do you feel like answering questions? >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Of course. >> Megan Metcalf: Does anybody have questions they would like to ask? >> I'm proud to identify as the professor Kiran Gandhi [inaudible] in my classroom. >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Wow. >> A symbol and she's supposed to be here tomorrow night. >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Wow. >> [Inaudible] excuse me on Tuesday night [inaudible]. One of the things I notice in your excellent, outstanding presentation is how often women are scolded to make sure they are pleasant, good-tempered, in a good mood for others and we assume for men. My first reading of the image about, you know, women save men's lives I didn't know it was about the use of cellucotton. I assume that ad was that women stayed on the production lines longer because they had hygiene products and, therefore, helped win the war. I feel like almost every image comes back to managing your symptoms to make life more pleasant for men. Do you want to comment on that? >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: It's interesting because maybe it's the male gaze, it's not just men right and it's not performing on ideal femininity for men. Actually you get like not a very nice reaction when you talk with women and you say something like this. They'd say I don't dress for a man for example, some women don't like to hear that. I think that the intersection of the male gaze it's a strong cultural [inaudible] that I tried to show something related with this in this study that has sexually Foucault in the base. I don't know if I answer what -- well it's like a reflection right. Yeah, I would say something like this, it's like the male gaze surveillance. >> Yeah. >> I'm interested to know what you think about the [inaudible]. >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Oh yes, it's interesting. I think that New York is already doing that right. I think that it's great because. ^M01:32:58 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M01:33:00 Well in the 70's there was written a very nice essay about what would happen if men could menstruate from Gloria Steinem and she said that pads and tampons would be free probably between many other things. Well actually I think that it's an interesting initiative because this is one of the things that we are asked to perform, we are asked to conceal menstruation to perform an idea of femininity, so at least they should get rid of the tax from the products. So I think it's a good initiative. But it's also good to disseminate, to disseminate -- well what is happening with the toxic substances that they are still found in pads and tampons. I am not sure of how dangerous they are that I read many current papers on that. So I don't know if the industry has enough strength to hide those results of these studies. But I think that it's a good initiative, but at the same time I'm like a little bit worried about these findings. Probably the menstrual cup is the best technology, the more innocuous technology. ^M01:34:37 ^M01:34:42 Well and some other thing that I would like to add to that answer is that for example in Argentina we have a public national program of reproductive health. And we have like had big variety of contraceptives that are free for women, women from low social status. And they don't have any technology to manage menstruation and actually when we have like a natural disaster in Argentina probably here it happens the same way I am not sure, but in Argentina they don't give women menstrual management technologies. I think that it's so well hidden that they forget about women's needs. ^M01:35:28 ^M01:35:38 >> Megan Metcalf: All right, I guess that wraps this up. Thank you so much [inaudible]. >> Eugenia Tarzibachi: Thank you so much, thank you. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at LOC.gov.