Menstrual Products’ Industry: an imposed reality on menstruating people

Written by: Anna Colpaert

Translated by: Louise Bia

26/01/2024

“In Ethiopia, 70% of young women have never heard of period when theirs are coming”^[1]France Diplomatie. (2022, janvier). Signature du premier contrat à impact de développement français destiné à soutenir la gestion de l’hygiène menstruelle en Éthiopie. … Continue reading. A study led on 616 people in the region of Louga in Senegal reveals that “none asked people declared to have gotten information on the biological characteristics of menstruations and on hormonal changes”^[2]UN Women and WSSCC. (2014). Menstrual hygiene management: behaviour and practices in the Louga region, Senegal. … Continue reading. A report shows that in India, 22,7% of the surveyed young women in 2007 perceive their period as the result of an injury or a wound^[3]National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development. (2014). Improvement in Knowledge and Practices of Adolescent Girls Regarding Reproductive Health with Special Emphasis on Hygiene … Continue reading. These few numbers show how much of a taboo period are. It is not welcomed to talk about period pain, menstrual cycle, let appear blood through clothes or even talk about the menstrual products used.

Why such a lack of knowledge on period? Religion is one of the main cause that cultivates this taboo. In various cultures, menstruating people are put aside in practices and religious cults not to contaminate what is sacred. A buddhist practice in Nepal named “chhaupadi” goes until exiling women once a month, so they don’t share the same places as non menstruating people^[4]Amnesty International (2019). Nepal: Authorities must proactively act to eradicate the harmful practice of banishing women and girls to insanitary and dangerous huts during their menstrual cycles. … Continue reading. If that law has been abolished in 2005, the consequences of such a radical practice still struggles to fade away: menstruating people^[5]L’expression personne menstruée fait référence aux personnes qui ont leurs règles, y compris les personnes cisgenres, transgenres, non binaires et fluides keep on being taken apart and are considered to be impure or even sick.

It is complicated in any of nowadays’ societies to have an informed choice on the topic. Period can be a phenomenon that weighs daily life down: period pain (called dysmenorrhea^[6]M. Gülmezoglu, K. Khan, P. Latthe, M. Latthe & L. Say. (2006). WHO systematic review of prevalence of chronic pelvic pain: a neglected reproductive health morbidity. BMC Public Health. … Continue reading), menorrhagia (period lasting more than 7 days), pathologies (endometriosis, pelvic congestion syndrome, uterine fibroma…) or hemorrhage. The taboo around period explains why this alarming topic has not been taken in charge more seriously. Keeping period in the shade, is keeping menstruating people in the shade as well.

Of course period are a natural phenomenon and have nothing dirty or impure. However, it has been judged correct to hide them. It’s in the 19th century that the first period pads appear, made out of synthetic and industrially manufactured material to absorb blood. In the 1920s, an American company called Kotex puts in sale the first disposable sanitary pad^[7]Guien, J. (2023). Chapitre 1 – Les serviettes jetables. Une histoire de produits menstruels, Divergences, p. 26. In the end of the 1930s, tampons are ready to be sold. Unlike the external use of the pads, these protections are in contact with the inside of the intimate parts. However, the objective stays the same: absorb more blood or even hide a smell. These two inventions reinforce the idea according to which period are dirty. Moreover, disposable pads then will take the name of “sanitary pads”, leading to think a lack of hygiene for those that don’t wear any, or that they are an immediate solution to period hygiene.

Nowadays, the period industry is enormous. The market is estimated at 36.20 billion dollars in 2023^[8]Mordor Intelligence Industry Reports. (2023). Feminine Hygiene Products Market Size & Share Analysis – Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 – 2029). … Continue reading. The international company of those products prevent others to be put in the spotlight. Those protections are marketed as the best solution, or even the only solution. Reachable by everyone, easy to use, easy to get rid of. To sum up, the most fit to satisfy the needs of any menstruating consumer. However, it is not really the case. How do period products industries try to impose a modele to contest the natural phenomenon that period are at a global scale, actualizing this ancient taboo?

A solution far from being reachable by all: menstrual precarity

Period products are luxury products. In 2019, ten countries in the European Union have more than a 20% tax of those products, reaching even 27% in Hungary^[9]Fundación Ciudadana Civio. (2018). Half of the European countries levy the same VAT on sanitary towels and tampons as on tobacco, beer and wine. … Continue reading. This tax is generally reserved to luxury products, such as caviar. Even though it is decreasing thanks to a rising awareness, it imposes itself as a nom on a global scale. Giving the price of period products, how can we prevent some people from being confronted to delicate choices : prioritize food or period products?^[10]Save a Girl, Save a generation (2023) The Difficult Choice for Girls: Food or Menstrual Products. https://www.saveagirlsaveageneration.org/en/menstrual-hygiene-gender-equality-2/. Facing this dilemma is to be in menstrual precarity. According to The United Nation Population Fund, this precarity « covers the increased economical vulnerability that women and girls suffer from because of the financial weight the sanitary products have in their budget”^[11]United Nations Population Fund. (2022). Menstruation and human rights – Frequently asked questions. https://www.unfpa.org/menstruationfaq. The reality of menstrual precarity is the difficulty to deploy means to buy period products of all types.

Today, different types of mobilization exist against this precarity. For example, the NGO Action against hunger leads actions to improve water access and to sanitary facilities in public spaces at a global scale. The organization suggests as well workshops to make menstrual pads out of fabric  in a lot of countries, or the donation of products and menstrual kits. This mobilization overtakes associations and begins to reach the political sphere, even though most of the actions are far from being put in place. In 2020, Scotland is the first country to make period products free in free movement places^[12]C. Diamond (2022) Period poverty: Scotland first in world to make period products free. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51629880. At its exit of the European union, United Kingdom removes the VAT on period products^[13]Gouvernement britannique. (2024). VAT on period pants scrapped. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vat-on-period-pants-scrapped. It highlights an important problem: European Union doesn’t permit taxes on period products to be less than 5%^[14]Euronews. (2021). Period poverty: UK becomes latest country to abolish taxes on women’s sanitary products. … Continue reading. This limit prevents member states to remove taxes, even though some of them don’t even lower them to the limit and stay drastically above it.

Menstrual precarity affects approximatively 500 million people around the globe^[15]Action contre la faim (2022) When periods accentuate inequalities. https://www.actioncontrelafaim.org/en/headline/when-periods-accentuate-inequalities/. The average expenses for period products is hard to determinate but can reach until 120$ per year per person^[16] Gemano M., The Economics of Menstruation. https://www.maggiegermano.com/blog/the-economics-of-menstruation/. Why is that sum hard to calculate? Because every menstruating person has different needs: period products of different absorption in function of their flow, medicine in function of their pain, products related to menstrual hygiene in function in what they already have. It is clear that the most impacted are those who are precarious o financially dependent. Menstruating people include a large number of women who are more affected by economical poverty than men because of a minor activity or lower salary^[17]International labour organization (2018) The gender gap in employment: What’s holding women back?. https://www.ilo.org/infostories/fr-FR/Stories/Employment/barriers-women#intro. In households where men are in charge of the expenses, some are hesitant when having to buy these products because they don’t consider them as a first necessity or consider it as a taboo^[18]UN Women and WSSCC. (2014). Menstrual hygiene management: behaviour and practices in the Louga region, Senegal. … Continue reading. Having access to a regular employment and hence an income, results in being able to afford yourself this « luxury ». However, thousands of menstruating people are missing days of work during their period. Lack of protection, material for menstrual hygiene, intense pain causing sick leave… A person in menstrual precarity without a regular income can’t guarantee expenses for menstrual protections. But absenteeism at work prevents them from having it, because they don’t have the required material. How can we avoid menstrual precarity while using adapted products?

Knowing about this subject stays the best prevention against menstrual precarity. All the mobilized organisms advocate the necessity to break the taboo around period, beginning with an education on menstrual cycles. As much as sexual education at school, menstrual education could permit to slow this precarity down. Why? Scientifically explaining the causes and phenomenons around period would prevent dogmas to install. Menstruating people would approach this period differently if they learnt more about it from a young age. However, a menstruating person out of two is missing school during their menstrual cycle^[19]Plan international. (2022) Lutter contre la précarité menstruelle dans le monde. https://www.plan-international.fr/actualites/lutter-contre-la-precarite-menstruelle-dans-le-monde/. Absenteeism at school leads as well to a difficulty to find a stable job and therefore a regular income. A cycle hard to break.

In this way, how do people in menstrual precarity adapt during their period? Often, they find solutions, as menstrual protection. Using newspaper, paper, rags, fabric. According to a study, “6% of women would use paper in Nigeria, 12% would only use their underwear in Burkina Faso and 11% would use nothing in Ethiopia”^[20]UNICEF (2022) Fact sheet Menstrual health and hygiene management still out of reach for many. … Continue reading. These means permit to find an immediate solution to palliate the blood flow. However, these practices are usually causing health and menstrual hygiene problems.

An industry at the bases of unreachable sanitary norms 

Being deprived of information, of period products or protection has a direct consequence on menstruation people’s health. To mention menstrual precarity is to mention menstrual hygiene. The NGO Action against hunger defines it as having access to “period products to collect menstrual blood, as many as needed ; Safe facilities for changing in private, as often as needed ; Soap and water to wash as often as needed ; Functional facilities for using, throwing away or cleaning period products ; access to health services and comprehensive sexuality and menstrual hygiene education”^[21]Action contre la faim (2022) When periods accentuate inequalities. https://www.actioncontrelafaim.org/en/headline/when-periods-accentuate-inequalities/. This definition helps understanding that period products are a problematic among others, and send back to high public stakes that hygiene and menstrual precarity are.

The menstrual industry pretends to reduce menstrual hygiene problems. In the 1920s, when the first industrial pads and tampons enter the market, the great revolution is to be able to throw them directly after using them, without accumulating too much blood, on top of being already easy to transport. If this “technology” is easy at first, it is important to highlight that it demands additional material. To be able to throw the product, a bin is necessary. Those bins must be maintained, the content must be often emptied to be then put back to disposition. Without it, the content ends up in the toilets, risking blocking the canalisations. They also can be thrown in nature or be hidden and buried to avoid people’s eyes. If people can’t get rid of their protection, it is not good to keep them for too long for health reasons, a topic approached further in the article. This sake seems to be omitted by brands during the marketing of their merchandise.

As a matter of fact, the essential products are far from being accessible to all, beginning with sanitaries. According to the United Nations group for sustainable development, “3,6 billion people still to have access to a sewage system handled safely”^[22]A. Guterres. (2021). Toilets save lives. United Nations Sustainable Development Group. https://unsdg.un.org/fr/latest/blog/toilets-save-lives. As a recall, it is in those sanitary installations that menstruation people can change their protection in public spaces. Salutary toilets, equipped with appropriate material, such as a lock, encourage people menstruation people to move without discomfort. In a study about Menstrual Hygiene management (MHM) led in 2017 in Togo, one of the asked girls gives her opinion on sanitary facilities provided by her school: “We can change our protection at school, but the toilets are not clean and can’t be locked from the inside, we risk being surprised by a boy whereas it’s a secret”^[23]Bureau d’Ingénierie et de Services Afrique. (2017). Étude sur la Gestion de l’Hygiène Menstruelle (GHM) au Togo. … Continue reading. It is also preferable to have access to clean toilets not to be exposed to bacterias or an infection. Hygiene measures require a place to wash hands, with water and soap. As much material is necessary to ensure an adapted menstrual hygiene, missing material in many public spaces.

There is an alternative to disposable menstrual products: menstrual cloth. Whether they be under the shape of underwear, period panties or a menstrual protection at external use, such as reusable pad, it is a solution a lot of people turn to. This alternative raise however the problem of washing. The water to be boiled to wash the broth is a resource difficult to obtain. Especially as those broths have to be properly washed to avoid any risk of bacteria. The drying as well pose a problem: where to hang them discreetly? A report of UN Women about Senegal clarifies that “the material once washed is mainly hanged in humid places such as toilets, rooms, under tiles or pillows (52,1% of the responses). However, sun-drying is capital to avoid any risk of infection”^[24]UN Women and WSSCC. (2014). Menstrual hygiene management: behaviour and practices in the Louga region, Senegal. … Continue reading. But hanging under the sun is risking showing the protections. Numerous menstruation persons then decide to do differently, risking health problems. Not wanting the other’s attention to avoid the taboo around period, at the risk of harm health: unfortunately, this practice happens too often.

It would be coherent to think that menstrual industry’s mission would be to reduce these alarming problems. However, they create even more! Tampons and menstrual cups are the first causes of cases of toxic shock syndrome (TSS). This syndrome was listed for the first time in the 1970s due to the brand Procter & Gamble (P&G). This shock is due to the liberation of “Staphylococcus areus and the pyrogen toxin superantigen TSS toxin 1 (TSST-1)”^[25]P. Schlievertcorresponding et C. Davisb. (2020). Device-Associated Menstrual Toxic Shock Syndrome, National institutes of health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7254860/ (National Institutes of Health, 2020). This syndrome is mainly caused by the too long use of the products that are in contact with the internal parts^[26]Better health Chanel. Toxic shock syndrome (TSS). https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/toxic-shock-syndrome-tss and is lethal in certain cases. Nowadays, no country forces tampon brands to specify the products used on the box. The cause of TSS are not entirely established to this day by medical studies^[27]Berger, S., Kunerl, A., Wasmuth, S., Tierno, P., Wagner, K., & Brügger, J. (2019). Menstrual toxic shock syndrome: case report and systematic review of the literature. The Lancet Infectious … Continue reading.

Like tampons, disposable pads are dangerous for the consumers’ health. Period pads contain cancerous substances: “Rayon, dioxin and metallic colorant and wood paste highly transformed provoking irritation or allergy in women’s genital organs”^[28]Mordor Intelligence Industry Reports. (2023). Feminine Hygiene Products Market Size & Share Analysis – Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 – 2029). … Continue reading. The elements can seem new or shocking for some. Yet, some products that already caused the most critical cases are style in the market. A range of pads from the brand Always^[29]Always, marque vendant des produits menstruels industriels. https://www.always.com/en-us irritated dangerously the vulva of some patients at the end of the 1990s^[30]E. L Eason. (1996). Contact dermatitis associated with the use of always sanitary napkins, Canadian Medical Association. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1487684/pdf/cmaj00092-0043.pdf have been found in free movement in Kenya in 2019^[31]J. Guien (2023). Chapitre 2 – Les tampons jetables. Une histoire de produits menstruels, Divergences. These products need medical care to palliate the health problems they are causing. Besides the knowledge of the danger of this product by the specialists at the origin of these studies, the menstrual industry keeps on increasing.

The local production against the gigantic menstrual industry

The history of menstrual industry is a story about an industry that managed to prevail thanks to a taboo that concerns half of the global population. “The size of the feminine hygiene market is estimated at 36,20 billion USD in 2023 and should reach 45,78 billion USD from now until 2028″^[32]Mordor Intelligence Industry Reports. (2023). Feminine Hygiene Products Market Size & Share Analysis – Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 – 2029). … Continue reading. The market is not negligible nowadays. It is mainly dominated by the brands Porter & Gamble, Unicharm Corporation, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Johnson Johnson et The Edgewell Personal Care Company^[33]Mordor Intelligence Industry Reports. (2023). Feminine Hygiene Products Market Size & Share Analysis – Growth Trends & Forecasts (2024 – 2029). … Continue reading. Out of these five brands, four are from the US. These American brands will naturally offer products adapted to the occidental countries’ sanitary norms.

If menstrual industry offers solutions, it also raises problems. For all that, how can it still be appealing? Thanks to the “technologies” they feature. In A story about menstrual products (Une histoire de produits menstruels in French), Jeanne Guien (doctor in philosophy) points out how menstrual protection brands use the taboo around period to amplify their influence. The innovations relate to the same problematic: hide the existence of period better. The first innovation in the 1920s applied to the “disposable” products. Adding then the aesthetic and olfactory attributes. In the pads, added chlorine and perfume so they always stay white and have “technologies” such as applicators, prevent the menstruation person to enter in direct contact with the vulva that period got “dirty”. Pads are made more and more invisible to dissimulate being worn, while staying thick to absorb as much blood as possible. All those innovations aim to absorb more blood, staying invisible. Recently, the most striking “technology” is the menstrual cloth such as period panties or reusable pads. However, there is nothing new in this solution that existed way before mass menstrual products. Kotex was even selling kits to make your own pads in the beginning^[34]J. Guien (2023). Chapitre 2 – Les tampons jetables. Une histoire de produits menstruels, Divergences. These marketing ploys still feel more like selling strategies than means to ease their consumers’ life.

These technologies could indeed have harmful effects on physical health. Endocrine disruptors are “chemical substances likely to interfere with the hormonal system and hence product harmful effets for the human body”^[35]European Commission. Endocrine disruptors. https://sante.gouv.fr/sante-et-environnement/risques-microbiologiques-physiques-et-chimiques/article/perturbateurs-endocrinien (European Commission). An article of United States National Library of Medicine published in 2020 indicates the toxic effects: “Feminine hygiene products […] can be a source of exposure to plasticizers and antimicrobial agents in women”^[36]C.-J. Gao 1, K. Kannan. (2020). Phthalates, bisphenols, parabens, and triclocarban in feminine hygiene products from the United States and their implications for human exposure. United States … Continue reading. These disruptors can be at the origin of hormonal malfunction and contain cancerous substances. Why putting such substances? They can be found for example in chlorine, which permits to keep the pads and tampons white, or even in the substances found in the ink and perfume, so the products smell good. Certain brands try to differ maintaining that their products are more sain, but the used products are not any less toxic: “even if they are “bio”, [they] use glue and other additives in their production”^[37]Perturbateurs Endocriniens.com. Des substances toxiques cachées dans les tampons et serviettes hygiéniques. … Continue reading. These “technologies” put in place by the industry are in fact a successive use of toxic substances that permit to sell more menstrual protections, but dangerous for every person using them.

The consumers try to express themselves in different ways on what they are risking. In Europe for example, petitions have been signed to draw attention of the European Union. In 2000, the European Union’s answers: “The topic of tampons containing genetically modified cotton is not linked to the toxic shock syndrome so has not been included in the discussions between the Commission and EDANA on the practical code”^[38]Législation de l’Union européenne. (2000). Written Question E-3483/00 by Heidi Hautala (Verts/ALE) to the Commission. Code of conduct on the use of menstrual tampons. … Continue reading (Législation européenne, 2000). It decided then not to take any further measure and give the impression, to put this problematic aside. Sixteen years later, the question takes bigger proportions, but the Union publishes: “There exist nowadays no European law concerning tampons”^[39]Parlement européen. (2016). Answer given by Ms Jourová on behalf of the Commission. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2015-013116-ASW_EN.html (European Parliament, 2016). It is the state members’ responsibility to calculate the risks of these products. The Union highlights as well that the menstrual products brands must be held accountable to put these products up for sale, but stresses that this “directive doesn’t obligate the producers to divulge the list of components or the product ingredients” (European Parliament, 2016). Without further regulations, it is difficult to imagine that the brands won’t use these components to sell their products. Evidently, Europeans are not satisfied with this answer. In 2021, the European manifest “Bloody Manifesto”^[40]The Bloody Manifesto. https://zerowasteeurope.eu/library/the-bloody-manifesto/ demands to the state members to considerably lower their taxes on menstrual products and control better the harmful products of the components^[41]L. Copello. (2021). The European Parliament calls on health, social and environmental justice for menstruators by supporting safe, fair, and sustainable menstrual products for all, Zero Waste Europe. … Continue reading. A clear improvement is detected. However, if the European Union encourages the state members to pay attention, no measure has been taken to impose these decisions.

How to get different menstrual products? Otherwise, than those providing by these industrial brands that don’t satisfy the consumers’ needs? Make production local is a first step to permit menstruation people to reclaim the menstrual products stakes. Nationalization permits to lower the prices for example. Menstrual protections are a luxury product for two main reasons: they are imported from abroad and the companies make benefit from the taxes. Producing at a local scale would contribute to make the price more affordable, reducing transport taxes and encouraging state help. For example, the “pad project” launched in 2013 has made and distributed “pad machines”, machines that manufacture up to 43 000 pads in one year. This project distributed 12 machines in five countries (Afghanistan, India, Kenya, Nepal and Sri Lanka) et permitted the employment of 87 local women in the process^[42]The Pad project. https://thepadproject.org/. These machines permitted people that made the pads to sell them directly to local people, with distinctly lower prices than the products sold at the supermarket. 

But why nowadays the consumers must adapt to menstrual protections and not the other way around? Because the targeting of these brands, mainly from the United States, is not appropriate. Producing menstrual protections at a local scale would permit to have power on the quality. It’s a way to avoid “technologies” and adjust the products to menstruating people. Moreover, it is by controlling chemical products that health problems are avoided. By producing protections locally, those companies can try to adapt to sanitary norms, especially by offering adequate solutions to common material. It is by adapting to the consumers that menstrual health and hygiene will drastically decrease.

Finally, producing menstrual protections locally permits to include menstruating people in the production process. Menstruating people are in measure to obtain more adapted products according to their needs and deny products they don’t want. In the short-film “Period, our freedom” that takes place in India, women launched the “Pad Project”^[43]R. Zehtabchi (2018). Period, end of sentence [court-métrage] initiative in 2013. This operation seeks to commit menstruating people directly in the commercial process, permitting them to earn a salary from selling, they produce locally pads and hand them to local commerce or at home^[44]M. Vo (2020). Journée mondiale de l’hygiène menstruelle : en Inde, le tabou des règles renforce les inégalités femmes-hommes. Institut du genre en géopolitique. https://igg-geo.org/?p=1092. In Bangladesh, the project “water, sanitation and hygiene in the rural environment for the human capital development”^[45]The World Bank. (2022). Policy Reforms For Dignity, Equality, and Menstrual Health. https://www.banquemondiale.org/fr/news/feature/2022/05/25/policy-reforms-for-dignity-equality-and-menstrual-health launched in 2021 is also about a similar mission. The objective is help financially local companies of production and sale of menstrual protections at home. This operation seeks to make menstruation people autonomous and “suppress the social stigmatization around period  that prevent some women to buy hygiene products in public”^[46]The World Bank. (2022). Policy Reforms For Dignity, Equality, and Menstrual Health. https://www.banquemondiale.org/fr/news/feature/2022/05/25/policy-reforms-for-dignity-equality-and-menstrual-health. When products are imported from a big American company, it is hard to inquire. Whereas locally, menstruating people buy directly from manufacturer and can inquire. It is a mean to get information on menstrual hygiene without passing by schools.

Break the taboo around period to be able to chose menstrual products

How can an industry at the origin of so many problematics have such a place nowadays? No real innovation had been offered on the menstrual protection market since the time of Kotex (in the 1920s). Without paying more attention, a whole side of public health, about menstrual precarity and hygiene, is neglected.

Menstrual precarity and hygiene are public health problematics. States have a responsibility to meet concerned people’s needs. Decrease or even remove taxes on menstrual products, free distribution of these products in public spaces, formations about menstruation periods but as well as what is around it: good habits to take during period, effects and causes of menstrual cycle on physical and psychological health or even the evolution of period until menopause… What do governments do to keep menstruating people informed and answer to their needs if the menstrual products industry doesn’t do it? European Union imposes to state members to teach about everything that is linked to menstrual cycles as early as possible and “call countries to ensure adequate water and sanitation services in schools”^[47]World Health Organization (2023) Schools ensuring education on menstrual health along with adequate hygiene facilities is key for health and equal learning opportunities. … Continue reading (World Health Organization, 2023). A similar plan has already been put in place in Southern Asia, where we notice progress since 2018 in implementation of efficient programs in terms of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in schools”^[48]WaterAid. (2021). La gestion de l’hygiène menstruelle dans les écoles en Asie du Sud – 2021. … Continue reading (WaterAid, 2021). In the African region, projets such as the “Initiative for health and reproduction”^[49]Féministes en action. (2016). Initiative pour la santé et la reproduction. https://feminaction.fr/en/csos/isr/ seeks to give precise formations to about ten women, in order to be considered as “referees” and make menstrual products to be distributed locally. Actions begun to be put in place. Sates must keep on treating this subject as a major public health problematic to accompany menstruating people.

What solutions for menstruating people? The best solution still must be invented. However, the most important is to apport clarification about this topic by teaching about it without outside of school curriculum, including it in societal discussions. As long as this topic is not demystified, it is impossible to bring the light all the questions that it brings: ending with the idea that period is dirty. It is important to bring light on this topic, not only for menstruation persons, but also for those who don’t. Nowadays, concerned people are not enough involved in the process of production or development of these products. They would clearly need a full access without difficulty, but if this is not guaranteed, it must be ensured that menstruation people at the head of this industry realize the stakes. The five brands owning the market, namely Procter and Gamble, Unicharm Corporation, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Johnson Johnson and The Edgewell Personal Care Company all have as a CEO a man. If this doesn’t mean that these companies exclude menstruating people’s opinion in the production of protections, it would be reassuring to have at least a woman at the head of these giant companies of the so called “women products”. To make menstruating people’s stakes accessible, it must be ensured that companies make an effort on getting information about all the aspects of the problematics that these people suffer from to be able to consequently adapt their products.

Added to the fact of asking menstruating people not to talk about their cycle, they are now asked not to talk about their menstrual pain. Pain is a integral part of period for a lot of people. Jeanne Guien highlights in her book A story about menstrual products (Une histoire de produits menstruels) that this minimization of pain is exploited by brands^[50]J. Guien (2023) Une histoire de produits menstruels, Divergences. The author highlights to what extend ads and brands of protection have influenced the relationship people have with period. In 1981, Tampax led a study and “22% thought menstrual pain had rather psychological causes than physical ones”^[51]J. Guien (2023) Une histoire de produits menstruels, Divergences. Period pain doesn’t depend on the mood of the person menstruating. This type of speech puts the blame on the concerned people and spread more important problematics: finding medical solutions or a more profound support for pain or pathologies caused by menstruation. Freeing the speech around period is to re-establish speech about bodies and permit menstruating people to freely dispose of them.