What is breaking our young women these days? This is the question de jour, and I have seen so many thoughtful, evidence-based attempts to crack it. The pandemic. Social media. Online porn. Is it snowplow parenting? Safetyism? What about gloom and doom global prospects?
All of these plausible and credible hypotheses no doubt contribute to what’s been appropriately identified as Gen Z’s “Failure to Launch.” To each I throw in a resounding “yes, indeed!” But also, I have yet to hear any mention of a factor that perpetually nags at me. Yes, ladies. I am talking about the quiet proliferation of plastic tampon applicators. We are being gaslit big-time by our feminine suppliers, and it’s time to call it out, before I lose my mind. Which I do just about every time I have had to use one.
Think I jest? Here’s the thing. I’ve actually become a Diva Cup friend, but there remain times when that’s just not an option. This particular rant emerged from a recent example of that situation. I adore camping, even though it requires different hygene practices. Crouching over a pit toilet, I’d prefer to not accidentally birth my device into the filth, or fish it out of my lady tunnel with unclean fingers. Thus, the return to disposable products. In a recent camping grocery run at a tiny remote store, my teenaged daughters grabbed the available box of plastic applicator tampons, which became a real drag on our experience. Why?
It’s not just that I’m pissed about filling the world with yet more single-use plastics, which is obviously some bullshit. It’s about their design, and the perpetual existence of a product that isn’t fit for purpose. In my highly scientific observations, I noted that out of three inserts, only once does the the applicator successfully launch the tampon into my vag, where it pathetically languishes at the entrance, miles from where the flow needs soaking up the most. Every other attempt forces me to choose between chucking the whole tampon unused, or extricating the tamp from the applicator entirely to manually shove it up into the place where it is needed, again, with my camping-fouled fingers. Being over squeamishness by now, I opted for the second choice until the box was used up, risk of yeast infection or UTI be damned. But, I am left to wonder. WTF is a product that actually does its job one in three times, if even that? How exactly does it sell?
I’d like to propose two obvious answers: culture of silence and female inadequacy training. Oh, and also: male product engineering and insensitive marketing.
Before y’all accuse me of having some outlying post partum loose vagina, whose faulty walls are failing to appropriately grab hold of that cotton plug (see how we rush straight to victim-blaming, here?), please know that I have pushed through the wall of silence enough to learn that I am certainly not alone. Ugly stories abound. Firstly, each woman consistently precludes by darkly confessing that she’s sure she’s doing it wrong. I hear of virgin early menstrual swimmers crying alone in the bathroom sorting through, and internalizing, the confusing product failure, when all they wanted was to join the bathing-suit fun. Mothers struggling to convey encouragement about coping with monthly bleeding when they have to intervene to assist during a seminal private and anguishing moment of their daughter’s lives. I have also heard from dads panicking about being the only parent on duty in this hour of need. Fights. Tears. More inadequacy. Internalizing this isolating failure to launch.
Meanwhile, how many more boxes of tamps fly off the shelves due high failure and squeamishness-related disposal rates? Thousands of unlaunched, unused tampons, lubricated only with the tears of failure, filling our landfills and oceans. What the hell are we doing, people?
And lest some troll accuse me of hystrionics, here, I’ll take the opportunity to remind us that there is no human more primed for forging a toxic neural narrative of inadequacy and self-loathing than a pubescent person undergoing the transformation from child to woman, and all that entails. While this seemingly trivial tampon drama is playing out, mind, she is also being bombarded with a stream of programming that she’s also too fat or too assless, to short or towering, too flat or busty. Without question, her body is shameful. So, yeah. Let’s definitely add some literally hands-on genital shaming to that mix. Why not.
Please also know that there are few more fraught relationships than between the early adolescent girl-child and her mom. As she does the important developmental work of carving out her separate identify, she has to reject closeness to the one person best equipped to see her and help smooth that rocky transition into womanhood. That same shaky relationship is now burdened with pushing through her this unnecessary trauma because that shiny new box of tampons (look at all those happy, athletic, hot models selling them!) betrays her trust and needs surrounding her most embarrassing and private body part. The crack in the mother-daughter alliance forms on the brink of a super challenging journey, where maternal support is extremely valuable.
Proctor and Gamble, I need you to fucking listen up. We’ve had enough. Please maybe pretend to have an ounce of compassion about the impact of your shoddily designed, overly marketed products. How don’t you know your own goddamn market? Did you know that according to studies by the NIH and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women are on average more invested in sustainability than men? Thus, it’s fair to say that a majority of women would prefer that their shiny pearlescent tampon applicator not choke a sea turtle. We do not wish for our periods to increase a plastic pollution problem that’s already spiralling out of control. Bloomberg reported last year that due to rising costs and sustainability concerns, Diva Cups and other reusable period products are already cutting into the market share for disposable period supplies. Women are voting with their vaginas, guys, and it’s gonna hurt profits if companies cling to the status quo.
I don’t, however, expect tampons to disappear. Turns out that many women tend to be squeamish about being too hands-on with their genitals, and there is likely to remain a market for disposable applicators. So maybe lets make them effective. What the hell was wrong with cardboard applicators, anyways? Why does one have to scour the bottom shelf of the feminine products aisle to even locate them?
Sustainability aside, failure of tampons to launch has another cost. Girls and women are already fighting the tide to have a positive intimate relationship with their vaginas, especially during the messy and taboo mentstrual season. Being most vulnerable to shame and failure, young women need fewer barriers to success when pioneering their first period management experiences. With at 30% success rate, plastic tampon applicators rub salt into a raw wound (ew; sorry for that cringe pun). This struggle hits girls and their mothers hardest when they’re at their lowest. The collateral damage on the tenuous yet critical mother-daughter relationship is a straight-up dumpster fire.
It’s time for plastic tampon manufacturers to be accountable and turn it the fuck around. We demand working products, designed with the user’s physical and mental well-being in mind. Functionality over profits; starting immediately. Let’s shift the failure to launch back where it belongs; to a product that shouldn’t be able to get off the shelves due to its manufactured shortcomings.
The last thing our young women need in this time of a million drags on their self-worth is to continue to blame themselves for engineering and marketing bullshit. I think we could collectively remove this one speedbump from their road to womanhood. Ladies. Vote with your minds and pocketbooks.
OB tampons all the way.