An Adventure in New Zealand, a Product Warning and a History Lesson About Amazing Women
You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!
Product safety warnings go unheeded and pretty much ruin my day
January 1984. It was a gorgeous summer day Down Under. I was staying with distant cousins in a tiny suburb in the high hills of Wellington, at the base of North Island. Wellington sprawls through hills and valleys, a friendly city with much to love.
An aunt of mine had done the research on the family tree and discovered that we had relatives all over this tiny island nation.
I’d thrown a backpack on my back, took advantage of my United miles and headed over.
I was staying at their house, a lovely cottage nestled at the top of a hill and surrounded by acres of flowers, when I lost a tooth. Since dental care was expensive, I decided to take a job cleaning motel rooms at the base of the small mountain where my cousins lived.
It’s illegal for visitors to work. Many backpackers do it anyway to help subsidize their trips. The little hotel was only too happy to get another set of cheap hands, so I was hired.
On the day I was to start, I was running late. It was a long walk to the base of that hill, so I was in a hurry.
This next bit is for primarily for us women only, you will understand. The guys are welcome to read along and laugh. If this discussion makes you uncomfortable, remember two things:
If we didn’t bleed you wouldn’t be here.
And because we bleed, we suffer unbelievable indignities and abuses for it.
Just saying.
Let’s talk:
Panty liners.
A little history for the uninformed. The panty liner is an outgrowth from menstrual pads, which have a long and fascinating history. The first mention of anything having to do with products for menstrual flow begins with the extraordinary Hypatia.
Hypatia was a philosopher, mathematician, teacher and inventor in Alexandria, Egypt. She lived from 350–370 CE to 415 C.E. and was a brilliant woman, widely respected, renowned not only for her brilliance but also her beauty.
From Wikipedia:
The Christian historian Socrates of Constantinople, a contemporary of Hypatia, describes her in his Ecclesiastical History:[21]
There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.[33]
Apparently she also had an annoying admirer, at whom she threw used menstrual pads (such as they were back then) at him until he got the message.
Hypatia came to an abrupt and brutal end, not because she flung bloody menstrual rags at suitors, but likely because she was too smart for her own good. When political winds shifted with the deaths of key figures whose support she enjoyed, radical Christians beat her to death.
You have to wonder if the jilted lover was behind that particular beating. Who knows, right?
Not much has changed. Those radical Christians who believe in love love love, just love beating women to death for being smart, educated, and in many cases, a helluva lot smarter than they are. Her history is worth reading if for no other reason than to better understand how certain factions, especially religious ones, despise female geniuses.
But I digress.
We women have suffered through every kind of material to stem the flow, from papyrus leaves to weeds to wood. That sounds comfy. Eventually wool, flax and silk would be shaped into pads, then cotton, and finally pads, which made life a little less itchy and messy. Centuries of this, mind you.
Pads would eventually be revolutionized by a Black inventor who couldn’t get a patent for her invention of the sanitary pad belt for one reason: her race. Belts were terribly important in changing the battle we women had with pads that slipped around.
In case you don’t know this history, are old enough to remember wearing sanitary belts, let me introduce another inventive genius in Mary Kenner:
By 1957 Kenner had saved enough money to her first ever patent: a belt for sanitary napkins. It was long before the advent of disposable pads, and women were still using cloth pads and rags during their period. Kenner proposed an adjustable belt with an inbuilt, moisture-proof napkin pocket, making it less likely that menstrual blood could leak and stain clothes.
“One day I was contacted by a company that expressed an interest in marketing my idea. I was so jubilant,” she said. “I saw houses, cars, and everything about to come my way.” A company rep drove to Kenner’s house in Washington to meet with their prospective client. “Sorry to say, when they found out I was black, their interest dropped. The representative went back to New York and informed me the company was no longer interested.”
Kenner also invented an adhesive for the pad to stick to clothing. The belt would be in wide use until the 1980s, when all sorts of other products flooded the market to stem the flood, as it were.
Among them was the thin sanitary pad, now available for all kinds of flows, including everyday non-menstrual flow. I can’t recall why I started wearing them, only that some advertisement convinced me that I should.
Truth, we shouldn’t for all kinds of reasons, but that doesn’t stop people from creating all manner of idiot products which prey on our fears that we don’t smell like strawberries and lilies all the time.
If we’re embarrassed about “down there,” then a scented pad makes perfect sense, except it doesn’t. If Nature intended for us to wear a pad every damned day most likely She would have changed our design so we wouldn’t need one.
Now I can get back to the story. Damn, long segue. But interesting, still.
So I was running late on this gorgeous, sunny summer day in a suburb of Wellington. I sped through dressing, slapped a thin sanitary pad in my panties and hurtled out the door, speed-walking the blocks to my new job.
It didn’t take long before every step hurt like hell.
I was being pinched and pulled so badly with each step that tears were running down my cheeks.
Finally I limped back to my cousin’s house to figure out the source of my agony.
There, I dropped my trou only to discover that I’d slapped my thin pad onto my panties blue side up, not down. The powerful adhesive intended for my cotton undies was now engaged in a death grip with my girl parts.
If you’ve ever gotten your fingers stuck to fly paper, you know what I was dealing with. This stuff was not designed to release anything it touched. EVER.
You only do this once.
There was a product warning. Of course there was.
On the side of the box in big letters: BLUE SIDE DOWN.
If you’re like me, you read the instructions after things go haywire.
I was hard-pressed to explain to the hotel manager that I had spent the better part of a painful hour coaxing pubic hairs off a determinedly sticky sanitary pad, so I made up something equally stupid and got canned.
At least I got a laugh out of the experience.
And a history lesson about brilliant, amazing women who were killed or ignored for being brilliant and brilliant and Black.
I set out to tell a funny story at my expense and ended up telling that story and revealing a bit of history about remarkable women.
Because of remarkable women we wouldn’t be where we are today. I’m paying respects to two of them.
Remarkable women help us play.
This is just one reason I love being a writer: we get to investigate, reveal and entertain as well as educate. If this was fun for you, please consider supporting my work
If you know someone who might enjoy this story, please also consider
Either way, let’s remember that there are so many inventions we take for granted that were created by women, Black women, Indian women, Hispanic women, Asian women, the like, and we hardly know it. I love elevating these stories as it reminds me how grand it is to be female.
As always Julia I sit in admiration. I recently searched “Anne of Green Gables” as a friend was watching “Anne with an E” on Netflix. The original Anne had been sent by mistake to a brother and sister requesting male help from a local orphanage. Grateful for any help, there was no return to sender.
How does this have any bearing on your current essay? Anne from the original seven books was clever, energetic, and enthusiastic. When the brother died Anne doubled down in her efforts. A heartwarming tale, right? As this story came under consideration for a modern re-telling it was decided Anne suffered from ADHD (all her energetic behavior couldn’t be normal). Then they determined Anne was a lesbian (because she slept with the sister during brutal weather on Prince Edward Island, the original setting for the books). All that to portray Anns in a modern, updated manner. Weaken the central character because female.
So I just have to guess you have ADHD based of your urge to adventure all over the world, evidenced by today’s essay circumstances. I say that facetiously yet see how suppression of and interference with women’s “freedom of choice” is being rekindled around the world.
Thanks for your excellent essay to draw attention to the brutal discrimination and prejudice women of color have long endured. No true let up in sight. Time to denounce and call out the Project 2025 supporters. And to vote.
FASCINATING history (if also disheartening: racism had its way again, dammit). As for the adhesive on sanitary pads, they've at least gotten a bit less fierce than they used to be. I remember a day in college when I was having coffee with the guy I was just beginning to date. When it was time to head to class, I stood up suddenly and almost doubled over with a sudden stab of pain: my pad, correctly applied I might add, had somehow attached itself to a pubic hair that was in a particularly sensitive spot and was yanking on it in such as way as to make me happily spill state secrets. Somehow I kept from shrieking aloud and hobbled off to class, thinking perhaps there was a hornet in my pants, and leaving my boyfriend rather puzzled.