See a Modess True or
False? ad in The American Girl magazine,
January 1947, and actress Carol
Lynley in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter"
booklet ad (1955) - Modess
. . . . because ads (many dates).
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Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
A man holds a Libresse menstrual napkin in an
ad
(1978, the Netherlands)
Although this ad in a Dutch
newspaper might be the first or among
the first to show a man with a
menstrual napkin, men of course have
always developed products and worked
in the menstrual products industry.
But this might be their outing.
The ad praises the male purchasers
and retailers who helped make
Mölnlycke the second-place brand
in the Netherlands, after Kotex, and
in only two years. A brave man at the
bottom of the page holds aloft one of
the company's napkins. See another Dutchman
holding a pad! And a pleased Frenchman!
Quiz:
How many American ads show men holding
pads or tampons? Zero, as far as I
know. But then the Dutch live in a
famously advanced culture.
The kind Dutchman who has sent so
many items to MUM sent these scans
and information.
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Below:
"Not all men are afraid of menstrual
pads" screams the headline in this
full-page ad in the Dutch newspaper
Volkskrant, 28 December 1978.
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Essentially, the ad praises the men
- and one woman! - who as business
purchasers and retailers helped vault
Libresse pads into second place
(behind Kotex) in the Netherlands. The
second and third paragraphs read (my
translation):
Afraid that their masculinity
would be affected, maybe? Ladies,
forgive them - menstruation is a
persistent taboo.
The oldest taboo in the world
perhaps (according to some scholars
the word taboo comes from "tapua,"
ancient Polynesian for
menstruation).
At the bottom of the ad we read:
Mølnlycke compliments the
Dutch men who without blushing buy
the right sanitary napkin.
Below:
The ad creators discussed the ad in a
Dutch magazine and reproduced this
easier-to-read version (if you read
Dutch, that is).
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Below:
The picture on the package is the same
as on the ad from the previous year.
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| See
Libresse ads
right before this time. |
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