A brief history of the development of sanitary napkins in China: an unforgettable history for women

A brief history of the development of sanitary napkins in China: an unforgettable history for women

Men act as bystanders and ignore or comment on women's menstrual products. Similarly, some women become indifferent bystanders and ignore or comment on the problems of another group of women.

Nearly 40 years after sanitary napkins were introduced into China, this necessity that accompanies nearly 700 million Chinese women for half their lives and is used in their private parts has finally received the attention it deserves in the public opinion field.

When sanitary napkins costing 20 cents per piece exploded on social networks, mainstream Internet users holding Apples and drinking Starbucks glimpsed another world - because "life is difficult" and "I have difficulties", even if this product is used in private parts and even if it is a "three-no product", some women dare to "buy it randomly".

As a sanitary necessity that women have been using for half their lives, is sanitary napkins a health issue, a cultural issue, or an economic issue? In this era, we still have not found the answer.

A very brief history

In China, sanitary napkins as a commodity first appeared in the 1980s. In a local gazetteer called "Yuhang Paper Mill Chronicles", there is a brief record of this history: "In October 1981, the construction of the women's sanitary napkin factory started."

In 1982, China introduced a sanitary napkin production line from Japan.

This is the earliest record of sanitary napkins in China. That was China in the 1980s. People were on the road of reform and opening up, and new technologies, new ideas and new lifestyles were pouring into people's lives. Since then, sanitary napkin production lines have also developed in other parts of the country.

But sanitary napkins are still sanitary products that only a small number of women can use. I interviewed a female worker who worked in a factory in the early 1980s. When her husband came back from a business trip and bought her the first pack of sanitary napkins in her life, she thought it was too convenient, but she only dared to use it on the second day of her period when she had a lot of menstrual flow.

Female workers were one of the first people in China to use sanitary napkins. After having sanitary napkins, they can contribute to production on the assembly line more efficiently and for a long time.

In 1985, Xu Lianjie, a native of Fujian, founded Hengan Group. It was the sanitary napkin production equipment from Hong Kong that inspired Xu Lianjie. In a later interview, Xu Lianjie said that he heard that Hong Kong women all use sanitary napkins, but his wife had never seen what sanitary napkins were. But when he saw the sanitary napkin production equipment, he also said another sentence: "It's going to rain a lot of money." His sanitary napkins are called "Anle" sanitary napkins, which means "safe and happy." Xu Lianjie competed with several state-owned sanitary napkin companies. Because all raw materials had to be imported and there was no foreign exchange quota, the price of "Anle" sanitary napkins was 20 cents more expensive than the sanitary napkins of state-owned enterprises. Xu Lianjie took male salesmen to various stores, but no one was willing to put this thing next to the food shelves. Anle sanitary napkins could not be sold at all. In 1986, Xu Lianjie's market awareness made him decide to gamble heavily. He bought the advertisement in the popular TV series "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea". Advertising is like a catalyst for this industry. Those hidden and unspoken needs suddenly broke out. Although this is the case, in 1990, the annual sales volume of the entire sanitary napkin market was only 2 billion pieces, which means that in China, the number of sanitary napkins consumed by each eligible woman in a year is only in the single digit. The actual situation may mean that, except for a very small number of wealthy families, most women do not have the conditions to use sanitary napkins.

It was also during this period that foreign sanitary napkin brands began to enter China and started fierce competition. Foreign companies also brought their values to China. In sanitary napkin advertisements during that period, women could spend a comfortable and confident menstrual period because of such a product. Even in these days that were previously considered taboo or unclean, women could still have feminine charm.

By 1999, China's annual sales of sanitary napkins reached 30 billion, and half of Chinese women used sanitary napkins.

The development of sanitary products has indeed changed women's lives. From toilet paper to sanitary napkins to tampons, the problem of side leakage has been solved, the problem of not being able to work during menstruation has been solved, and women have convenience and autonomy.

It is difficult to say clearly what force has allowed Chinese women to enjoy this modern industrial achievement. As one of the new lifestyles, it is difficult for us to distinguish to what extent sanitary napkins are based on the development of the industry itself and to what extent they are based on the emphasis and satisfaction of women's needs, but history has developed in this way.

Speechless women

A strange thing is that in China, whether it is from the production, sales, or promotion of sanitary napkins, there are few women behind the powerful promoters, and women themselves seem to only appear in the user link.

Similar stories also happen around the world.

The world's first disposable sanitary napkin was born in the American Kotex Company in 1920. On Kotex's official website, there is a photo of four male founders sitting on chairs, with Kotex sanitary napkin product boxes piled up next to them.

In 1929, a male doctor named Haas invented the prototype of tampons.

In the movie "Indian Partner", the male protagonist, as a husband, took on the entire business of designing, producing, promoting and selling sanitary napkins, and finally sanitary napkins allowed him to step onto the stage of the United Nations.

This sounds like a typical story of the industrial age. It has to be said that these industrial products made by men have liberated women. In this process, men still have to express their opinions on this product, and these opinions have become part of the history of sanitary napkins.

In the United States, male doctors were the first experts to guide menstruation. They taught young girls how to adapt to society during menstruation, and the method they gave was to keep clean and low-key. From this perspective, menstruation is undoubtedly a "hygiene crisis", and you have to be low-key, cautious and safe.

The conservative medical community once worried that sanitary napkins would rub against the female clitoris and stimulate female sexual desire, but tampons were worrying, which might change women's concept of their vagina.

In 1985, a very radical advertisement appeared on the Chinese market - ob tampons. When people didn't know what sanitary napkins were, tampons that were to be placed in the body were really shocking to the Chinese.

In the advertisement, a woman in a skirt sat on a swing, her hair fluttering with the swing, and the eye-catching text next to it read: "Bring me comfort and confidence."

The person who made this advertisement was Mr. Ren Xiaoqing, who had just returned from Japan to study marketing. Marketing and China at that time did not have much connection. When Ren Xiaoqing was bored, someone told him that there were a lot of ob tampons in the factory. He took this little gadget that Johnson & Johnson cooperated with Beijing National Cotton No. 3 Factory back to the company. His colleagues in the advertising industry looked at him with strange eyes. Such an advertisement undoubtedly fell into the category of "pornography, gambling and drugs".

Ren Xiaoqing felt that this advertisement might have appeared 30 years earlier. Its biggest feature was that it created a kind of opposition with society. When making this advertisement, he ran into obstacles everywhere, and even the female model he found in the end was a Japanese.

In today's China, only 2% of women still use tampons, but at that time, there was a big wave of enthusiasm. After Ren Xiaoqing's advertisement came out, consumers held advertising brochures and listened to the explanations of women's health experts on TV, and lined up in front of the ob tampons counter.

In the 1980s, more than 80% of women in the United States used tampons, which greatly changed the menstrual life of women.

Swimmer Fu Yuanhui surprised the public when she mentioned that she was on her period during a competition. “Is it possible to swim when you are on your period?” This is all thanks to tampons. In the past, some female athletes would take birth control pills before a competition to change their periods.

But even now, tampons still seem to be a radical female product in China. On Zhihu, there are still men asking, “My girlfriend uses tampons. Should I break up with her?”

From taboo symbols to beautiful products

One of the benefits of China as the world’s factory is that by 2016, the coverage rate of sanitary napkins for Chinese women had exceeded 96%, reaching the level of developed countries.

In today’s China, sanitary napkins are even fashionable, although this fashion still carries a certain sense of concealment.

A dazzling array of sanitary napkins are displayed on supermarket shelves, and at the same time, what is presented to urban women is the issue of new lifestyles and self-identity, the difference between ordinary sanitary napkins and liquid sanitary napkins, the difference between liquid sanitary napkins and tampons, and more avant-garde, the difference between tampons and short-term contraceptives.

For a long time, the public opinion field has constructed sanitary napkins for women in a distorted way.

It was taboo and filthy in the early years. In the discourse field of China in the 1990s, if you talk about women's health care, no one would mention the relationship between menstruation and hygiene. People would talk about the relationship between sex life, vaginal hygiene (vaginal washing liquid), and the location of underwear drying and women's hygiene, but no one ever mentioned menstruation or sanitary napkins. It is still placed in a hidden corner with its original sense of shame.

At the moment when the commodity market is unprecedentedly prosperous, sanitary napkins are consumed as a commercial symbol. When you choose a fashionable and expensive liquid sanitary napkin, you are an independent representative of contemporary women. This is the story that brands like.

In a country where 600 million people have a monthly income of only about 1,000 yuan, can sanitary napkins only exist as beautiful commodities? Whose products are sanitary napkins?

When we discuss the topic of sanitary napkins, it is rare to see it as a topic of women's rights outside of taboos and commodities.

When the topic of "20 cents per piece of bulk sanitary napkins" exploded on social media, some people realized that the sanitary napkins we discussed before as commodities are a heavy burden for some women. Bulk sanitary napkins at 20 cents per piece are transported to towns and villages through postal services, accompanying these women through more than 2,000 days of menstruation in their lives.

However, the discussion about sanitary napkins as a female right that needs attention is mostly torn and ineffective: Is there really anyone who can't afford sanitary napkins? Are sanitary napkins still an economic burden for Chinese families today? Are men qualified to participate in the discussion of sanitary napkins? Will the tax exemption of sanitary napkins make it cheaper for capitalists?

Men, as bystanders, ignore or comment on women's physiological products. Similarly, some women also become other indifferent bystanders, ignoring or commenting on the problems of another group of women.

In other corners of the world, in 1983, Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in the United States, flew into space with a tampon; even in poor countries, calls for duty-free or even free sanitary napkins and even campaigns have been in full swing - as early as 2004, Kenya abolished the sales tax on female sanitary products.

Correspondingly, during the Wenchuan earthquake, women's demand for sanitary products was put last; in the early days of Wuhan's fight against the epidemic, we did not quickly pay attention to the needs of female medical staff. When netizens began to donate sanitary products to female medical staff in Wuhan, some people wondered: "People's lives can't be saved, and they still care about your crotch?"; A TV station interviewed a female nurse who participated in the epidemic prevention and control in Wuhan and said that the nurse said she was in her menstrual period at the time, and the TV program deleted the "menstrual period" when it was replayed.

It is a problem of the consumer market, a problem of cultural customs, a problem of intimacy, and even a political problem, but it is never a problem of women themselves. Sometimes she is a problem for some women, but not for all women.