Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Menstrual Pads

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedian/podcaster Negin Farsad (‘Fake The Nation’ podcast, ‘Birdgirl’ on Adult Swim) and comedy writer Hana Michels (Reductress, The Devastator) for a look at why menstrual pads are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Hey folks, you're about to hear episode 95 of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. Holy cow, we are approaching episode 100, and I'm running a membership drive to celebrate that milestone. And because it's episode 95, because we've been doing this membership drive for a few weeks, I want to say a heartfelt thank you. I really, really appreciate how many new people signed up, have started back in the show, have said, yeah, this is the time. This is when I'm going to take the plunge.

This is when I am going to support a podcast that I think is worth supporting. That's me doing your voice. And I'm very thankful to you for your voice saying that thing to me. On top of that, we just hit the first next goal for the drive, which is for me to do a fun workshop on how to win a game show. I won Jeopardy four times. Do people know that? Not everyone does. I think I might have some advice if you want to do that. I also think it would just be a fun hang. It's just interesting to hear about Jeopardy, I feel and I find. So very excited to put that workshop together, and there's information on the next goals for the membership drive over at sifpod.fun. There are a lot of other things I'd love to do with this podcast. Your support

can make that possible. Anyway, that's the plug. We're still driving to 100. And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy episode 95. Menstrual pads. Known for being products. Famous for periods. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why menstrual pads are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Two wonderful returning guests this week. I'm joined by Nagin Farsad and Hannah Michaels. Nagin hosts a wonderful podcast. It's called Fake the Nation. It's over on the HeadGum Network, which is very good. And the show is a comedy podcast breaking down the latest political news

with amazing comedy guests joining in and politics guests and everything in between. You also may remember Nagin from the episode of this show about triangles, and you may remember Hannah Michaels from the episode of this show about the Legend of Zelda franchise. Hannah is an amazing comedy writer in her own right. She has work at Bunny Ears, The Devastator, Reductress, lots more great places. Also going to link her Etsy store because she does wonderful, very fun and funny craft work. And Hana's an old pal, one of my favorite guests all over podcasting. I'm so glad she and Nagin are here. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca

to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples, to acknowledge Nagin recorded this on the traditional land of the Lenape people, acknowledge Hana recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielina-Wartongva and Keech and Chumash peoples, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and today's episode is about menstrual pads. Menstrual pads are the number one patron chosen topic for the month of May, and many thanks to Alyssa Brown for that fantastic suggestion. Also, Alyssa's suggestion was framed in a cool way. She suggested menstrual pads slash period products. And I think that's the show you're going to get. I decided to focus on menstrual pads

because there is just so much there on its own. And then, of course, we talk about other period products as we cover that. And then the only other things to say about this topic, I think, are context setting things and context addressing things. This topic was voted on and chosen by patrons in April. So in May, when there was a leak of a Supreme Court decision, and more importantly, there was news that the Supreme Court is going to strip many years of precedent and abortion protections from women in America, this topic was selected before any of that was news. I think patrons are just excited to hear about it in general. This topic was selected before any of that was news. I think patrons are just excited to hear about it in general. And with all that established, please

sit back or hike up your hidden elastic belt, because you are a woman listening to this as recently as the early 1970s. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Nagin Farsad and Hannah Michaels. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Nagin, Hannah, it is so good to have you both back on. And, of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start. But how do you feel about menstrual pads?

What a topic. Thank you, Alyssa Brown. Thank you. I mean, we're really getting into it. Lots of feelings. Lots of. They were my first introduction to womanhood, if's something yeah that is mine too um oh yeah that's everything that's great yeah there's a period of time in which tampons are too scary

sometimes overnight tampons are a little iffy yeah um technology could definitely be improved. Uh, but just like, it's like a, it's like a good, it's a starter. It's a starter product for, for the young ladies who are experiencing their menstruation for the first time, for sure. And then in some countries, like they don't use tampons at all. Like in some countries, like pads are the game, the only game. Um, and i say that with very little authority because i just feel like i've seen that but i'm not sure if that's totally true that's same i feel like i've seen that as well and i think it also depends on like

what is what's the fashion like you know what what wardrobe do you have? Um, is it, you know, is it going to be tight pants? Cause if not pads are great. Unless it's also really hot. But, but also like, it was my, it was my only, I want to say my parents, my mom never gave me any kind of discussion about being a, like an adult, a person. Like I was never, I was never talked to about anything of any significance and okay but i will but i will say just like handing me a pad was the entire discussion of womanhood like that was that so that's my main relation is that it was my mom's form of telling

me you're you're a woman now. Cool. And thank you both for answering this question. I think this is the first topic on the show where I've just been like, guests, tell me about it. And then I don't have a personal relationship to it. Because my relationship to it is just never learning anything about it in school or from people. I think it was just assumed I would find out when I needed to know as a male who could have like, you know, a female partner or women in their life or something. Right. And I think that does everyone kind of a disservice.

Like I recently saw ads for discreetly disposable pads and I was like, no, discreetly disposable pads. And I was like, no, pads are a tester as to whether or not you want to keep that partner. If they see a pad in the trash and they're upset about it, that's a sign. That's a good point. That's a good point. But also, you know, it's interesting that like men know so little about it because I was watching this movie called Together Together and it's with Ed Helms and he is the male only parent surrogate uh person who's trying to to have a kid and he engages a surrogate in having this a baby you know he's going to be solo parenting or whatever and the surrogates when they become friends and it's a really beautiful, a little movie. This isn't really spoiling anything,

but there's a scene in which she's like, can you teach me how to use a tampon? And, uh, and, and so he goes, you know, he,

he does the role play as, as if like, this is his 12 year old daughter or whatever. They don't even know what the baby of the child is. They're just sort of the gender of the child. They're just like, you know, talking about all possibilities. And it was a really touching scene because he couldn't explain how to use a tampon. But also I was just like, oh, there's an inaccuracy here because you would start with a pad.

But, you know, but it was it was interesting to see a man even talk about it or like try to describe how one gets used. It's like it's it's so funny that it's not just like common knowledge for everybody. You know what I mean? My last my last household was all women and trans men. So it was just like the norm. Cis men just are never kind of given that knowledge. And it's, it's real important. I'm glad you brought that up. And researching this has been a real treat. Like I was really starting from zero on a lot of this

stuff. I read and Googled about how to put a tampon in a couple of days ago. And now I know a lot more because I was pushed by a podcast, which no one else is in this situation. That's never the reason. What everyone needs is a podcast to get them to learn about pads and tampons. That's what I think this is the takeaway. Honestly, yes. So many more podcasts out there that people need to research and then do.

Yeah. I'm actually, I, part of the reason I came on here is because I want to know what people did before pads and tampons. Like I imagine you did some research into that. And I imagine a lot of that knowledge is lost to time just because women would have to discreetly hand this to their daughters and not like discuss it with anyone so it wouldn't have been written down necessarily you know they don't even know they don't even know the genesis of the macarena dance moves

i learned this recently and so i feel like i, even knowing like the real beginnings of the pad is like going to be a real stretch. I always assumed there was like a music video that I never saw. That's amazing. Like it's in a minute, but they can't figure out who, because it started people. It's like the song's Spanish, but then it was written in Argentina but then their dancing started in Mexico nobody could find like the person that did it in Mexico you know what I mean so just like nobody knows it's just it's all of a sudden they're like you know hands on the shoulders hands out you know what I mean it's happening and uh and so then they made

a music video like kind of formalizing it, like, no one knows the beginnings. And it's very much the same, I think, historical phenomenon as Pets. Pets and One Hit Wonders are very much the same. Yeah. Agreed. Here is the big difference that's jumping to my mind. I learned the moves to the macarena in school like they bothered to teach me that

right educators were paid to do that so they should do like the macarena you do in one like half of the lesson is for the macarena and then the other half should be about pets. I feel like also, like, I remember the quadratic formula because my teacher sang it to Pop Goes the Weasel. You could have steps to putting in a tampon to the Macarena. It's a very catchy song. Oh, that's so true. That's so true. And Hannah, your big questions about this, they're most of the show coming up.

And also, I want to go back to one thing. I think you both mentioned that there are some countries where pads are much more or less popular than others. And in research, I did read that just, you know, they can just go off sales numbers of these products. And I guess in China in particular, that's one country where tampons are very uncommon in the current times. Like they're only about 2% of the market. And then the Guardian article I was reading said that Europe, it's more like 70%. Like this, this really varies like nationally, culturally, individually, women are turning to different products for all kinds of reasons. It seems like, I don't really know, but from what I read, that's the situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That sounds right. I mean, because I can again, not knowing anything. I don't have any real data here, but I you know, I'm Iranian and I feel like on top of being an Islamic republic. I don't think they're huge fans of tampons. I think they're more. I think they're more pad people. So, yeah, i don't know and i wonder if that also has to do with maybe more religious conservatism or something you

know what i mean like there maybe there's a correlation um yeah yeah also in some of this research apparently in especially 1800s europe and 1800s like colonized north america some young women were pressured to not use tampons because of the like penetrative element of using it and so then they were drawn they were like pushed toward pads even even though it's just a tampon like it's not it's not a sexual thing there's there's a weird at least the big three major religions, I think that there are weird beliefs about the hymen correlating with virginity. I know my cousins were modern Orthodox, so they had to kind of weave, bob and weave through that to be able to use tampons. Wow. Okay. able to use tampons um wow okay it depends on how extreme is your belief how literal is your belief but i think many major religions have some like unscientific ideas about the hymen and how

it correlates to virginity yeah yeah yeah yeah and i also read that apparently you can inst like the hymen has an opening and you can insert the tampon through it. So there's all kinds of reasons to not sweat it, but also people do. Plus you can break your hymen like riding a horse. Like it doesn't, it's not. Some people are born without one. But yeah, and so this is, I don't know, I'm really excited listeners picked this topic because again, we'll mainly focus on pads. I'm sure we'll touch on other um other period products as well but oh yes we will yeah yeah feeling confident about it i haven't had a period for like

two-ish years i have endometriosis i regulate with pills so i don't have as much experience as most other people with uteruses. Like I just don't, I rarely have them because they hurt like hell when I do. I have to like block out a week and be like, I can't work that week because I'm going to be in so much pain. So I will know less. I'll cover for you. Don't worry. I'll cover for you. Don't worry. Well, also, like, one other thing on my mind with this topic is, like, there is a chance that this comedy podcast episode, researched but comedy, about menstrual pads might be, like, the first time some listeners are hearing some of this information. And if you're planning on acting on any of it, please talk to someone else like look into something you know like i'm not a medical expert there's not a medical show

i also think it's like a fascinating topic we can get into you know okay well alex said that but i just want everyone to know that i'm speaking on behalf of the entire medical establishment and i know absolutely everything okay there's a gallery of dr nageen yeah yeah yeah yeah kidding folks none of us are we none of us know what we're talking about not and we should we should know we should generally never be listened to but i basically turn off the podcast now now's a good time but uh but let's get into the info here on every episode our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics this week that's in a segment called

all i wanna do is stats stats stats stats and a ching and count your numbers and that name was submitted by paul garaventa thank you paul we have a new name for this segment every week please make it as silly and wacky and bad as possible submit to sifpod on twitter or to sifpod at gmail.com thank you paul thank you and uh the first number here and this doesn't apply to everybody but the first number is 500 and 500 is the approximate number of times a modern american woman will have a period in their lifetime. It breaks down to about 40 years of monthly periods is the approximate number. Wow.

Okay. Yeah. God, when you put it like that, it's like, oh, all right. It's a lot. Yeah. Although I've done. They're spread out. Yeah.

I've done 303 episodes of my podcast, fake the nation. So I'm trying to think like how, you know, another 200 and my, and my, and my show will be in menopause. And so that's, what's fun about that. Another 200 episodes of that podcast. We never celebrate when a podcast goes into menopause which i think is another thing that's wrong with society because it happens to every podcast you know what i mean and we're all so shameful about it mark baron just getting hot flashes or whatever

the thing is i don't know maybe that's a stereotype. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is when my mom went through menopause, she had like an entire cabinet of period products. I'll never get through them. I still have them. Some are expired. She was just like, here, take this. I can't use it anymore. Oh, wow. She was like, here is my stockp I can't use it anymore. Oh, wow. She was like, here is my stockpile, beloved daughter. Yes.

Okay, cool. Yeah. And meanwhile, I'm like, I have one period a year because the amount of period that I experience is equivalent to once a month. Yeah. And then also the source for this, it's a book called Flow, the Cultural Story of Menstruation. It's by Alyssa Stein and Susan Kim. And then they also say something interesting about this number, which is that women in

past eras probably had fewer periods across their lifetimes than modern women do. What? Really? Yeah. And it's, I had never thought about this, but because they had more babies. That's one of the big reasons. Yeah. More babies and more breastfeeding. And so that suppresses menstrual flow. Apparently, the big, big reason is that modern American women eat better and get enough food. And so if you have proper nutrition,

puberty starts younger. And so then that increases the number of periods you'll have to. gifts you're supposed to get is that like you don't get your period for like i mean i've had friends that didn't get it for several months after they gave birth right like you don't have your period when you're pregnant and then several months after you're pregnant you're still your body's still like no thank you you know what i mean and then it get and then it's like all right it's time you know but my body was like let's just get into it on month four. So like I didn't have that beautiful honeymoon period of just like not having it for a long time. And so I was breastfeeding and getting my period at the same time, which is one of those cruel jokes of nature. But, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds draining literally and figuratively.

Like it's actually you're just getting rid of fluids from your body constantly. It's horrible. Both ends. It's just all over the place. Everybody's so different. It's actually, it's funny because this is like, it's like, it's the, it is the equivalent of like vomiting and shitting at the same time, but like totally different. It's the equivalent and Joe is completely different.

But so life-giving, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like a huge sign of vitality, yeah. Wow. Yeah, with basically everything in this show, everybody's different. Like, it's exciting that there's so much variety among people, I feel. And then also maybe chaotic individually.

I don't know. Right. Well, because then there's no like manual. You know what I mean? Like we're not all just like you can't just default to factory settings. It doesn't it doesn't exactly work that way. Right. Not at all.

But if you if you do soak yourself in rice, like eventually. You'll dry out. Right. Not at all. on average and the national geographic says the average woman will use at least 5 000 pads and tampons across their lifetime to uh support this that's about how much they sent on um sally ride's first mission to the moon with her right oh that's right i remember hearing about that that's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, apparently male engineers asked her if 100 tampons would be enough for a one week space mission. And she said, I think that'll cover it. Yeah, that's fine. And the next number here about pads is up to 90 percent. And up to 90% is the plastic contents

of a modern disposable menstrual pad. Really? It turns out a lot of it can be plastic or other synthetic materials. Yeah. That's upsetting because I think in the commercials, they really talk about the kind of like cotton. Yeah.

The cotton of it. You know what I mean? How natural it is. Natural and The cotton of it. You know what I mean? How natural it is. Natural and cottons and fibers. I want to say that also, like, look, of the many, many things we can all be doing to help climate change. Um, I know that like, you know, probably menstrual waste product products for menstrual waste or whatever, or is it huge on everybody's list? But like, it was something for me because I'm like, I'm one of these that I compost. I have cloth napkins. I'm a nightmare. Okay. So I think about that all the time. And I really was upset. I mean, because I mostly use tampons and I, I just felt like the waste was not right. And so I sort of, I transitioned to a diva cup that you that's reusable and there's, and you, and they last longer, whatever, whatever there is, there's a

whole thing, um, with diva cups. And so so that was mostly something I did for environmental reasons. Because I didn't even know there was so many plastics in pads. I don't know what the numbers are for tampons. But yeah, that's upsetting that there's so much plastic in them. Just on a Mother Nature front. And it turns out tampons, it's way lower. It's about 6% plastic. Mostly plastic on the string and stuff.

And then more if there's an applicator. But otherwise, yeah, a lot less. But you've gone even below that 6%. You're like, no. Hey, I'm doing my part, guys. Go ahead and pat me on the shoulder when we don't reach our emissions threshold. when we don't reach our emissions threshold. Just slap the CEO of Nestle with your Diva Cup.

It'd be perfect. The environment, bam! And yeah, that's up to 90% plastic content for pads. If the ones you buy say they have mostly not plastic that's probably true but national geographic says that with a lot of modern pads there's plastic packaging and then a leak proof base that is plastic and then there also might be plastic and the wings that are adhesive and then sometimes there are plastic fibers woven into the absorbent part to help wick everything into the middle. And so with that combo, there can be a lot of plastic in a pad.

That makes a lot of sense. I forgot about wings. That was a whole thing that happened. There's a whole aerodynamic element to pads that just unheralded. Nobody ever talks about it. But yes, wings. I forgot about those. Aerodynamic.

Like they're flying away. Yeah. Well, there's a secondary use of pads, you know, by small animals that can fit on them to fly away. Oh, that's what my cat's trying to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's what my cat's trying to do. Yeah, yeah, that's what's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, and then many women have decided to switch away from disposable pads to reusable pads or other methods to combat this. Because, yeah, it's a relatively high plastic content. And like we're saying, tons of other things going on, especially from companies, are the big climate change thing. But on an individual basis, we can do that kind of thing, too. P.S. I didn't realize that there were reusable pads. I mean, again, I'm not in the pad.

Like, I'm not currently in the pad world. You know, so apologies. But the way you are, Alex, you know what I mean? Right. I represent that community. That's right. But I did not know that reusable pads were a thing. Yeah, it's like machine washable.

It's usually cloth. I don't know if maybe it shouldn't technically be called a pad, but it's that kind of shape and structure and thing. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, that makes sense. I think if it goes in your underwear rather than up inside, that's it. That counts as a pad. Yeah. Yeah. A sock while you're camping and in a dire circumstance could be a pad.

Oh, yeah. And and hey, we have all been there. Oh, yeah. Blotted up toilet paper. Yep. Oh, my friend. That is my friend. Oh, yeah. Blotted up toilet paper. Yep. Oh, my friend. That is my friend. Like on many, many, many occasions. Almost almost once a month when I'm like, what? Oh, I forgot. It's it's like always a surprise, even though it's completely every time on time yeah that's got to be a common experience right just yeah period and you don't happen to have something handy that's yeah you're like at a podcast studio you know yeah right and they are notorious for not having women's products in the bathroom. Oh, how about that? I'm kidding.

There's actually no stereotype about podcast networks' bathrooms. Right. I just made that up like a crazy person. Yeah. Well, and last number here. This is good news along those lines. It is November 24th, 2020. The date, November 24th, 2020.

That's the date when the country of Scotland voted to require local authorities to offer period products to anyone who needs them. Wow. That's wonderful. How does that work? Do you know? Like, you go somewhere and be like, I need them. Yeah, and apparently they're still kind of rolling this out because the law gave everybody two years to get a system going. So they have until this coming November 22.

But the BBC said Scotland is the first country in the world to do a law like this. And the Scottish Parliament passed, and they directed the 32 council governments of Scotland to just work out whatever system they felt makes sense in their area. So this is there. Is this like explicitly a way of mitigating the pink tax, basically? Yeah, that and fundamental period poverty when people just can't afford products at all. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I didn't know that just can't afford products at all. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I didn't know that happened.

That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. But I also just think I would love, I don't know if this is in your research, but I would love to know over those 500 periods of the lifetime of periods, what, how much money have I spent? That like you then don't have to spend. You know what I mean? And did you invest it and now you're really rich because you invested all of the money that I spent on pads and tampons?

You know what I mean? I would love to know those numbers just so I could get like real angry. But you know, that's also something that I find fascinating. Right. Yeah. Like pay is unequal.

And then I don't have to buy this whole set of things. On top of that. Yeah. Yeah. I've been buying men's razors because they're if you get the exact same brand, the exact same model, but it's blue, it's slightly cheaper. Oh, but it's blue.'s slightly cheaper uh oh but it's blue how do you even survive that yeah how do you stand fully the most popular color in the world didn't episode about blue

it turns out surveys say it's number one uh blue i just want to say that right now sorry continue this is a different episode yeah and i and nagina has a great question because yeah i couldn't i couldn't find like a good number for what one woman spends i was seeing numbers in the tens of billions for like the annual period product industry but yeah it's it's hard to nobody's done like a great number for a woman's lifetime spend there it would probably be a frustrating number yeah it's probably not great it's because it's funny because they always talk about like you know what a great way to save money it's always like stop buying coffee every day which is like what if the government just gave me tampons and i could keep buying coffee?

You know what I mean? Like they're always talk about this thing of like coffee, even though it's how I do it. It's what I derive my joy from is buying that one cup of coffee a day. But nobody talks about like, what if we offset the price of your periods by the government of Scotland? periods by the government of Scotland. Yeah. And there's another nice thing where hopefully this law is inspiring other ones. Mental Floss says that it's not for everybody, but in 2021, California passed a state law where they mandated free period products for students. It's for college students and kids grades 6 through 12. They can just get free period products at their school. And the people who drafted it explicitly said,

Scotland is the inspiration for this law. That's where we got the idea. That's awesome. That's great. Scotland isn't the inspiration for very much because like, Haggis is kind of their main, it's like, you know what I mean? So they, like, really had to do something to kind of, like, overshadow haggis being their most, like, popular export. There's a Scottish podcast right now where the men are like, if I didn't have to buy haggis every day, like, that money. Totally. I'd be so rich. Off of that, we are going to a short break,

followed by a whole new takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year.

Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

And remember, no running in the halls. Yes, I know. That's good news. And from here, we can get into a couple of big takeaways about pants. And the first one is takeaway number one. Women have been making and inventing menstrual pads across all of history.

Basically, as far back as we have recorded history, there are stories of women DIYing something that is like, like, Hanai, like that kind of definition you gave of like something fulfilling the role and location of a pad is a pad, even if it's not, you know, like put out of a factory by Kotex. So we have a bunch of these. bundle of leaves less comfortable but you know i can picture that as being a solution at whatever very primitive point yeah apparently one of the biggest ones is like grasses and i'm sure people did leaves too like it's it is this thing where also there are records of this and they're fundamentally incomplete like just so many of these approaches and moves were not written down or just one lady did it one time. You know, it's it's a but this has been as anyone can figure. Women have been menstruating forever and they figured out something to do before like Walgreens existed. They figured it out.

They figured it out. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like in nature. I mean, it's really just grasses. I wouldn't look at grass and be like, that's some absorbent right there. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have that relationship with grass. Like, I don't know. But I imagine cloth has been around for a long time in some form. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some sort of cloth. That's one. Yeah, maybe pel pelts which sounds gross as hell well once it's like dried up and you know once it's tanned and like yeah decontaminated like a fur like some sort of fur thing would sit in there and you need to wash it off or whatever yeah and i'm gonna i'm gonna hit some sources here one of them is a book from the numbers. It's Flow by Alyssa Stein and Susan Kim.

Another book is called The Curse, A Cultural History of Menstruation. And that's by Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton, and Emily Toth. And then also leaning on the U.S. National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Maryland. No, I was waiting for you to reference that book. Yeah, yeah, totally. A hundred percent. But I know exactly what this is. Pads are very effective at absorbing and sterilizing other wounds as well.

Yeah, especially like next takeaway after this, we'll talk about World War I being a big thing with that. Yeah. And then the Civil War medicine, they're talking about some prior stuff, too. Because if we go way, way back to ancient history, apparently various cultures, various places, ladies came up with something. In ancient Rome, women made some pads out of wool, like soft wools. Oh, yeah. Okay. I see that. And apparently in ancient China, some women used sand, and then they would tightly wrap the sand in fabric

and then that could be a pad. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And sand is a little bit more disposable. Yeah. Sure, sure, yeah. And there were women in Japan who used paper, like making paper and then piling that.

Grasses, vegetable fibers. Apparently some people in Native North America, they would make a pad using moss and then hold that together with bison skin. And then lots of women across cultures used rags, used cloths. And there are also stories of people using sponges, people using rabbit's fur. This is just, you know, whatever did the job worked. And also the further you go back in history, people are making just more of their things in general, including clothes so that, you know, people were already being handy with so many things. They didn't think it was strange that there was no like business to sell them this. They were like,

well, I make everything, so I'll make this. right right right yeah the lost art of pad making by the way i just pictured myself like affixing some cloth to like uh what did you say bison yeah bison skin yeah sure yeah and just like yeah like going for it that scene i mean it's like uh it's's, I can't even picture myself like really doing that effectively. That's, that's remarkable. We're, we're such garbage, like that we don't, you know what I mean? In many ways, the other takeaway from this takeaway is that we're such garbage. This was, this was such a reminder that i don't know how to make anything except podcasts

i guess but like i don't know how to stitch together or build stuff and people people had to build everything yeah no i was i was literally crafting before i got on call and i would not know how to do this yeah i mean i'm just i'm just selling out of resin and clay it's a great shop we'll link it. We'll link it. Oh, thank you. It's coming up. Yeah. But it's funny because now we have people, it's like crafting or building or sewing or whatever on TV shows as a competition because it's so unusual.

Yes. Right. Yeah. And it's like, oh, Hana knows how to craft stuff from resin. That's like novel. Like it's a hey, here's a thing about. But in the past it was like, yeah, we all know how to make many things. That's boring about us. No one thinks about this. Right. Exactly. Oh, you're going to make a TV show.

Isn't everyone going to fall asleep because that's what we all do? Yeah, totally. I mean, the Great British Bake Off is great to fall asleep because that's what we all do yeah totally i mean the great british make-up is great to fall asleep to they are very suited british people that is true i have fallen asleep to that very self-same show yeah bless them and their soggy bottoms just knocking us out love it my favorite out of context quote from that show by by the way, is I have confidence in dad's curd. That's fun. And then as ladies kind of kept doing this for themselves, really from like ancient times all the way into the 1800s or so, pads were kind of the same all around. The main shift was that lots of people, lots of places focused on reusable cloth. And they would especially like stitch or sew something that

was their go-to pad type cloth for when their period came. And, you know, then they'd wash it with the other laundry and reuse it. And then also apparently in 1800s Europe and colonized North America, women tended to only wear underwear bottoms once a month because those bottoms were mainly to hold their cloth in place or be part of that. And other times they would maybe not wear underwear just because. Right. Because you don't technically need it. Yeah. Yeah.

You can go back. need it yeah yeah you can go i imagine the amount of skirts they were wearing at the time more than sufficed for yeah anyone who wanted to there was a lot of skirt in those skirts a lot of a lot of petticoat a lot of skirt yeah yeah apparently also a lot of the underwear until into the 1900s for women's bottoms wasn't closed in the crotch area because like it was difficult to get through all your skirts to manipulate the underwear and so like if you wanted to use the bathroom it was easier if it was just open it's a whole different thing you know yeah that makes sense yeah also because if they were using the kind of hole in the ground, Ottoman style, then it's like your underwear or pulling up around your ankle. Like it's a whole different thing. Yeah. Yeah. Just a completely different planet, basically.

Yeah. To live on. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and then even though, you know, industry and the Industrial Revolution, then they start manufacturing tampons and other products. Apparently, pads were relatively slow to get manufactured and catch on. The company Johnson & Johnson manufactured the first disposable cotton pad in 1896. That was the first time a company would make you a pad, 1896.

And it was called Lister's Pads. It was named after the surgeon Joseph Lister, who was famous for sterilizing things and is also the namesake of Listerine. Oh, s***. Okay. Yeah, this guy was like the brand name of clean stuff. It's funny because he also sounds like a terrible guy to have at a party you know what i mean like like wanting to make sure everything's clean and you know what i mean like oh yeah that's that's great he has a legacy but oh he wasn't fun to hang out with oh yeah no

he definitely sounds like he gets his talking his party talking points off of Snapplecaps. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I feel like all old-timey surgeons were basically Frankenstein. They were all pretty creepy on some level, even though they're helping people. So, I don't know. Not a great hang. Yeah, yeah, totally. Should I put on gloves?

Nah. Nah. Should I put on gloves? Nah. And then the Lister's Pad brand also did not take off. According to Delaney, Lepton, and Toth's book, the company Johnson & Johnson is like, we have Lister Pads and we are very uncomfortable about any form of marketing that would explain what these are. Because you can't talk about menstruation. It's not for polite society to mention.

So it was like they prevented themselves from selling it. So there was a mysterious object they were to do where people would be like, what are these? Yeah. And they're like, I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to say. Basically, yeah. And so then they didn't take off and they stopped making them. And then there weren't pads manufactured on a big scale again until the 1920s wow yeah that's and then in the 20s were they allowed to say what it was

and that yeah in the 20s i think people either figured it out or uh or they were able to use the technological leap they made which we'll talk about about in a sec. So that took off as a business. Was this the belt hooks time? It gets there, yeah. Yeah, we can get into the next takeaway here. This is takeaway number two. World War I and the 1970s each revolutionized the menstrual pad. Okay.

Those two things, World War I and the 1970s each revolutionized the menstrual pad. Okay. Those two things, World War I and the 70s. And that's because up until the 70s, ladies were using the, like, belt thing that Hannah just described, like belts to hook your pad to to hold it up because it wasn't adhesive yet. And then the other revolution is World War I. That's when we get the first, like, modern pad materials. I don't even understand. Where was the belt going? pad materials i don't even understand where was the belt going like i don't understand like it was around your waist and then it had

little dangly bits or something kind of like those those yeah like those ones that you pulled up your your uh not uh socks but what are those called pantyhose thingies is it like something like that called pantyhose thingies is it like something like that and my my source on this is the highly scientific novel are you there god it's me margaret but um yeah okay okay okay that's what i seem to remember reading there we go well yeah because that's that's like the exact way apparently modern women find out about these and then men we just don't hear about it at all. But there was a device called a sanitary belt. And I just dropped a picture in the chat of one. It was an elastic belt that you just put around your waist and the elastic held it there.

And then that would let you pin or clasp your pad up to this belt around your midsection. And apparently it was a relatively uncomfortable system. Yeah, it doesn't look great. But ladies would wear this mostly under their clothes, but apparently it's also pretty visible unless you have a lot of layers of clothing on. Yeah. Yeah, that seems like a...

That's almost Rube Goldberg level. Yeah. Of unnecessary. It's weird. like a that's almost Rube Goldberg level of unnecessary. It's weird. It's weird. It's weirdly unnecessary. Like we had a lot of technology in the 40s. Yeah. I mean, we had panties. That holds

them in. Right. That whole time. Like these panties. It's just a bonus. We had tape. We had war war you know what i mean we had movies like why i don't understand why they developed a thing that doesn't make sense yeah because this this leap in the 1970s is the arrival of pads with adhesives, in particular wings. And apparently the first one of these was the Stay Free mini pad in 1969, followed by the Stay Free maxi pad in 1971. And before that, many women, you know, they could use their underwear to hold it in place.

Some ladies on their period wore rubber bloomers in the 1920s. But also one of the biggest things was to wear a sanitary belt. And that belt was patented in 1957. But also the inventor was a lady named Mary Kenner. And according to MIT, she was a black woman and invented it long before 1957. But there was enough structural racism and sexism that her patent applications kept like getting delayed or ignored and so on and so they were around much before this but she did a lot to like invent what we are what was uncomfortable but also was like useful in this interim period people used it but ladies would like clip or pin their pad to this belt around their middle and

then apparently basically as soon as adhesive wings came along and the wings adhere it to your underwear as soon as those wings came along sanitary belts really fell out of fashion really fast was like great done i don't have to do this anymore yeah god obviously also i mean yeah i mean Yeah, God, obviously. Also, I mean, yeah, I mean, I do agree that the adhesive is like, if your underwear, it's not like if I put something else in my underwear, I'd be like, whoa, that just fell out. Like it's, they're not like that. You know what I mean? It's like the adhesive, like you said, is a bonus. It's not like it was the whole deal, you know? That makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially because underwear will just hold it there. And I think, I guess a lot of ladies just really wanted the extra security of, you know, like it's in place and you want it like tight. You don't want leakage spills. And the earlier pads didn't have a lot of contouring and advanced design to it. It was a whole different thing.

And then Hana, like you said, the main way the sanitary belt lives on is that people read that name in the original text of, Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. And also an episode of The Great North recently. Oh, really? Good for The Great North. They referred to the school supplying that instead of pads and tampons because it's such a remote Alaskan town. Oh, good for them. Yeah. And apparently in the, this original text of Bloom's book published in 1970, Margaret uses a sanitary belt at one point. And then in the 1990s, Judy Bloom went to her

publisher and said, Hey hey let's update this element of the text because ladies aren't doing that anymore and I'm gonna link to Judy Blume's blog spot account she has one and she talked about her reasons for doing it she said she wants each new generation to think of Margaret as a contemporary and so some people said like don't change your book and she said i understand that but i want to like have it make sense to modern kids yeah yeah yeah i mean and it's my book so a lot of like it had a lot of things that resonate with adolescents at any age there were there were parts about like margaret trying to figure out her religious beliefs and things like that, where that's just, you know, everyone at the age where they're finding themselves, every single person, they have that point where they're like, what do I believe?

How is it different from my parents? How is it different from my peers? What do I i what actually resonates with me yeah also i i've never read it and me neither oh okay yeah i i feel like that would have been one for everybody to read boys included in the class i don't know like there was never any push for me to understand any of this it's like it's like learning the basics of it it was like you'll get told or something. It's cool.

There was definitely a part of the book, too, where I realized I was a bully. Oh, no. Because it was like, it portrays her as a late bloomer who's really kind of jealous of and therefore mistreating someone who got boobs real early. And I had Graves' disease, so I didn't hit puberty until real late. So I was a a**hole to everyone I was secretly jealous of for still looking like a child in high school and getting the kids menu and, you know, all that stuff when my friends could just go to Venice Beach and get a tattoo.

Kind of glad I couldn't do that now because the tattoos I would have chosen at the time were not great. Judy Blume for life, just real big. But it really kind of highlighted how puberty is its own struggle for everyone. highlighted how puberty is its own struggle for everyone in a similar less gross but gross in a good way way than as like uh the show big mouth or something like that right where it was just kind of like puberty here's a book um yeah yeah that's right on and it's exciting to me that one of the main books that says anything about it gets at least some updating with the times. Like, cool. I'm glad it's not all references to Nixon or something, you know, like it actually kids can connect to it. And then the other leap here, this goes back to World War I, and it's part of the reason disposable pads got manufactured.

Because in World War I, the troops in the trenches needed as many bandages as possible. And so scientists on all sides were saying, like, hey, what can be an alternative to cotton? Like, we have cotton, but we could always use more material. The Allied nations found a couple of interesting alternatives. One of them is moss. It turns out you can use sphagnum moss, which is also called peat moss, to be an absorbent bandage. And British Canada had a bunch of it, so they shipped a lot of that to Europe. But the Americans found a solution of cellulocotton.

And it was made by a Wisconsin company called Kimberly Clark. It's absorbent wadding made of wood pulp. They sent it to Europe for troop bandages. And then the Red Cross nurses who were applying the bandages noticed that it was very, very absorbent. And then they just started using it for their periods. And then word got back to the Kimberly Clark company in Wisconsin, and they rolled out disposable pads made of it called Kotex. And that was the start of the Kotex brand and those pads.

Oh, OK. And then interestingly, when you go to Iran, as I'm sure you're all planning for your next travel spot, what women refer to when they say pads, they say Kotex because it's one of those things where it's like the first brand that got there is the word that everyone then used. Like they also, instead of calling mascara, like the, I don't know what the actual Farsi word is for mascara because everyone just calls it Rimmel, which is the British Rimmel brand. Yeah.

Yeah. So they say Rimmel and that's what British Rimmel brand. Yeah. So they say Rimmel and that's what they mean when they're talking about mascara. So like Kotex has that distinction as well. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. It's like how everyone says Kleenex instead of tissue. Yeah.

That makes sense. Yeah. And I learned researching that Kotex, it's a word they invented to combine the word cotton and the word texture. Like it's supposed to mean those two things. So it's even kind of a correct word for today's pads, which, you know, like you just have to read the label of your pad to find out what it's made of. But many of them are made of a combination of either actual cotton or synthetic cottons and celluloses and things. Like it's it's it's that basically has stuck from World War I.

I mean, I feel it, you know, I feel the history in my loins, you know? folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to nagin farsad and hannah michaels for sharing so much and being people who i had the absolute best time diving into this topic with they're just wonderful anyway Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is two stories for you. We're going to talk about strange secrecy around period products in the 20th century U.S. And we're going to talk about amazing new production of menstrual pads in India.

And one of the stories involves bananas. I know a lot of you like bananas. Pretty good. Visit SIFpod.fun for that loaded bonus show, for a library of almost eight dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring menstrual pads with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, women have been making and inventing menstrual pads all across history. Takeaway number two, World War I and the 1970s each revolutionized the menstrual pad. That's a pretty loaded takeaway. You've got cellulocotton in World War I, you've got adhesive wings in the 1970s, and then the elastic sanitary band before the 1970s getting eliminated. Beyond that, tons more information about periods in

general, pads in general, and some exciting new news on the front of getting people the period products they need. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Nagin Farsad is the host of Fake the Nation. That podcast will make you wiser about the news, also more in tune with what's really going on. And also, I legitimately think it will make you happier about the news. You will understand it better in a way that is positive. Also going to link Nagin's social media accounts, because she has a new hour-long show that I'm sure she'll be putting up various places. She just did some shows in New York City,

and if you follow those, you'll get the next information on that. And Nagin was a voice on the first season of Bird Girl. Bird Girl is a spinoff of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. It's an adult swim show, and they're making a second season coming out in the summer of 2022. First season is out now. Please check out that just very funny and great and cool comedy show that I'm glad exists. I'll also be linking Hannah Michaels' social media accounts because she's very, very funny on those. You can find all kinds for writing online. I'm going to link some highlights from that. And as promised, I'm going to link her Etsy store because like she said in the show,

she works with clay and resin to make very unique, very fun stuff. The Etsy shop is called Cat Butt Boutique. You can also find it by just searching Etsy Hannah Michaels. But lots of fun and funny things there if you want a gift for someone or a gift for yourself. It's a good way to go. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. Two of them are books I leaned on. One is called Flow, the cultural storystruation, that is by Alyssa Stein and Susan Kim. Also leaned on a book called The Curse, a Cultural History of Menstruation, that is by Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton, and Emily Toth. Beyond Flow and The Curse, loads of online resources went into this from places like JSTOR Daily, Bustle.com, National Geographic, The Smithsonian. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun.

And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show and thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly, incredibly fascinating. So how about that?

Talk to you then.