The Abadiñoarra Iraide Gulin Garcia has analyzed her final degree work in her studies in Sociology. Evax has taken ten examples of ads published between 2010 and 2019 and worked on its evolution to confirm its initial hypothesis: “Evax has not applied in her announcements indications of the evolution of feminism, she continues in a patriarchal logic.” It has focused on different approaches to blood perception and ideas of feminism to answer a question about the historical evolution of menstruation: “Is it possible to show the blood of menstruation in public space?”

It says no. The psychologist of Buenos Aires, Eugenia Tarzibachi, remembers the “ideal way” of being a menstruation born since the 20th century: the modern form of the rule. The United States was the first to emerge “intimate products”, as the companies they produced were local. In parallel to the advances of medicine, the phenomenon known as “feminine hygiene” began to develop in the mid-century, creating single use pads and tampons. Along with the way of talking and thinking about the body, a new industry gained strength and was introduced in advertising to women and menstruation. In Tarzibachire's words, menstruating bodies begin to become goods for the industry, assuming control of these bodies.

Evax is, along with Ausonia, the best-known brand of products for menstruation in Spain, with 25-30% of the market. Considering that 26 per cent of the world's population has a rule, in total some 1.8 billion people, and that in their lives they use an average of 10,000 tampons or compresses, it is clear that these companies derive significant benefits from female clients. It is also worth mentioning the impact on the environment and health, since 90% of the compress is plastic, and considering that in Spain alone there are 3 billion tampons per year.

Desire to buy the concept

Evax was founded in 1968, when compresses began to be sold in Spain, and ten years later he published his first ads. Today, as has already been mentioned, it is a leader in the sale of these products, which together with Ausonia have the monopoly of television advertising. He is “progressive” from the eyes of the receivers, who jumped into advertising ten years after his birth, making this issue public for the first time. What is your responsibility?

“Advertising plays an important role in building reality,” says Iraide Gulin. She considers that menstruation is a social, cultural and political process, and that advertising, like Evax's, has decisively influenced our conception and experience of menstruation. When these advertisements began to spread in Spain, they became a reference for many women, but fell into the trap of advertising: they wanted to get their essence than the product itself. And what is the concept that Evax sells and that we all want to achieve?

“Evax follows the logic of patriarchal capitalist enterprise. It represents a certain social order and creates rituals that give form and character to the world in which we live. They are creators of the ideal body: white, young, thin, tall and romantic women,” said the sociologist. He has also argued that from the beginning of the advertising so far they have hidden the blood and cycles of menstruation, prioritizing in the name of hygiene concepts such as cleanliness, well-being, tranquility, security and comfort. The consumer of these products wants to buy this lifestyle, bringing to his body this reading of menstruation itself and, ultimately, building that identity of the woman, acquiring an inadequate understanding of sexuality and health and believing a mistaken concept of hygiene or purity. Of course, the Abadian also takes into account the influence of education and culture. He argues that the socialization of menstruation occurs in macho values.

Euphemisms instead of making them clear

The female body has always been hypersexualized in advertising, but menstruation has never been related to sexuality: “From the moment it is related to disgust, it cannot be associated with eroticism,” says Gulin. It explains to us that there's so much stigma, that advertising about this creates an unreal world. The ads you've analyzed don't show any blood in any of them or talk about the rule. They use euphemisms to sell compresses and tampons, as if talking directly about it was sin. When you've shown blood, for example, you've imagined a blue color and not the strength and symbolism of red. They paint blue to explain the imaginary of purity, sea, water, sky or air. They jump from the warmest color to the coldest. If in Evax's ads the red color has appeared, it has appeared in other elements that are not the blood: dress, shoes, lips, wall… As the years pass it has also disappeared, exchanging with striking and artificial colors, making even more surreal something that is actually natural.

But something has changed in recent years. If the publicity of all this was based on hygiene and protection – where there was publicity – in the 1920s and 40s, from the 1960s on they capitalized on the discourse of women’s liberation as “mercantile feminism.” With this, the key messages became to improve the appearance and feel good. The most important change over the last ten years has therefore been the same attitude as the women protagonists, the actresses.

Evax jumps from a traditional femininity to the essence of modern women. It has never changed the stereotype of bodies, nor the focus of menstruation treatment. However, it has had to adapt to the eyes of today’s consumers and bring to light this new concept: modern women. Heels, skirts and lipsticks have been removed and women appear safely, independently, acrobatics and eager to practice the impossible, provided they are clean and smell good. These last concepts would be like what Evax products will bring, which do not correspond to the rule.

Gulin fears that all this is a female referent, aware of the weight that advertisements can have in the way of living menstruation: “The rule is treated from denial and becomes taboo. They disconnect us from our bodies and processes. What public space says about our rule shapes our lives. The rule, besides being intimate, is collective”. Along with this, he wanted to highlight the importance of the research: “Little research has been done so far on this, and now I think it is important to talk about it.” She hopes that her work will be a means to start new research, while integrating the new meanings of menstruation into series, cinemas, or virtual communications.

Red blood

He has written that advertising, understood as a bridge between information, persuasion and change of a habit, can also be considered as a communication tool to emerge what society calls, as Evax did in the case of menstruation. According to the English expert Karen Houpert, companies that create “female” products live under these hidden characteristics. These characteristics are interpreted and supported by them.

As is being done in Argentina, Gulin is in favour of the companies selling tampons and compresses giving the process of naturalization of the menstrual cycle. Positively value advertising that shows blood and changes messages: “We should do feminist advertising, show that we are cyclical and make different emotions appear. In Australia, for example, a campaign called “normal blood” was launched, representing a context in which the rule was fully normalized: natural women, whatever their age, are of different ages speaking in public and without hiding. A red blood stained compress comes along. However, the aim of this campaign is not to sell products, so the meaning given to the rule is “legitimate”. If it were a sale, it would not have the same interest and would therefore not deal with the matter in this way.

Gulin believes that real blood or red, rather than blue, fluid should appear, as shown. The euphemism of the blue mud eliminates the great strength and symbolism of the red color, removing this characteristic from the body with menstruation, that is, weakening it: “Women’s blood is dangerous, it’s something to hide. Menstruation blood and parturition blood are associated with dirt. However, in the war movies it appears normally and shows pride and strength.” He says that there is no problem with showing blood in fiction, but that if there are real scenes it is something else: “In film, advertising, audio-visual, information, newspapers, etc., they send very hard taboos.”

It also considers that different actors with vulva should appear, taking into account intersectionality. “From a spatial point of view, it also seems important to me to point out that bleeding can occur anywhere and at any time, as well as that it can get dirty with blood spills,” he says. “Red spots should appear. Who hasn't spotted the clothes with the blood of menstruation? So, rather than patalizing menstruation, we would naturalize it and we have to go down that path, like a bad or a dirt so as not to understand menstruation.”

We asked him if the interest in naturalizing the rule is compatible with the interest in obtaining benefits. Gulin says that in any culture the body is linked to social dynamics and is the object of economy and consumption. “It is true that on behalf of the free woman there are companies that want to sell only the product, that have economic interests. Evax can be one of them,” he says. “But there are also social or cooperative enterprises that claim another model.