Current products are very feminine in nature, feature women (ex: Playtex), and are marketed for women in commercials, print ads, and other media. However, menstruation is not just experienced by the female gender, and today’s products should reflect more inclusiveness in their targeting, and less exclusionary in their design.
As seen in the article in Everyday Feminism titled, “My Period and Me: A Trans Guy’s Guide to Menstruation,” one of the poster’s main concerns when experiencing a period is having to buy the so-called “feminine products.” He oftentimes has his girlfriend buy them for him, or he will avoid stores where he might see the same cashier again. He states a very valid point where he says, “My menstruation is not female. It just is.”
The only existing company to make an effort to appeal beyond women is THINX underwear, the creator of “period panties." In a recent campaign, they depicted a trans man wearing their new set of underwear, and changed their company slogan from “For Women with Periods,” to the more inclusionary phrase, “For People with Periods.”
I sought to tackle this problem by designing my own packaging for periods (pads + tampons, specifically.) This was the outcome.
