Hello Meltingpot Readers,
It’s Friday, so that means I get to share some of my favorite things. And today I want to talk about, period panties. Sorry if that grosses you out, but period panties are a thing and a necessary thing at that if you’re a woman between the ages of say 12 and 60. I can admit, talking about period panties made me a little squeamish when I first heard about them and I wasn’t exactly running around asking people to share their stories about feminine hygiene. Instead, I turned to the Google and discovered this company called THINX that makes period panties. And dear readers, I was immediately hooked. Not because the period panties sounded so amazing, but because the models WEARING THE period panties looked so amazing. They looked like real women with stretch marks and belly fat, natural hair and fleshy thighs. They were Black and brown and Asian and white. Nothing about these bodies were “perfect” as defined by mainstream beauty standards and yet they all looked perfect to me.
REPRESENTATION MATTERS
Dear readers, let me tell you, I stayed on the THINX website for almost an hour, consuming all the content because it seemed like it was tailor-made for me. Now, if you asked me ahead of time if I needed to spend an hour of my time reading about period panties, I would have said, heck no. But I was literally so enthralled by the representation of real women and the smart, snarky copy that made periods almost sound like a cool, girls-only rite of passage, I actually bought some of their products. And as a rule, I don’t buy anything online except airplane tickets so that’s really saying something. Not only that, I find myself wanting to go back and visit the THINX website just so I can spend my online time with a company that seems to understand the importance of diversity and representation. It probably helps that twin sister co-founders of THINX, Miki and Radha Agrawal, are third culture kids of Japanese and Indian descent who were raised in Canada. Clearly they have a handle on diversity (although it seems they are no longer running the company)
Funny thing, most of the press that THINX has gotten regarding their ads, there’s no real conversation about the diversity of the models (unless you’re talking about the ad that features a transgender man), mainly people are too busy freaking out about the fact that their ads actually use the word period instead of traditional ads that use all types of menstruation euphemisms.
Well, I’m here to give THINX two big Meltingpot thumbs up for remembering that women of all colors (and I do mean all colors and shades), shapes and sizes want to be seen in advertisements. Even for period panties. And a lesson to other companies, when we see ourselves in your ads, we’re a lot more likely to buy your products.
What do you think, dear readers? Does representation matter to you in advertising? If a company makes a conscious effort to feature diverse models/actors in their ads, does that impact how you think about the company? Let me know what you think? Also, are there certain companies that get diversity right in your opinion? Please share. You know I’m listening.
Peace!
