7 thoughts on “Spreadin’ Love 437”

  1. In the Soviet Union (and most of the Eastern Block- Slavenka Drakulic has a great essay on it in one of her volumes on Yugoslavia) women didn’t have access to “modern” sanitary products and used rags of various sorts. No one I met thought it was a set-back to get disposable ones, or had any interest in going back. (It’s worth noting that this women apparently only uses them at night. The modern sanitary pad, developed in part by nurses in WWI who appropriated pre-packaged bandages, was actually an important step to woman’s lib, according to an acquaintance of mine from college who wrote a very interesting history MA thesis on it.)

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  2. And yet women who like reusable pads — you can see contemporary versions at http://www.etsy.com/shop/SugarMonkie — rave about them. Ditto with those you use the Diva cup.
    Personally I’ve got no interest in trying disposable products, but I wouldn’t compare those products to the rags used at the turn of the twentieth century any more than I’d compare Always ultrathins with wings or Tampax Pearls to those hideous belts women were still using when I was young. It’s not just disposable gel-filled pads that have moved on.

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  4. “It’s not just disposable gel-filled pads that have moved on.”
    I think you need to have a talk with the rolled-up wash cloth people.
    Speaking of reusable items, I’m probably going to be doing some babysitting for a family with a toddler and a baby. I originally offered last fall, and only after emailing with the mom a few weeks ago did I remember that they’re a cloth diaper family. Oops!

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  7. Or don’t. Here’s a sample quote from having done so:
    Based on discussion board comments, the family cloth is most often used only after urination. Very few families use it after #2.

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