Lunapads

Happy International Women’s Day!

In our last e-newsletter we announced that we are looking for guest blog entries about our feminist journeys, so here’s mine (at least the beginning!)

I have a million thoughts and memories around this topic, as some of my most important growth experiences in life have been in uniquely feminine and feminist contexts. It all started round about 1986. At the end of my first year university English 101 class my professor announced her regret that we hadn’t studied a single work by a woman writer the entire year. I don’t know what devastated me more: the fact itself or that I hadn’t noticed - either way, something shifted for me in a way that I had never felt before - I was angry, not personally, but as a woman (even though at age 19 I didn’t quite yet think of myself as a woman, as you will soon see!) At the beginning of my second year it came to my attention that there was a budding Women’s Studies department, so it seemed logical to head over thataways in search of my missing women writers. Off I went, and never looked back - here were not only the missing books, names, stories and information, but further an eminently sensible framework that when applied to pretty much anything, brought it into clear, if often painful, relief: feminism.

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It’s time to have some serious fun with our menstrual activism, don’t you think? There have been recent stories of how some big name companies are having their customers make ads for them, and showing them during prime time TV - even the Superbowl. Ladies, what do you say? We just know that there are at least dozens, if not hundreds of super-creative, totally tech-savvy gals out there who could come up with something, funny, fabulous, political and gorgeous - just like you.

We think it’s about time to do away with the silly ads for menstrual products that encourage us to either hide our periods, be embarassed by them or that haunt us with that strange blue fluid. Time to let real women be heard. To that end, we’re launching a contest to get you, our beloved customers to make your own ad for Lunapads.com!

The entry process is simple. Create an ad for Lunapads.com and put it up at YouTube with “Lunapads” as a keyword. Deadline for entries will be March 31, 2007, (NOW EXTENDED TO APRIL 30) at which point the staff here at Lunapads will vote on their favorite. The winner will receive $250 worth of their choice of Lunapads.com products.

We’ll also highlight the top 10 videos that we receive and ask customers to vote for their favorites, the top 3 of which will each receive $100 worth of Lunapads.com products.

For resources on uploading your videos to YouTube click here.

Be creative, have fun, and drop us a line at info@lunapads.com when you’ve put your entry up so we’re sure not to miss it!

We are thrilled to be adding PeaceKeeper lip paint (lipstick), lip gloss and nail paint to our comfort collection at Lunapads.com. While it may seem like a bit of a stretch from menstrual pads to makeup, PeaceKeeper is far from your average cosmetics company, and we thought that our customers would appreciate the innovative work that its’ founder, Jody Weiss, is doing (not to mention her great products!) Whatever your personal views about makeup may be (and we’d love to hear them), I think that we can all agree that it’s a staggeringly massive business that often uses questionable ingredients and testing practices, uses its marketing to make women feel inadequate without its products, exhibits practically no social or environmental conscience, and… lots of women use it, ourselves included. So what if there was makeup that was made with all-natural ingredients, wasn’t tested on animals, and was made by a woman-owned company that gave all its after-tax profits to help causes like violence against women and cleaning up the planet?

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I’m often awestruck at how infrequently feminine hygiene products are mentioned in those handy “20 everyday ways to save the planet” lists that show up in magazines, and how even environmental advocates often minimize or trivialize the issue. A current example: for those of you not already familiar with the Grist, it’s an environmental news and journalism site. Just a few days ago their advice columnist, Umbra, was asked to comment about reusable vs. disposable pads: here’s the article. She says that “reusable pads edge out disposable pads in the imaginary fight for eco-status”. Edge? Imaginary?

I looked at her earlier post on the topic from March 2003, where in reference to disposable pads and tampons she says “What we have here are small, popular disposable products, and generally speaking, the environmental impact of small objects is not worth fretting over (electronics being an exception). Even if we had a complete data analysis of the waste and pollution implications of manufacturing tampons and pads, you ladies in the throes of womanhood know full well that there are other important factors at play in “sanitary product” choice, such as convenience, price, and comfort. Not to mention sanitary-ness, whatever that might be. Even if you do want to reduce your contribution to this minor environmental woe, there is a shortage of options in the moon-mama market.” News to me! According to the National Women’s Health Network, over 12 billion pads and 7 million tampons are used once and disposed of annually, clogging our overburdened landfill sites, not exactly what we’d call “minor.”

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Happy New Year from Lunapads!
I’ve always thought that New Year’s resolutions should be about things that you want to do, as opposed to things that you want to stop doing. A few on my list for 2007 are to take better care of myself, to remain commited to my self-healing work, to allow myself to fearlessly get bigger, to take some pesky chips off my shoulder, and to be more in my power. Looking over the list it seems a little me-centric, but that’s part of resolution - I have this bad habit of feeling like if I’m putting myself first then I must be pushing someone else to the back of the line. Pure nonsense, I know, but it keeps showing up as an issue, so we’re back for another round. To date, I’ve started seeing a wonderful post-partum counselor and cranio-sacral therapist (this is what happens 21 months into denial about post-partum depression!) and booked myself a trip to Maui with a girlfriend, so I’m feeling off to a good start.
What about you? What are you looking forward to, wanting to work on or do more of in 2007?

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the importance of music (and girl bands specifically) in making me the feminist that I am today. This has been spurred by two recent events — the break-up of Sleater-Kinney and the Team Dresch show I recently attended in Seattle. But I should back up a little first and give you some context.

See, as a girl who was a bit of an outcast, coming of age in the early 90s in a medium-sized conservative city in Alberta, expressing myself and my values and opinions was not always easy. And like many of my friends, music was the most accessible and most meaningful way I found of doing just that. I was already a proud feminist (thanks in large part to the teachings of my mother), and so all-girl or female-fronted bands appealed to me from the get-go. I remember being in high school when I first heard about Riot Grrrl, which was a punk rock feminist movement/community made up of numerous young women from across the country, a lot of whom were in such bands. It only took one mix tape made for me by a friend and I was hooked.

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