See a Modess True or False? ad in The American
Girl magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley
in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad (1955) - Modess . . . . because ads (many dates).
 
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Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
A man holds a Libresse menstrual napkin in an ad
(1978, the Netherlands)
Although this ad in a Dutch newspaper might be the first or among the
first to show a man with a menstrual napkin, men of course have always developed
products and worked in the menstrual products industry. But this might be
their outing.
The ad praises the male purchasers and retailers who helped make Mølnlycke
the second-place brand in the Netherlands, after Kotex, and in only two
years. A brave man at the bottom of the page holds aloft one of the company's
napkins. See another Dutchman holding a pad!
And a pleased Frenchman!
Quiz: How many American ads show men holding
pads or tampons? Zero, as far as I know. But then the Dutch live in a famously
advanced culture.
The kind Dutchman who has sent so many items to MUM sent these scans
and information.
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Below: "Not all men are afraid of
menstrual pads" screams the headline in this full-page ad in the Dutch
newspaper Volkskrant, 28 December 1978.
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Essentially, the ad praises the men - and one woman! - who as business
purchasers and retailers helped vault Libresse pads into second place (behind
Kotex) in the Netherlands. The second and third paragraphs read (my translation):
Afraid that their masculinity would be affected, maybe? Ladies, forgive
them - menstruation is a persistent taboo.
The oldest taboo in the world perhaps (according to some scholars the
word taboo comes from "tapua," ancient Polynesian for menstruation).
At the bottom of the ad we read:
Mølnlycke compliments the Dutch men who without blushing buy
the right sanitary napkin.
Below: The ad creators discussed the ad
in a Dutch magazine and reproduced this easier-to-read version (if you read
Dutch, that is).
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Below: The picture on the package is the
same as on the ad from the previous year.
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| See Libresse ads right before this time. |
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