Cihanowyz chalks the lack of innovation up to what one of her professors, the gender studies academic Jillian Wood, calls the menstrual concealment imperative. Young girls are conditioned to view their periods as dirty and shameful, the theory goes, so they grow into adults who believe that menstruation should be a private, silent experience. Essentially, people take what they can get and shut up about it.
“When you walk into CVS, menstruation products are all the way to the back, like they’re hidden,” Cihanowyz said. “I remember the fear when I was a teen of being in that aisle. I just walked in and grabbed the first thing I saw, at eye level, especially if it looked like it was tiny and I could hide it.”
That’s not how retail works, Love.
The back of the store is for the essentials, the things that everyone’s going* to use. This forces you to walk past all of the other things that you only may or may not be interested in but might be persuaded – by seeing them – to buy.
So much so that if you go to a new country you can rapidly work out what that culture regards as the essential supermarket purchase. It’s what’s along the back wall. Milk in the US, bread in Portugal, just as an example.
Sigh.
Seriously, even social science is supposed to do a little bit of science.
*OK, obviously, but given the portion of household spending commanded by women it’s still close enough.
Sounds a lot like me waiting for the khazi to empty in the pub so I could buy a packet of three……
’…so they grow into adults who believe that menstruation should be a private, silent experience.’
Shouldn’t all bodily functions be that, then? Or will we see a sequel to ‘Everybody Poops’ entitled ‘And No-One Shuts Up About It’..?
Not everyone in the US can afford period products: an estimated 16.9 million menstruators live in poverty, sometimes having to choose between buying foods and pads.
Stop being poor then, losers.
Young girls are conditioned to view their periods as dirty and shameful, the theory goes, so they grow into adults who believe that menstruation should be a private, silent experience.
Cretin. Of course they’re viewed as dirty. It’s literally a biological waste product that is a biohazard to other people.
I remember the fear when I was a teen of being in that aisle. I just walked in and grabbed the first thing I saw, at eye level, especially if it looked like it was tiny and I could hide it.”
That’s your own insecurities and arrogance, love.
I, as a somewhat middle aged man, have no problems walking into a supermarket and buying said products if the wife asks me to pick some up on the way home.
Newsflash. Nobody cares. They’re all too wrapped up in their own problems or just don’t give a shit about you and your period. Jesus on a pogo stick. Get over yourself.
Well Julia. I really don’t think anyone WANTS to see me poop. And they definitely don’t want to hear me!!!
Boganboy – Well Julia. I really don’t think anyone WANTS to see me poop.
You haven’t been to Germany, have you?
The relative positioning of products is a science, as I popped into a convenience store to buy a lunch and walked out with cat food as well!
‘You haven’t been to Germany, have you?’
Well actually, I have Steve. But I don’t remember anyone gazing awed at my arse as the poo plopped out.
Bboy – that just means the Krauts were cunningly concealed in their poopenversteckenlohsfahrtenzungs.
Steve / Bogan, I recall a cab driver telling me his biggest fantasy was having Princess Di dump on him*. That was here in the UK.
*This was when she was still alive. There are no doubt some who would fancy shagging her now.
There are some queer people about…..
Cihanowyz chalks the lack of innovation up to what one of her professors, the gender studies academic Jillian Wood, calls
If only she used her brilliant insights to become the world’s next top fanny napkin billionairess, instead of slumming it as a “gender studies academic” who produces nothing except foolish talk.
Addolff – Meghan Markle is much hotter than Princess Di, and she’s probably into crazy sex stuff like doing it with the lights on.
This is why in most British supermarkets the booze is furthest from the door
‘the product contained “the presence of short chain per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (‘PFAS’)”, also known as “forever chemicals”.’
Perhaps the rabid hordes of the legal profession may be the reason for the lack of innovation Steve.
PS. Alas a quick google didn’t tell me a thing about a poopenversteckenlohsfahrtenzung. I presume it’s a top secret spy device of the CIA. Or maybe Putin’s mob??
You’ve raised a subject that fascinates me. And that’s where you find things in supermarkets in different countries & what products will be alongside which. And it is different in different countries. Maybe in one, eggs will be in the dairy area whilst in another in the vicinity of flour. The different way different cultures think of things?
Of course, there is the supermarket marketing strategies to be taken into consideration. Currently, the nearest to me seems to be placing complementary items as far separated as possible. So if you wish to bake a cake you’ve quite a walk ahead of you. Same for what one might call cleaning products. Oven cleaner is a long way from bin bags & they’re nowhere near freezer bags which are in the vicinity of tinned fish. I wonder how successful that is? After the last reshuffle & necessity to relearn placement I abandoned it in favour of Carrefour which conforms more to the French pattern. I don’t need to spend an hour in a supermarket playing hunt the stock cubes.
This is why in most British supermarkets the booze is furthest from the door
My experience, it is in most countries. From a sample of 5.
This is why in most British supermarkets the booze is furthest from the door
Because by the time the punter has spent enough time in a supermarket to reach the end, they feel in need of a drink?
I recall a cab driver telling me his biggest fantasy was having Princess Di dump on him*. That was here in the UK.
Yeah. When I was running the cathouse I had some geezer ask if we had a girl would shit on him. I put the phone down on him. He was English. FFS! Girl might be willing. Money’s money. But who’d want to clear up after that?
But otherwise, Steve’s right. For outright regular weirdness you have to hand the prize to Germans.
They literally cannot afford 3-anna-half pee for a sanitary towel? They have much more wrong with their life than poverty.
Note to self & slaps wrist. Close tags
This is why in most British supermarkets the booze is furthest from the door
In my neck of the woods it’s to stop the teenage scrotes from darting in and nicking a few bottles and making a get away before security can stop them.
Bloke in Spain: not the Germans; the Japanese. They are another level of weird.
@Boganboy
Set up an only fans, you might be surprised.
Dear fucking Christ, get over it – buying an “embarrassing” product is just a life experience right of passage and you realise no one gives a shit, as said above. Could be johnnies, a magazine from the top shelf, a pint at spoons at 8:00am or a 12incher from Anne Summers. Once you’ve done it once you don’t care (unless youre grifting for ££££ for further study)
Perhaps school children should take a break from getting anal lessons from drag queens and be taken to boots to show there’s nothing to fear down the jam rag aisle
“The back of the store is for the essentials, the things that everyone’s going* to use. This forces you to walk past all of the other things that you only may or may not be interested in but might be persuaded – by seeing them – to buy.
So much so that if you go to a new country you can rapidly work out what that culture regards as the essential supermarket purchase. It’s what’s along the back wall. Milk in the US, bread in Portugal, just as an example.”
This doesn’t feel right. OK, there’s a whole load of factors influencing store layout, but it seems like Tim is describing an older model – where the US chains may not have innovated as quickly as the European. May be. Dunno.
As far as I can see, the current UK layouts are based around shelf life. The most perishable items are are closest to the doors, followed by the second shortest shelf life. The least perishable is the furthest away. There’s then the problem of where you can site the heat exchangers for the cabinets for frozen/chilled items, given the type of cabinet you can get into the store. Then there’s the “premium” items, where the bread, fish, meat or cheese would be towards the back, where you can stick the “in-house bakery” or whatever, out of sight. The UK supermarkets have been ditching those lines recently.
@ANNRQ
Having seen manga & hentai I suspect the Sons of the Neon Chrysanthemum compete in a class of their very own.
The equation seems to be, find something applies to the target audience/ demographic. Observe what the current viewpoint is. Ignore that completely. Instead hype up to the max that current culture teaches/obliges you to feel deep shame for transitioning into an adult human female. This prepares the ground for non sequitur demands e.g. put sanitory towels next to the kiddies sweets at the checkout.
The menstrual concealment imperative
That’s wonderful and sounds like the title of an airport book.
Almost as good as the recently coined Enteric methane ebullitions which sounds like a BoE excuse for inflation at 5× the required rate and probably is.
@Steve – is your observation concerning poopenversteckenlohsfahrtenzungs based on Vorsprung durch Technik or more a case of Immer Besser?
“bloke in spain
You’ve raised a subject that fascinates me. And that’s where you find things in supermarkets…”
Wherever you do find things in supermarkets, they’ll have moved them somewhere else next week.
Here in the US, booze is often the first thing as you walk in the supermarket. Milk is always in the back. Bread is usually in the middle of the store.
And, it’s not even true. There is a whole aisle, identical to every other aisle, dedicated to feminine hygiene products.
They’re not in a little curtained alcove like porn movies.
She’s likely never stepped foot into a CVS.
I used to work in Leytonstone and in the local Tesco they had an aisle for “Ethnic Minority” food.
It had things like steak and kidney pie, scotch eggs, black pudding, jam roly-poly and the like.
Not everyone in the US can afford period products: an estimated 16.9 million menstruators live in poverty, sometimes having to choose between buying foods and pads.
Stop being poor then, losers.
Or innovate. What’s wrong with an old sock? Which reminds me of the old joke; “How do you know an Abo girl is on her period?”
The menstrual concealment imperative
Concept album title
Just what did you have in mind, love?
Then go fucking make it, instead of complaining that no one else has. I don’t see that there’s much room for innovation (although a former colleague developed this), so there are some newer idea out there.
Recently heard a talk on First Nations culture in BC and the lady mentioned that tradition was that women always had to bathe downstream of the men for this very practical reason, don’t recall her suffering any shame or embarrassment over detailing this fact.
@asiaseen
No, I think that was a Robert Ludlum book. Read it once on a long flight
Cihanowyz chalks the lack of innovation up …
That gets me thinking. Chalk is quite absorbent, and being white, allows you to check when you need to change the pad.
She manages to ignore a new idea even while implicitly revealing it.
The latest Words & Numbers podcast looks at how Americans compare to the rest of the world when it comes to poverty. It as triggered because someone in Africa wrote to them and pointed out they find it bizarre that someone in America who is classed as poor drives to pick up their food parcels.
Andrew C @ 1.39, you win a gold star.
‘Set up an only fans, you might be surprised.’
That’s why I haven’t set one up Mark!!
“@Steve – is your observation concerning poopenversteckenlohsfahrtenzungs based on Vorsprung durch Technik or more a case of Immer Besser?”
These days it’s ongoing “wir schaffen das”.
After 16 years of Merkelian malign neglect we finally have a government willing and capable of finishing the job.