Why do tampon commercials use blue liquid? Thoughts on menstruation and feminism

Recently I started using the menstrual cup, which led me down a rabbit hold of looking up period/period product research, and I've been realizing how intrinsically tied menstrual products are to feminism. Maybe it's obvious, but also menstruation is just a bodily process, how could it be political? And yet, the patriarchy has managed to politicize it. The more I think about it, the more it astounds me, the fact that Viagra is not taxed but menstrual products are. Men have an entitlement to sexual pleasure but women don't even have the right to a basic need?

When women as a class of people are under attack, everything about us, even our most basic needs become a political tool for oppression. Menstrual products should be available as a human right--what is a woman supposed to do without them? Especially with menstrual cups, it again rehashes the economic barriers of something being more economic in the long run but more expensive in the short run. So what are low income women to do?

And the way periods are so heavily stigmatized: in the West we gasp at how "iN aFriCa tHey dOn'T leT tHe giRLs gO to sChoOl" on their periods, and certainly the state of women varies by region, but the same underlying stigma definitely exists in the US. I remember the way I would stealthily hide tampons in sleeves, pads in the insides of my boot--us women become ninjas when it comes to bringing a menstrual product to the bathroom. Why is it so shameful? Why is it so much worse than any other bodily function done in the bathroom? Another example I was recently realizing was how in menstrual product commercials they always use this alien blue liquid to show how the pad or tampon absorbs liquid--are we just going to pretend that it's not blood we're dealing with here?

So growing up, periods are this shameful, gross secret. Us women are gross for having this natural bodily function. I mean, we don't even like to call it what it is, and there are any number of euphemisms--"time of the month" "that special time," this survey found 5000 different slang euphemisms for menstruation!

I think I was having all these realizations because I found the menstrual cup community to be uncommonly feminist. The menstrual cup attracts people for environmental reasons, and it definitely requires a higher level of awareness because I think the default options are pads and tampons, so the community likely attracts people who have thought more about their periods. And I think just by virtue of that rather innocuous trait (putting more thought into how you handle your period), it likely attracts more feminists.

And that is why, weirdly, I've felt a sort of feminist liberation in my adoption of the menstrual cup. I think first of all I've felt a camaraderie with all the people I'm in this project together with, (because learning how to use a menstrual cup truly is an undertaking), and I've joined facebook groups and reddit threads to join my menstrual cup comrades. And second, I've had to learn so much more about the female anatomy. I didn't even know what the urethra was before I was watching videos on how to insert the cup! I think it definitely counts as feminist to gain knowledge of my basic anatomy that for some reason schools never taught us.

And third, I feel liberated from my period. Once you get the hang of it, cups really are the stress free, mess free (not that period blood makes us disgusting! but you don't want it leaking all over haha), and sustainable way to go! Although it might be a minor inconvenience, periods are something that hold (most, because excluding some trans women) back. It holds us slightly back biologically, what with having to deal with our periods, and it holds us very much back socially (feeling shame, embarrassment, etc. about anything related to menstruation), so it makes me so proud that women were able to invent for ourselves something to take away some of what is holding us back.