Being open

In projects geared at innovation and development of menstrual products, it is imperative that the social stigma is neglected among participants. This is because the stigma signifies a social barrier, hindering the ability to discuss the core of users’ experiences. In order to develop products that accurately and successfully meet consumers’ needs, it is, as previously discussed, vital to understand those needs. I argue that this likely contributes to destigmatization in at least two ways.

Firstly, the more people who behave in a destigmatizing way, the greater the possibility that such behavior will spread to others who come into contact with those people and are able to have increasingly open and destigmatized conversations.

Secondly, if those who develop new products disregard the stigma when doing such work, it can be argued that the innovation output will have greater potential to meet the accurate needs of consumers. In the opposite case, if product developers maintain a mental and social distance from the experience of menstruating and using the products they are developing, then it seems less likely that those products will be as close to meeting the inherent needs of consumers.

This is because if you cannot communicate openly about the intimate details of menstrual blood, how it runs and seeps, how thick it is, how clotty it may be, and how products might chafe, move around, be shaped by the buttocks or thighs when moving, what happens when exercising and sweating, and other aspects that are stigmatized in the development process, then those things will likely not be considered, and the end product will not be as well suited to consumers’ versatile

needs. The better products satisfy consumers’ needs, however, the more likely consumers are to be more comfortable and confident, which contributes to destigmatization.

Respondents argued that the fundamental principle is that you have to understand what happens when the menstrual liquid leaves the body, how it enters the pad, in what speed and how it moves. In order to learn about these things, it is imperative to become accustomed to all aspects of menstruation, including the smells – a desensitization process that can be compared to the one healthcare workers go through when they start employment in hospice. This is an interesting comparison because while engaging in so-called dirty work (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2014a), or stigmatized work, becomes normalized through the everyday, there is also a form of separation between viewing care-taking of a patient as something personal, rather than as doing a job. As soon as it becomes personal, it seems as though there are socially constructed ideas about what is deemed gross or awkward, but by objectifying the work or the menstruation it can become normalized in the context of work rather than body liquids. Drevik described that,

“Something that was really important to work with was the way the flows acted and what the liquid was like. […] In some way, it’s like a process of learning, just like when you work in elderly care, you have to learn to deal with those smells. If you come in as a visitor, you feel kind of like ‘how can you work with this?’ ‘Well, you get used to it,’ and I think it’s the same thing with this. You just get used to it because it’s our job – to develop the best solutions for this liquid. So, we see it as more than a liquid, and then it becomes just like in healthcare, where you maybe don’t see the patient as Adam or something, but rather a patient who needs help, and that’s your job. So, I think you have to learn to distance yourself from it, rather than make it personal.”

An important part of understanding users’ experiences and needs is trying to put oneself in their shoes by trying the products oneself. In development processes, a constructive way to understand the users’ experiences of products is for developers to test them themselves throughout the process. According to Solgun Drevik, former product developer at SCA (now Essity), after trying out new products, the team members would thoroughly describe their experiences, which were considered the fundament on which they then built their development efforts.

New team members might be taken aback by this type of open atmosphere at first,

but they quickly get used to it, because it is too inefficient to talk around matters just because it is stigmatized and unfamiliar. Drevik stated that,

“A relaxed jargon is a prerequisite and a must to be able to develop together. Just in our own teams that we worked in, we would test and come in and tell each other exactly how it felt – so, you have to be able to describe very descriptively to each other what experiences you had of the product. Everything builds on that in order to know how to go forward. So, you need high ceilings and definitely understanding. That’s how it is at these types of work places, I’d say. Then, if you come in as a new member, you might think ‘wow, wow, wow,’ but then you quickly become seasoned I guess you could say. So, that’s just a phase, I’m entirely convinced.”

This is much unlike the process that Berg explained where new people introduced to the business concept became defensive. Instead, members of the development team might be hesitant at first but quickly catch on to the relaxed jargon. Having applied to a project at Essity, however, these people are aware, beforehand, of the type of products they will be working with, which is not necessarily the case with those entrepreneurs with an interest of starting a collaboration or gaining financing for a menstrual product initiative.

While potentially controversial in the 1980s, when Drevik was working at SCA, the social openness is practiced until this day in most departments that concern products such as diapers, incontinence- or menstrual products. Susanne Lindblad, who currently works in regulatory affairs at Essity, argued that,

“We who work here are very open. As a newly hired employee, you probably react to it, but you get used to it quickly. We work with incontinence products too, where we are very open as well.”

Furthermore, because understanding the users’ experience was vital for everyone in the development team, they would make the same products but shaped for the male developers to try them as well. Drevik described how the men would often come back and question whether women could really walk around with these products because it was so uncomfortable to wear inside their underwear. This way, they were able to identify what exactly it was that they found uncomfortable and find better solutions. Perhaps, including men and this type of exercise in the development process was especially fruitful because women are likely more used

to the general discomfort of having to wear some sort of menstrual product, and someone who is not accustomed in the same way might gain a deeper drive due to their newfound understanding of what menstruating people go through. This can be seen as a telling way to distinguish a superior developer from an inferior one. Drevik described how,

“The men in this industry have the same silly humor, so we’ve had some silly workshops, you can say. Yes, we would send out the men with especially made versions, so they could feel and squeeze too. And it was a bit funny to hear their comments, ‘Ah! can you really walk around with these?’ ‘Yes, but now you have to really think about how it feels’ and the ‘Yes, yes, well, then I’d like to do this’ ‘Yes, well, good.’ So, they were definitely engaged. Very engaged in the development process. Well, everyone wasn’t, but those who really were good developers did not hesitate to try themselves.”

Open engagement in the product development process can be seen as one of the key success factors in developing menstrual products that do well on the market.

It was these unconventional practices that made Solgun Drevik and her team so successful in their menstrual product development and innovation work. In fact, their projects resulted in her getting over 70 patents and inventions that are widely used today. This includes the absorbent core of menstrual pads. Drevik stated that,

“I was a part of those projects that were a bit groundbreaking, but throughout all these years, there have been some odd projects once in a while. And with these thin, thin products, I was a part of it from the beginning, but I am not the only mother to it all. But on the other hand, to these products on the market today, the shape of the core they have, I am the mother of those! The fact that we went to the basic knowledge we got through all the molds and plastic forms. So, that is the base from which they develop today, that’s from me.”

Another insight originated in the intimate engagement with the female genitals and their associated liquids that led to a meaningful product development was when Drevik and her team realized that pads and liners needed to be more breathable. They found that pad and liner users were producing larger amounts of discharge than those using tampons. As a consequence, the number of user-reported cases of yeast infections also decreased substantially. Drevik stated that,

“It’s the same with panty liners, there are a lot of people who, maybe don’t get yeast infections – not that bad, but who get more discharge, because the body produces more, the more you confine the space the whole time. The body reacts to that. Yes, you have more discharge as a tampon user than a pad user because you’re there irritating the mucous membranes the whole time. That’s not something you think about. It got a lot better when we drove through breathable panty liners. And then thrush and that stuff decreased too. So, it needs to be breathable.”

To summarize, in order to develop products that satisfy consumers’ many needs, it seems imperative that those engaged in the development process are able to have an open and destigmatized atmosphere throughout. This enables them to openly discuss the nitty gritty details of menstruation, menstrual blood, the genitals, and all instances that might be affected by menstruation in one’s daily life and take those into account in new products. With products where all such considerations are accounted for, users are likely to be more comfortable and feel confident about their menstruation and menstrual products, which is likely to contribute to destigmatization.