#TABOOMATTERS; An Empowering Strategy in Feminine Hygiene Advertising

The representation of blood in advertisements for feminine hygiene products has long been considered a taboo. Recently, ads have changed to reflect a more realistic experience around women and their bodies. However, relatively little attention has been given to the newest portrayal of female hygiene taboos in advertising. While some studies suggest feminine hygiene can touch upon taboos within a female empowerment discourse, prior studies have offered insights into how these advertisements promote an ideal femininity. Theoretically, this starts from two approaches that have located taboo, which consist of Douglas’ ideas of purity and pollution and Habermas’ notions of public and private spheres. Here, advertising has privatised taboo in the public sphere. Yet, there are few studies on how the recent feminine hygiene advertising makes use of taboo subjects to promote their products considering the attached social stigma. Therefore, this study explores how advertising exploits female hygiene taboos. Because a cultural shift in society that concerns the empowerment of women has resulted in feminist marketing, this study examines how taboo is represented and related to femininity in feminine hygiene advertising through digital media. For this purpose, a multimodal critical discourse analysis is conducted on ten feminine hygiene campaigns collected online, while also considering visual aspects. Based on the concepts of purity-pollution and public-private, that remain at the core of the feminine hygiene field, this study finds three discursive strategies by which taboo is marketed in today’s society: taboo within the community; resisting taboo; and body re-appropriation. Through the expression of values of solidarity, defiance and health engagement, the taboo is advertised as meaningful and inherent to the female body. Specifically, the findings suggest that an integration of taboo into a discourse of public concern enables a niche of belief-driven consumers to strengthen their interest in the realistic portrayal of women’s topics. With this, advertising makes use of taboo topics within feminine hygiene to support social change concerning the visibility of women in public. As such, this genre of feminine hygiene advertising stands out from previous advertising through a sense of activism towards restrictive ideals of femininity. This study concludes that advertising exploits taboo as a new female empowerment discourse.