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Chinese women rage about unsafe sanitary towels
IN RECENT years Chinese consumers have been duped by misbranded, shoddy condoms; tainted alcohol; 40-year-old meat and, in 2008, contaminated baby milk that killed four children and landed 50,000 in hospital. Knock-off brands of sanitary towels are the latest example of China’s enduring failure to keep products safe. In late October police arrested two suspects in Nanchang in the southern province of Jiangxi, accusing them of making some 10m pads since 2013 in a dirty workshop and packaging them with popular trademarks. Most were sold at small shops in the countryside.Almost all women in China within a certain age-range worry about the quality of their pads—even legitimate ones sometimes fail safety tests. Sanitary towels are must-buy items for many Chinese tourists when they go abroad (along with Japanese toilet seats and designer handbags).
Many netizens have accused the authorities of being patronising and negligent in their handling of the recent scandal. People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main mouthpiece, ran an online infographic headlined: “Girls, after all these years, are you really using sanitary pads correctly?” With it was an illustration of a stick-thin ballerina, leg held high. Articles elsewhere advised people how to spot fakes by checking for a chemical smell or irregular shape. One netizen complained about a litany of things that Chinese consumers have to watch out for, from cooking-oil scooped from drains and reused by restaurants, to fake medicines dispensed by doctors. “It’s so awesome living in China,” the blogger wrote.
The scandal may have one positive outcome: bringing a once-taboo subject further into the open. Menstrual blood is often seen as dirty; girls in China receive little education in options for coping. Most women prefer to use pads—tampons are expensive and hard to find in shops (most are imported). Only 2% of Chinese women use them compared with some 70% of Americans, according to a survey in 2015 by Cotton Incorporated, an American trade body. A third of Chinese women have never heard of them.
Widespread misunderstanding about periods was evident when Fu Yuanhui (pictured), a celebrity Olympic swimmer, said she had swum badly at this summer’s games in Rio de Janeiro because she had her period. Many Chinese asked how it was even possible to swim at such a time. Chinese women often avoid cold food, cold drinks and physical activity while menstruating. Many praised Ms Fu’s use of the word “period” rather than the far more popular euphemism, “My aunt has come.” Greater debate now may prompt some to realise they have let menstruation cramp their style for too long.
