Pads for the Patricians: An Analysis of the Sanitary Pads Advertisement in Bangladesh and Its’ Bigotry Representation of Poor Women

Abstract

The images and messages of a particular advertisement can influence consumers’ perspectives about a product, even for menstrual products like sanitary napkins, irrespective of what social class or position they belong to. In the context of Bangladesh, the number of advertisements produced for sanitary napkins is small, and in most cases, the advertisements that exist portray content based on a higher or middle-class lifestyle and affairs, thus creating the ideology that sanitary pads as a product are only made for higher or middle-class women. This study empirically analyses the sanitary pad advertisements in Bangladesh with a focus on the underrepresentation of poor women. It also raises important questions, including whether the media consciously denies the reality of poor women in the pad advertisements. Taking nine sanitary pad advertisements into consideration, the content analysis method has been used to scrutinize these advertisements and later to determine the significance of connected advertisements. The means of grandiloquence in terms of the represented casts’ attire, professions, and lifestyles are identified from the content analyses of the sanitary pad advertisements. The presence of poor class women’s menstrual affairs in the sanitary pad advertisement is a necessity to influence their attitude.

Social Science Review, Vol. 40(2), December 2023 Page: 127-142