Honest comms & conversations about female anatomy

Source: Youtube - UNAPOLOGETICALLY, ANNOVERA: Annual, comfortable, controllable birth control

Female hygiene and sexual health brands continue to progress the way vaginas (and everything they do) are discussed and even celebrated.

While there have been leaps and bounds made in recent years in the way in which female health, and in particular menstrual and sexual health is discussed there is still some way to go. Luckily a few recent campaigns are continuing to push the conversation forwards.

Following other period empowering ads in recent years, Libresse (Libra here in Aus) has released another ad that will no doubt help to normalise female health. The new campaign #wombstories uses a mix of animation and real footage to highlight the arrange of different experiences that women face: "The unseen, unspoken, unknown stories of our periods, vulvas and wombs". The video and full website copy are thoughtfully crafted. Given their previous campaign #bloodnormal received the most complaints of any ad last year, it seems that we still have some way to go before normalisation of such honest representations.

In the US Amy Schumer is literally getting the conversation going, of course in her very funny way. Partnering with Tampax, Amy walked around American malls for the "Let's Talk About It" clips. These aim to educate and remove stigmas all at once. Some of the responses around reproductive health are quite telling that there is still a long way to go.

A US company (Annovera) are marketing their contraceptive ring with a bold campaign that confronts the way we normally shy away from the realities of sexual health and, specifically, vaginas. The narration starts with the line: “Let’s talk about ‘the V-word’—not vagina, but literally ‘the V-word,'” and goes on to say that "when we talk like that about reproductive health, we’re apologising, so consider this an un-apology.” In a similar fashion to other communications mentioned the video presents a more honest way of discussing topics that still require normalisation...even if the American T&C's seem a little scary.

Zara Cooper