Pantone launches ‘Period’ colour to destigmatise menstruation
‘Enough is enough, it’s 2020. Isn’t it time periods stop being considered as a private affair or a negative experience?’
Playing its part to eliminate the stigma attached to menstruation, Pantone recently launched a new shade of red which, it announced on social media, is called ‘Period’. The colour is that of a bright scarlet tinge, and has been created to “normalize this most normal of bodily functions”.
“Presenting “Period”, a new red shade created to break the stigma around menstruation and promote period positivity,” it wrote in the caption of an Instagram post, adding that a Swedish healthcare brand by the name of Intimina approached the colour institute “to develop this custom colour in support of their global campaign to make menstruation more visible”.
The campaign has been named ‘Seen + Heard’, and it is encouraging more people to talk about periods, so as to “encourage a more sympathetic and accurate depiction of menstruation in culture”.
“Pantone and Intimina worked alongside a gynecologist and consulted research published in Medical News Today to develop the shade, but by no means is this supposed to be an accurate depiction. Instead, we created a visual identifier of a red shade that would help Intimina leverage the power of color to share their story,” the caption further read.
According to The Independent, Danela Žagar, global brand manager at Intimina said: “Despite the fact that billions of people experience menstruation, it has historically been treated as something that shouldn’t be seen or talked about publicly. And if we look at popular culture, depictions of periods have ranged from wildly inaccurate and unsympathetic to being the subject of jokes and derision. Enough is enough, it’s 2020. Isn’t it time periods stop being considered as a private affair or a negative experience?”
Laura Pressman, vice-president at the Pantone Color Institute from Pantone, told the outlet that the colour “Period” is a “confident red shade symbolic of the empowering message of the campaign”.
On its page, Intimina shared: “Party’s over, period ignorers! We developed this bold shade of red with The Pantone Colour Institute to facilitate bolder conversations about normal bodily functions and we’re so happy to see you love it! Every like, share or constructive criticism motivates us to do more and do better. Only together we can break the stigma.”
While countries around the world have been striving to normalise conversations around menstruation, The Independent reports that this bold new step could be because of the debate around the recent JK Rowling Twitter fiasco. The Harry Potter author had, in June, shared a link to an article titled ‘Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate‘. To this, she had commented: “People who menstruate’. I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
She was later passionately criticised for dismissing the experiences of the trans community, with netizens calling her ‘transphobic’, and educating her on the fact that it’s not just cis-gendered women who menstruate.
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