When Sabrina Wang, a Chinese university student, learned in an online post that manufacturers of sanitary pads had been cheating women, selling them pads that were significantly shorter than advertised, she decided to measure her own. She was shocked to find that all three brands she had at home were shorter than labeled, by as much as 17 percent.
“If I had issues when using them, I’d wonder if it was that I had gone too long without changing them,” Ms. Wang, 22, said. “It was only after everyone pointed it out that I realized it was a manufacturing problem.”
She wrote her own post, urging other women to lobby for stricter oversight of pad makers. “Manufacturers think we can’t go without their products because of our everyday physiological needs, so they dare to be so arrogant,” she said in an interview. “It’s a lack of respect.”
Ms. Wang was joining a chorus of voices in China that in recent weeks have demanded greater accountability from sanitary pad manufacturers and government regulators — and, more broadly, greater consideration of women. Criticism of the lengths of pads quickly expanded to scrutiny of their quality and price. From there, the conversation branched out to topics like inadequate sex education, body shaming and the lack of female corporate leaders.
Women have called for boycotts of brands they deem to be of subpar quality, and shared guides to making reusable pads at home. Dozens of hashtags about the topic, such as “black-hearted pads” and “Is it so hard for sanitary pad producers to meet women’s needs?” have trended online.
The backlash prompted one major manufacturer to pull all its products from the e-commerce platform Taobao, promising to improve them. State media outlets have denounced “deep-seated problems” in the industry. And a government-backed trade association promised to take public comments into account when formulating new regulations for sanitary products.
The uproar is the latest example of how discussions of gender inequality have become increasingly common in China, even as the ruling Communist Party has worked to silence civil society and independent speech. Though the police have targeted high-profile feminist activists and organizations, a more nascent and general awareness of gender discrimination, often spread online by young women, has proved harder to stamp out.
Menstruation, in particular, has become a popular rallying topic. During the Covid pandemic, many women criticized the lack of sanitary pads for medical staff. China’s high-speed rail agency did not sell pads on trains until an online pressure campaign in 2022 prompted some routes to begin stocking them.
The latest campaign began this month, when people on Xiaohongshu, an Instagram-like platform popular with female users, posted videos showing themselves measuring their sanitary pads. They urged other women to follow suit.
When women complained to the manufacturers’ customer service representatives about their findings, some initial responses were dismissive, fueling further outrage. A representative for ABC, a popular brand, told one woman that she didn’t have to buy the products if she was dissatisfied.
Other brands noted that Chinese regulations permit labeling discrepancies within a certain range.
Soon, many women began scrutinizing other details about their pads, such as their chemical content, or advertisements they perceived as sexist. They shared stories about being embarrassed by leaky pads. Others said the government should reimburse the cost of sanitary products through medical insurance.
Some women encouraged others to submit feedback to an industry federation in charge of drafting regulations for sanitary pads, even drafting suggestions to copy and paste, such as increasing random inspections on manufacturers and further restricting formaldehyde as a component.
“The more I read, the angrier I got,” said Liu Ye, a 20-year-old student who joined the feedback campaign. “If many people submit opinions, there should be an effect.”
Major pad manufacturers soon began issuing apologies. The founder of ABC shared a video in which he bowed to the camera and promised exact adherence to industry standards.
Still, despite the apparent success of the women’s protests, there were signs of official wariness toward mass mobilization and feminism. Even as state media outlets chided manufacturers for making low-quality products, they did so mostly from the perspective of protecting consumer rights generally, not women’s rights.
Ms. Wang, the university student who shared tips for lobbying regulators on Xiaohongshu, said her post appeared to have been partly censored; others could not see her replies to their comments, and the post’s viewership rate suddenly plunged overnight.
Other companies that have adopted advertising campaigns seen as appealing to feminists have backtracked after storms of online criticism from men.
For some women, even if the companies did change, it was too little, too late. Zhang Yanchi, a 23-year-old writer in central China, said she wanted to see female entrepreneurs building their own companies that respected and empowered women.
“I am waiting for their pads,” she said.
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