the Female Body GOVERNING

5
Regulation through
Postfeminist Pharmacy
Promotional Discourse and Menstruation
JOSHUA GUNN & MARY DOUGLAS VAVRUS
University of Texas, Austin, and University of Minnesota
“I’m a Remifemin-ist!” exclaimed the happy and healthy looking
African American woman speaking to us from the television screen.
We couldn’t believe what we were seeing: a woman unapologetically
using the word feminist in mainstream television. However, our hopes
diminished as quickly as they appeared. This was an advertisement—for
a menopause remedy. In it several healthy looking, smiling women
engaged in various activities demonstrating their active lifestyles (e.g.,
without any signs of windedness, one woman proclaims her allegiance
to Remifemin-ism while working out in a gym). Indeed, each woman
spoke enthusiastically about Remifemin—a new (as of 2001) estrogenfree
menopause treatment, which was allegedly making all of their lives
better. Clearly, this ad feminism was being invoked to sell a product, not
to praise either the movement or what it had done to improve women’s
lives.
But Remifemin was not the only treatment trumpeted as one that
would help women immeasurably by tending to some aspect of their
menstrual cycles. Beginning in early 2000, three menstruation-related
campaigns emerged in U. S. mainstream media, each promoting a
product claiming to treat a different phase of the menstrual cycle:
Sarafem for premenstruation (“premenstrual dysphoric disorder”),
Seasonale for menstruation (cessation of menstruation and its “excessive
ovulation”), and Remifemin for menopause (reduction of hot
flashes, etc., by becoming a “Remifemin-ist”). Each of these campaigns
promoted a pharmaceutical cure for the ills alleged to derive from
these aspects of menstruation. Articulating menstruation’s phases to
a pathological condition is not a novel technique for pharmaceutical
promotions. What is new is the way these products are promoted
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