Procter & Gamble Blames Amy Schumer For The National Tampon Shortage
Back in July 2020, Procter & Gamble hired Amy Schumer to appear in an “edutainment” (ad) campaign for Tampax, America’s most popular brand of tampons. Two years later, there’s a national tampon shortage. The streets run red with menstrual blood! P&G’s explanation? Amy Schumer’s commercials were so amazing that she’s the reason for the lack of supplies. Huh. So the next time you go to the drug store for an emergency tampon run and are greeted by empty shelves, blame Schumer!
Procter & Gamble spokeswoman Cheri McMaster told Time magazine that, since Amy’s commercials have come out, “retail sales growth has exploded.” Here are a couple of Amy’s Tampax commercials. The premise is “women don’t know that tampons come in different sizes.” Um, yes we do, but whatever:
But Time points out that Tampax might be grasping at tampon strings:
Who watches commercials anymore? And even if the Tampax ads were a hit, that explanation doesn’t account for why other brands of tampons, including Playtex and o.b., were also out of stock.
The writer also points out that the pandemic probably caused people to stock up on tampons because they were afraid supplies would run out (see: the great TP shortage of March 2020). Then there’s the fact that COVID greatly fucked up the supply chain for tampons and other products. This is due to factory closures, staff shortages, port delays, and not enough raw materials (see: my new couch that took 8 months to be delivered).
The tampon shortage is getting pretty bleak. Dana Marlowe, the founder of I Support the Girls, a charity that provides bras and menstrual hygiene products for people experiencing homelessness, says that her organization has experienced a huge drop off in tampon donations:
“What’s been going on for a couple months is that organizations call us up and say, ‘we need tampons,’ and we go to our warehouse and there’s nothing there.”
For the first six months of this year, Marlowe’s group received just 213,075 tampons, half as many as during the same time last year and 61% fewer than 2020. Marlowe texted me photos of aisles in Indianapolis and Silver Spring, Maryland that were stocked with menstrual pads but empty of tampons.
Women on Reddit and mom Facebook groups have also been complaining that tampons are nowhere to be found. Amazon sellers are, of course, taking advantage of the shortage; “in January, one box of 18 Tampax listed for $114, about six dollars more—per tampon—than women usually pay.” How very ethical.
I’m a Diva Cup bitch ’til the day I die, so I pity the poor souls who continue to pay waaay too much money for wads of coochie cotton. But I will never ever go so far as to buy those absorbent period panties. Even a trash box like mine has her standards.
Pic: YouTube