When I was over in Europe a couple years ago I remember getting into what I thought was a pointless argument with a couple woman in my group. They were complaining that they could not find any Midol to treat their menstrual cramping so I suggested just buying some sort of Tylenol generic. "It's not the same, Midol is specifically for this pain" they said to me. Then when I said it has the same pain reliever as Tylenol I was accused of "mansplaining" and I decided to drop it. Through this example it appears that Midol's marketing department is doing a good job reinforcing this only for menstrual pain design, so let's take a look at Midol and their tablets designed "specifically" for menstrual relief.
Midol Complete contains 500 mg of Acetaminophen for pain, 60 mg of caffeine for fatigue, and 15 mg of an antihistamine for bloating. As pain relief goes this is the same amount of acetaminophen as an extra strength Tylenol and acetaminophen is in no way better at treating menstrual cramping than any other pain. As for the caffeine this is about half of what is in what cup of coffee so curing fatigue seems a bit of a stretch. And as for the anti histamine there is no significant evidence I can find that an anti histamine would produce any positive affects in this situation although there seems to be a link between histamine and estrogen. To me it seems that the producers of Midol have added caffeine and an anti histamine into their product to say look we are different when there is little to no evidence to show that this is actually the case. I would also like to point out that Midol has multiple products and I picked the one that looked most legitimate as they have other versions that are just 200 mg of an NSAID.
Let's move onto Midol and there marketing. Below are links to two commercials I found that follow the exact same format. The husband is home, being lazy, eating junk food, and watching/ listening to sports, because you know that's all men do, then the wife comes in and threatens the husband in some way. In one commercial the wife actually pours gasoline on her sleeping husband and the screen goes to the logo as you hear a match being lit. So Midol is painting a picture that when a woman gets her period she turns into an actual murderer due to her discomfort, nice Midol really empowering. When you go to their site it's not much better. Their opening statement starts with how you're a one of a kind woman and then talks about how you don't have time for these menstrual symptoms because you need to take care of everyone else. This seems to be reinforcing gender stereotypes and goes against this unique independent woman image they are trying to create at the same time.
All in all in would appear that Midol advertises itself specifically for woman through marketing it as a drug for menstrual relief when it really is a glorified Tylenol. This marketing includes appealing to gender stereotypes to reinforce a thought that this is just for woman, thereby making it more desirable then the non gender specific competition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqAXGpph1lI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2zf1-ZlD8Y
Wow that's an interesting story, in the beginning, and comes to show the importance of marketing for a company. Commercials like these indoctrinate us that there only exists one such medication that we cannot go a day without and they do so despite dozens of other medications having the same active ingredients. Companies like Midol rely on the general public's lack of knowledge on bio-equivalency which is simply the same active ingredients in equal concentrations sold by two different brands often at different prices. What was smart about Midol was that they targeted a group of a historically oppressed gender and gave them a medication that seemed to be exclusively for them only, hence your accusation of mansplaining as well as preference over other bioequivalent medications that can easily be accessed by the oppressed and the oppressor.
ReplyDeleteI think it USED to contain a smooth-muscle relaxant, maybe belladona. But the side effects got noticed, and now it's the mix of generics Mike describes.
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