Cash Flow

Front matter

*UCLPRESS

The businesses of menstruation

Camilla Mørk Rostvik

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements

Introduction: Blood money: the menstrual product industry in late capitalism

1. Saba: a Norwegian fairy tale? 2. Mölnlycke, SCA, Essity: Swedish menstrual exceptionalism

Chapter 1 Saba: a Norwegian fairy tale?

Be free and glad. Feel on top. Always. You can be safe! Saba advertisement, 1945.!

Once upon a time, a man drove a bus through the fjords and mountains of Norway in an unprecedented marketing stunt to sell menstrual products. During the 1950s and 1960s, the ‘Saba bus’ was a frequent sight in rural Norway, evangelising the good news of modern ‘menstrual hygiene’ (see Figure 1.1). The brand name referred to the biblical figure of the Queen of Sheba (‘Dronningen av Saba’ in Norwegian), and was represented on uniforms, vehicles and products in the form of an Art Deco-style Egyptian

Figure 1.1. The SABA bus used to advertise products around the country, 1958 or 1959. Unknown photographer. From the SCA Mölnlycke AS archives, series A-1050, at Vestfoldarkivet, Norway.

SABA: A NORWEGIAN FAIRY TALE?

sphinx’s head. The gaps between the regal name and the bus driver, Egypt and rural Norway, the man and his female customer base, was large. Even so, Saba became a fairy-tale business story in the post-war and pre-oil economic landscape of Norway, monopolising the menstrual product market almost completely between the 1940s and 1990s, beginning with the Saba pad and expanding into tampons by the 1970s. In this chapter, I test perceptions of Scandinavian exceptionalism, gender equality and progressive politics in Norway through the case of Saba and its largely female skilled workforce, and tie the company’s history to this book’s broader arguments about Western exceptionalism and racialised notions of menstruation.

Investigating the history of the Saba company adds new geographic and cultural data to the literature on menstrual product development, while still underscoring how much influence stakeholders in the Global North continue to hold. It uncovers a novel part of Norwegian industrial history, one in which women operated machines and risked their hands and health to make a new market for the emerging ‘menstrual consumer’, and in stark contrast with the image projected by Norwegians and the external world about the country’s gender equality and fairness. As such, the case of Saba tests the assumptions about Scandinavian women’s equality and presents a reminder of the fight for equal pay, childcare, influence and respect amongst the labour force.” The tensions between the nationalistic Saba brand’s claims about Norwegian women and the actual working conditions for women in the company are evident throughout, and echo in later chapters where similar strains between branding and reality appear. Drawing on the remarkably well-organised and extensive Saba archives at Vestfoldarkivet in Sandefjord, Norway, both the official company narrative and stories from staff are available. ° These Norwegian-language documents include financial information, print and televised advertising, staff newsletters, photograph collections, speech manuscripts, and documentation about the founding and end of the company. Together, they present an official narrative of the company — but one which also includes negative information about working conditions, equal pay, and staff complaints through the staff newsletters and meeting minutes discussing gender and union matters in particular. This is complemented with information from two family members of former Saba workers, the granddaughter of one of the founders, Birgitte Brager Melbye, and the daughter of the head secretary, Wenche Myran.* These two family members provide complementing but different views of Saba, although it should be noted that both are talking about Saba staff in executive or leadership positions, who felt they could speak freely and loudly, and who were proud of what they had built.

The creation of Saba necessitated a group of people unafraid to challenge the strong taboos regarding menstruation in mid-twentieth century Norway. During the last stages of the Second World War, three men, Arne Gravdahl, Olav Breian and Gunnar Nissen Brager, invested in the relatively new concept of disposable menstrual pads made of cellulose (wood pulp) and began a modest production line in a private house. They were soon joined by a workforce consisting mostly of women, and by head secretary Else Singdahlsen, whose enthusiasm for the company and knowledge of English made her an indispensable figure. Although disposable pads had been available to Norwegians with money and access to international markets since the 1900s (via, for example, brands such as Kotex from the US), most women knitted or reused materials, making the potential for a new market extremely promising.” Until 1968, the factory and brand Saba remained the sole Norwegian-produced menstrual product and the only choice for consumers, effectively creating a monopoly.

Since no other brands were available, mid- to late-century attitudes to menstruation in Norway were inextricably linked to the name ‘Saba’ and the mysterious Queen of Sheba first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. The Queen brought gifts to King Solomon and witnessed his wisdom in an exchange of conversation and riddles. Sheba has been depicted as a Black woman of immense beauty and strength, and has been portrayed as a seductive and powerful figure in television, literature and movies.° In both the religious texts and recent representations, there are few links to Norway beyond the 1887 novel Dronningen av Saba by the Nobel Prizewinning Nazi sympathiser Knut Hamsun, which detailed the protagonist’s ‘frustration where the exoticism of the Orient is deemed unattainable’, and where he is bored by contrast with the industrialised and provincial life of Scandinavia.’ Likewise, the choice of name for the company reveals the significant Christian culture of mid-century Norway, and the specific mixture of religious reverence and morality at play, as well as an interest in the ‘exotic’ or ‘oriental’ as a contrast to the dull ‘civilization’ of Scandinavian life. The idea that Saba’s products were ‘fit for a queen’ was implied in the branding strategy, while the elegance, femininity and grace offered by a female royal lent symbolic power.

The company’s choice of name signalled both its own reliance on Christian values and a small act of defiance against conventional pietistic Norwegian morality.’ By choosing a name of a powerful and interesting

SABA: A NORWEGIAN FAIRY TALE?

Figure 1.2. Saba menstrual pad packaging, alongside a paper bag used to discreetly hold Saba products in shops. The pad and belt also pictured. This belonged to Gerd Andrine Germunrgd (née Holt), born 1926, died 2006. She grew up in Vestfold in Norway. The Saba materials were found at her cabin in 2018. Photograph by Geir Ove Andreassen. Identifier KMR.03735 from Kvinnemuseet.

figure from within accepted discourse, the founders cleverly balanced a message of empowerment with religious and political correctness. Although the branding was carefully designed to celebrate Norwegian womanhood (see Figure 1.2), this commendable goal was sometimes at odds with the reality for female staff at Saba. At the company’s 50-year celebrations in 1995, the Queen of Sheba’s name and likeness were still being celebrated as a core reason for Saba’s success, then as a symbol of ‘women’s empowerment’ and as the ‘visual framework’ of the business as a whole." Fifty years after the founding of the company, the visual language of Saba continued to revolve around a stylised golden logo of a woman’s head, similar to the Great Sphinx of Giza, a limestone statue of a reclining mythical figure from the ancient Egyptian kingdoms. This floating head without a body adorned each package of pads produced by Saba, suggesting that women were at the centre of the product. The business itself was dominated by female staff, but few official female leaders. In the overview of staff who had been given a gold watch after 25 years of service, only three were women — despite the dominance of women on the factory floor.‘ Mostly, there were kings at Saba. To look for the actual Queen or women of Saba is a difficult task, and one that takes us to the factory floor, the machines, and the union, rather than the boardroom.

A Norwegian product

From the start, every Saba worker was told to be united in one goal: to make buyers and consumers aware that their disposable menstrual products existed and were the best option for managing blood. The task was momentous.” To reverse the unbroken historic habit of making and reusing cloth to manage menstrual blood had never been tried on such a large scale in Norway before, and the effort challenged Saba to consider economic, gendered, classed and generational stigmas. The Saba buses were one of many early efforts to impact consumer habits — or, more precisely, to make consumers out of menstruating women and girls for the first time. Male drivers visited rural locations to sell products directly to women and shops, creating an almost instant success that drove production up year by year. To keep increasing manufacturing speeds in the factory, Saba relied on an area of Norway where cheap labour and space were readily available.

The area of Tonsberg where Saba was first established was (and remains) a centre of entrepreneurship within the social-democratic welfare system that was established in Norway at the end of the personal union with Sweden in 1905. Key areas of enterprise included the whaling industry, and the subsequent development of new materials, foods and technologies throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Founded in the 1940s, Saba began in the tough post-war era when unemployment characterised Norway, and where sexist attitudes to women barred their entrance to many types of work." Culturally, the town and region was dominated by pietistic religious dogma and working-class culture and pride. Attending church, gender-segregated family roles, and Norwegian nationalism in the aftermath of the split with Sweden and, later, the Nazi occupation, were parts of everyday life. As such, Saba fitted perfectly into the regional and time-specific contexts of Tonsberg by creating a ‘Norwegian product’ that referenced the Bible.

Saba’s origin story was an interesting case of someone crossing the gender boundary in an attempt to understand menstruation. On the way to church one Sunday in 1940, future co-founder Gunnar Nissen Brager, observing handmade pads drying on a clothing line in the sun, asked his wife what they were used for. Shocked by the realisation that Norwegian women used such basic amenities, he was inspired to create what he saw as

SABA: A NORWEGIAN FAIRY TALE?

a better way of managing menstruation. Brager had expertise in cloth making of another kind, having run the women’s clothing store Brager Konfeksjonsfabrikk in the Oslo area previously. According to granddaughter Birgitte Brager Melbye, ‘he had sympathy with his wife and his daughters’, and sought to help them and other women.*° He started producing pads consisting of cotton wrapped in gauze in 1940, but had extensive problems with acquiring raw materials. The Second World War and occupation of Norway subsequently paused the project.

Saba resurfaced soon after emancipation, entering a different political and industrial landscape. In terms of the political situation, historians have begun to write the critical histories of Norwegian resistance to and compliance with the Nazi regime during the occupation, and the consequences of this on industrial and family life.” The writing of women’s war experience partially focused on the ‘German sluts’ (sic., the translation of ‘Tyskertgser’) who established relationships, married, and/or had children with the occupiers. These women were hounded in the years after the war, and mandated to leave Norway by the government (in 2018, Prime Minister Erna Solberg issued an official apology). In addition, historians also wrote about patriotic heroines who fought against the occupiers, and about suffering, cold, starvation, and displacement facing Norwegian women, antisemitism facing Norwegian Jews, and the ethnic cleansing of the Sami peoples by Norwegians and occupiers. The economic effects of this troubled era led many women to look for paid work outside the home.

During the occupation, many Norwegian women entered the traditionally male-dominated workforce of factories. The popular Crown Princess Martha had encouraged women to work, and 75,000 women signed up to do volunteer and paid work through the organisation Women’s Working Help, advertised through national newspapers. Many of these women attended courses for driving, first aid, and factory skills. Some, known as ‘Lottene’, joined the Norwegian Women’s Volunteer Force, a well-organised network that transported illegal weapons, covered farming work for men who carried out sabotage missions against the Germans, and assisted refugees over the border to neutral Sweden.'® Women also entered industrial factory work (drawing on a much longer Norwegian tradition of women packaging fish products in factories). Tonsberg alone was home to a large textile industry that had flourished in the nineteenth century, and fizzled out by 1870, leaving many women searching for new employment opportunities.” In the early to mid-twentieth century, the town’s factories welcomed many of them, employing hundreds of women at the chocolate factory and in what remained of the textile industry.

Saba’s first factory was built within an old harpoon smithy left over from the whale-industry era. As employers, Saba promised independence, earnings and even empowerment to women seeking work in the mid- 1940s. With a product aimed at girls and women, it was assumed that women would make up most of the factory labour force — and they did. While this was presented as an opportunity for ‘housewives in the area’ looking for extra income in the stark years of post-war Norwegian recession, it was also a way of attracting a cheap workforce.” During this decade, a government committee began looking into the issue of equal pay, including in manual factory work. Gendered pay grades, however, were not officially removed until 1961, following the lobbying of the Norwegian Workers Society and the National Union. By 1979, the Equality Law stated that women and men should be paid the same for the same work. In sum, women shift-workers entering Saba’s factories in the mid-1940s were good value for money.

In contrast, the founders, management and non-shift work positions (including bus drivers and machinists) were dominated by men. These roles were better paid and more secure. While this imbalance between women and men was not unique to Saba at the time, the specific gendered branding and nature of its products meant that tensions arose between what the company stated about women and how female employees felt. Saba advertising slogans such as ‘Be free and glad, feel on top — always’ suggested a monolithic view of women and menstruation, in which negative emotion was deemed unladylike. While the male bus driver certainly broke barriers by being attached to the Saba brand, there was a financial and perhaps even societal award involved. Male Saba workers, whether they were founders or bus drivers, could claim to ‘help’ women and to ‘educate’ Norwegian society. Meanwhile, these free-thinking ideals were tested on the factory floor where women’s reproductive and working lives often collided. While the brand promised that Saba was ‘fit for a queen’, many factory workers felt less than regal in their roles.

The spirit of Saba

The tension between ideological goals and reality was often apparent in the life and work of the founding figures. While Brager came up with the initial idea and oversaw the company finances, Arne Gravdahl was a businessman known to quote the Bible. Due to the financial instability of the 1940s, he had little education (in comparison to Brager, who was also fluent in English and German), and had tried and failed to seek

SABA: A NORWEGIAN FAIRY TALE?

employment in the United States alongside numerous Norwegians. He picked up skills and knowledge in a series of jobs, and his religious enthusiasm and humble beginnings were often mentioned in media coverage. Gravdahl was proud of Saba’s anti-elitist and Christian roots, arguing that they had created working conditions that were egalitarian.” The founders were involved in the day-to-day operation of the Tønsberg plant for decades, and they celebrated their long-term success with the workers by providing rentable holiday cottages, excursions in summer, and a famous annual Christmas feast where lobster and live music were among the many luxuries.” The parties were a part of what the managers saw as the spirit of Saba, made possible by the sudden financial success of the product.

Apart from the occasional celebrations, for most Saba workers labour consisted of an intense shift-work routine. The number of employees increased slowly for a while, with 30 workers hired in the 1950s, 90 in the 1960s, over 400 by the late 1970s, and peaking at 800 in the late 1980s.” From the start, the majority of the factory floor workers were women.”* They were employed to oversee specific parts of a large industrial factory system, such as attaching cellulose spools to machines, cutting pads, applying hot glue to the pad, or packaging. Machinists ran the overall systems, walking between stations. A structure of breaks was implemented to ensure workers could stretch their bodies, eat, drink coffee, or smoke, working in day and night shifts as required. Beyond the factory, office workers and management made plans for expansion, an advertising team made campaigns aimed at newspapers, a sales team travelled the country selling directly to consumers via the ‘Saba bus’ and to salespeople in shops, and product developers ordered in the raw materials from abroad.

We can gain more information about working life from the welldocumented company meetings between staff representatives and management, as well as from the internal magazine Saba Informasjonen.” Both sets of materials bear witness to the gendered context they were written within. The company meetings were kept by the director’s secretary and right hand, Else Singdahlsen, who was often the only woman in meetings, whereas the magazine was written by several male contributors. These two very different documents reveal the inconsistencies in both management discussions and staff experiences. Not surprisingly, management were keen to stress improvements, while the staff magazine detailed unsolved issues. At other times, management were keen to point out Saba’s exemplary position as a fair employer, whereas the magazine described female workers as little more than accessories. Women’s appearance and their concerns about appearance was commented on in the magazine — ‘They are really so cute in their new uniforms’, details the editorial voice, while also reminding readers that women ‘love to talk about calories’ and dieting.” In these ways, women were often discussed as ‘them’, not ‘us’, both in company meeting minutes and in the internal magazine.

Factory workers also had more serious concerns on their minds. In the 1960s, they noted the low lighting levels and high noise volume in the factory building, which led to headaches and vision problems.” They struggled throughout the seasons, working in ‘tropical temperatures in summer and freezing cold in winter’. Saba’s uniforms were uncomfortable in intense heat and cold, but complaints were often dismissed based on an assumption that the women were commenting on the aesthetics of the clothing. Throughout the year, skin irritation, coughing and respiratory issues were caused by touching and inhaling the raw materials, in particular the fluffy cellulose floating in the air inside and outside the building. The subsequent dusty interior and exterior of the factory in the 1960s was dubbed ‘Saba snow’.” The problem disappeared by the mid-1970s when a new ventilator was purchased, and the heating was also improved substantially around the same time. Throughout these decades and uncomfortable working conditions, staff were encouraged to act in a ‘loyal manner’ during the freezing winter months, to remain ‘sporty’ about the health consequences, and to be ‘in good cheer’ in general.” Overall, women complied — they were clearly proud of their work, the products, and the ways in which Saba was subtly changing the lives of women in Norway more generally. Long shifts were punctuated with coffee breaks and conversation, laughter and debate, and many women became friends as well as colleagues, creating a sense of solidarity in difficult conditions.

Improving women’s lives

While ventilation and safety processes steadily increased, the gender dynamics at Saba remained conservative, despite — or perhaps due to — its consumer base. In the 1970s, staff asked if the workforce could make educational visits alongside management to other (non-menstrual productrelated) factories, arguing that it was valuable for them to see how other workforces solved problems regarding machines and specific technical issues. The query was not answered. When pay was delayed before Easter of 1971, the tension between staff and management increased further.*!

SABA: A NORWEGIAN FAIRY TALE?

Complicating matters even more, during the ensuing communication between staff representatives and management, a senior male manager gave an interview to a regional newspaper about the successes of Saba. He was cited saying that women over 40 years of age were not an entirely reliable workforce, due to their family commitments. This angered the workers, who consisted in large numbers of such persons.” The manager, arguing that his quote was taken out of context, caused further hurt when he tried to explain that ‘mature ladies’ could indeed be good workers. What makes these comments so interesting (rather than unique) is the link between Saba’s products and its workforce. While managers were happy to advertise their product’s unique ability to improve women’s working life, they did not consistently connect this to the lived experience of their own workers.

The issue of childcare for workers shows the gap between working women’s lives and Saba’s promises. During the 1970s, the company’s working mothers pressed to have a specific representative raise the question of childcare in managerial meetings.** With a large female workforce of reproductive (and, indeed, menstruating) age, many workers either were or became mothers during their employment years at Saba (yes, many of the male managers had children too — but this was not discussed). In each quarterly meeting between staff and management from 1971 to 1973, the representative for the workers, Singdahlsen, tirelessly brought up the issue. Amongst other requests, such as a kinder tone from management (‘even a smile’), better uniforms, and more heating in the factory during the winter months, childcare remained a constant pressure point for the workforce at Saba.**

Singdahlsen’s questions to management were never fully explored, and were instead simply noted (by her, in a dual role as note keeper) in meeting minutes as ‘an issue put on ice for the time being’.°° Warning that the management’s ongoing recruitment of ‘housewives’ in the area would be stopped in its tracks without consideration of family life, Singdahlsen was proven correct as the turnover of female workers increased year by year as they found the juggling of work and childcare challenging.” For Saba, this was not a problem, as they continued to recruit new groups of younger women. In 1974, the management put a final stop to the conversation by explaining that the market for workers had changed and that there was no longer a need to debate childcare as there were always new women to recruit. The reaction to the dismissal of concerns and of current staff’s needs was not recorded.” In this way, staff were ultimately asked to choose between family commitments and the corporate ‘Saba family’.

The case of childcare at Saba is revealing. The company’s core technologies — pads, tampons and diapers — were built around women’s or children’s bodies, and was invested in consumer research that showed how women’s lives did not align themselves with emerging capitalism. Disposable pads, after all, were sold as an accessory to modern working women — women like those working at Saba who did not have time to make or wash a homemade pad. But the menstrual cycle is not just about blood. Nowhere is this clearer than when Singdahlsen asked if staff could use the lunchroom when they felt ‘indisposed’.*° This word could be code for menstruation, menopause, or fatigue, and was frequently used as such in polite Norwegian parlance of the time (it may also mean sick or tired, in itself noteworthy in a work context). In response, the management ended the meeting, citing lack of time. Singdahlsen never mentioned it again. If the word ‘indisposed’ was indeed code for menstrual cycle problems, Saba, having created a mechanism to control one menstrual sign, did not seem to acknowledge that the menstrual cycle could also include symptoms beyond bleeding. Fatigue, whether caused by menstruation or exhaustion, had serious consequences.

The constant reporting of accidents and calls for action from staff show a workforce who was becoming increasingly aware of the dangers inherent in their manual work. A selection of reported accidents from the 1980s gives us some insight into the issues: an infected eye, a finger crushed while cleaning a machine, a fall resulting in a cracked kneecap, a mutilated hand, the loss of several fingertips, second-degree burns following splashback of hot glue, the loss of a finger, a cut across the shin, and second-degree burns of both hands after an attempt to save equipment that fell into hot glue.” The accidents reveal to what degree making menstrual products was skilled labour, requiring time, concentration and knowledge. Of this trio, time was missing for those taking on extra shifts while juggling housework and childcare. Since Saba was not part of a traditional union for some years, the workers organised themselves around the issue of work safety. The management argued that not joining the union meant that Saba could pay employees larger bonuses (which they did), but this could hardly make up for the loss of a finger.*°

The management’s main concern was entangled with employees’ problems, as they focused on the high level of absence due to accidents and complicated home lives during the 1980s. In 1987, nearly one-quarter of all female employees were off sick at some stage during the year.“ Management noted that their workers were generally ‘tired and fatigued’.*” From a management perspective, new workers were the ‘typical’ culprits behind accidents, which led to frequent need for rest and absence in order to heal from physical damages.** Because of the steep learning curve for new workers, management argued that most accidents were ‘self-inflicted’

SABA: A NORWEGIAN FAIRY TALE?

by newcomers, and that fewer accidents would occur once they gained experience.** While some training and support were offered (Saba had a doctor and nurse in the factory), the high absence rate continued. Training was also offered in moments of crisis when menstruation became part of mainstream media discourse. Both the TSS and HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s ushered in more training and communication to factory staff. In the case of the latter, a full session about the dangers of blood was organised for all workers in 1988.*° It is unclear if the training was designed to explain the potential links between menstruation, menstrual products, and HIV/AIDS, or if management was concerned about the presence of blood in the factory due to the frequent accident rate. At any rate, the session documents the company’s interest in damage control when pressure came from external forces which could threaten its business, understanding its own role in shaping public conversations around menstruation and blood. For many of the women working at Saba, occasional training was not enough, and they began advocating for better rights.

Second wavers

The Saba archives reveal a growing awareness of rights amongst workers. This was influenced both by the interior experience of being a Saba worker, and from the exterior societal changes and discourses that began challenging menstrual taboos and women’s roles in the Norwegian workforce in general. Beginning in the mid-1970s and escalating in the 1980s, Saba workers began asking if they could receive training for ‘traditional male work’, such as running the machines or driving trucks or the Saba buses.*° Seeking a way to progress in their careers, women sought these roles because they were more interesting, sometimes better paid, and more independent than the work offered on the factory line. The question of training and pay became a frequent issue raised in meetings, and, although no solution was offered, the asking of the question itself, initially by Singdahlsen on behalf of the workers, signalled a small revolution.

Beyond Saba, Norwegian women were changing. Second Wave Feminism hit Scandinavia in the early 1970s and revolved around protest, consciousness raising, and legal rights issues, in particular equal pay, rights to political representation, childcare, and protests against sexual harassment and rape. The Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights meeting in August 1970 galvanised people across the country, with an influx of urban and rural groups joining from the already active labour movement.*” By 1972, the movement split into the Bread and Roses and the Women’s National Front, the latter a radical version of the mainstream movement. Sámi women established the organisation Sdrdhkkd at the same time, named after the Sami goddess of reproduction and birth, and fought for an end to ‘Norwegianization’ — the system whereby Sami children were sent away from their families to become ‘more Norwegian’.** In each movement, reproductive rights were core issues, and the resulting discourse soon made an impression on the public. Teen girls growing up in the 1970s were especially prone to these messages, explored through magazines and outspoken female celebrities. The debate about the abortion pill in 1978 galvanised issues further.” Media covered these developments closely, both dismissingly and supportively, and often linked to current affairs such as childcare, the 1971 law making marital rape illegal, and the 1977 laws for parental leave. Representation increased more slowly, with 9 per cent female MPs in 1969, and 24 per cent in 1977, and the first female Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland taking office in 1981.

Building on the longstanding work of Norske Kvinners Sanitetsforening for the improvement of women’s lives and health (established in 1896), some Norwegian feminists developed an interest in menstrual taboos, and began questioning the price and quality of products as well as the patriarchal attitudes towards the menstrual cycle as a challenge to productivity. In the mid-1970s, Norwegian educational guidelines were changed to specify that boys should be given as much information about menstruation as girls, drawing on feminist approaches to pedagogy that argued for equal access to reproductive information.*' In 1977, the Women’s National Front hosted several events to train women in traditionally male-dominated skills and jobs, introducing the sessions with a sketch laying out the typical male employers’ argument against hiring women - including menstruation and caring responsibilities.” By then, disposable Saba pads and tampons had become the norm in Norway, suggesting that the questioning of these standard signs of femininity, hygiene and modernity was a radical move in line with the emergence of a critical menstruation movement internationally. In Scandinavia, the 1970s also produced the first critical debates about menstrual stigma, and the first works of art that directly referenced menstrual products and blood.®? Norwegian feminists acquired and read work by feminists in other languages, or translated them to Norwegian. They also contributed to the growing network of feminism in Scandinavia and the Nordic countries, establishing regular meetings, publications and newsletters.