Chen Tamir first examine interval underwear on a buddy’s Fb submit. “I purchased some and after I attempted my first pair I simply thought it was one of the best factor on this planet. I needed to cease each girl on the road and inform her about my underwear,” she laughs.
On the time there was no interval underwear accessible in Israel so Tamir ordered some to her sister within the U.S. who despatched them to her. “I assumed it was only a matter of time earlier than these firms made it to Israel. I began researching the market and searching into all of the totally different firms. I checked out Modibodi and I understood that they have been actually the very best quality when it comes to the form of product.”
3 View gallery Chen Tamir ( Credit score: Noa Yafe )
Tamir, whose background was in up to date artwork and museum curation, grew to become captivated by the thought and sought to convey interval underwear to the Israeli market. She contacted Modibodi, an Australian firm based in 2013, whose reusable underwear and different merchandise use top quality, tech savvy materials (like Bamboo, Merino Carry out Wool and Microfibre).
In 2017, Tamir, who serves as CEO alongside her husband Itamar, established Modibodi Israel, opening the interval underwear market to the Israeli shopper. Their merchandise have expanded to incorporate bathing fits, bras and underwear and different merchandise for girls with disabilities, individuals with bladder leaks, being pregnant, postpartum, and even a males’s line. Whereas primarily an e-commerce retailer, right this moment Modibodi merchandise are additionally offered at Superpharm throughout the nation.
Combatting interval poverty
Interval poverty is outlined as an absence of entry to menstrual merchandise, hygiene services, waste administration, and schooling which is additional compounded by stigma and disgrace that shrouds intervals. In line with the World Well being Group greater than 300 million ladies and women menstruate day by day. “There may be continued financial discrimination towards ladies as a result of there’s interval poverty in Israel. There are nonetheless ladies right this moment who go to the shop and want to decide on between shopping for pads and shopping for child system or meals for his or her children,” says Tamir.
3 View gallery A mannequin carrying Modibodi underwear ( Credit score: Modibodi )
The idea of interval underwear addresses many long-held considerations relating to menstrual merchandise. It’s extra snug and fewer invasive than pads, tampons and most different merchandise. It’s additionally way more environmentally sustainable and, over a lifetime, inexpensive. The common girl spends about $20 on female hygiene merchandise per cycle, including as much as about $18,000 over her lifetime. The amount of cash that ladies are compelled to spend on merchandise that they require, is also known as a part of the “pink tax” – discriminatory costs that inflate the price of items marketed to ladies.
“Menstrual hygiene merchandise are pricey. Particularly in Israel they’re very costly. As a result of they’re imported, they’re absolutely taxed. It’s not thought of a vital merchandise – they’re thought of a privilege. The financial system would fall if all the ladies on this nation would keep house at any time when they’d their interval, but it surely’s a privilege,” says Tamir.
In line with the Journal of International Well being Stories, 500 million individuals lack entry to menstrual merchandise. In the US, 16.9 million individuals expertise interval poverty, that means that they can not afford merchandise which are sometimes taxed between 4.7-10%.
Nevertheless, the dialog has begun to shift with extra consciousness being raised relating to interval poverty. In 2020, Scotland grew to become the primary nation to supply free menstrual merchandise. New Zealand, Kenya and South Korea supply free menstrual merchandise in colleges and are contemplating extra widespread measures.
Different interval merchandise have gotten increasingly more widespread, together with interval underwear. “I feel that the market is clearly going to proceed to develop, and I feel that in 10 years pads are going to turn out to be a lot much less ubiquitous and most girls shall be utilizing interval underwear,” says Tamir.
Eliminating interval stigma
One of many fundamental challenges that Modibodi has confronted, and considered one of its main targets, is combatting societal stigma and disgrace relating to intervals which continues to be thought of to be a taboo dialogue.
“It is simply so wonderful how silenced the plight of ladies and menstruation is. It’s nonetheless so taboo. And it is loopy as a result of each girl offers with this mainly her complete life, a lot of her time is spent menstruating,” Tamir says.
Tamir recounts a current movie that she noticed depicting the story of Lisa McVey, a Florida teenager who in 1984 was kidnapped and raped by serial assassin Bobby Joe Lengthy. McVey managed to flee her captor and left biomarkers throughout his house as proof, together with a used tampon.
“After they made the documentary, they left that half out. You can also make a complete documentary a few rapist and assassin, however the tampon is simply too offensive for audiences to see. That’s the tradition that we’re residing in.”
When Tamir first started Modibodi Israel, it took a while to generate traction. There was some pushback, together with from ladies on social media who thought that it was “gross” and rude to debate intervals publicly. Issues started to shift steadily, which Tamir credit partly to inclusive visible advertising and marketing campaigns, COVID-19’s affect on e-commerce, and phrase of mouth.
3 View gallery Modibodi billboard. ( Modibodi )
In 2021 Modibodi took out a billboard advert over the Ayalon Freeway in Tel Aviv. “We predict it is the primary time that the phrase “veset,” menstruation, was utilized in giant scale promoting in Israel and we have been anticipating controversy.”
Quickly sufficient, they obtained it – a lawsuit. A non secular nonprofit group sued Modibodi over an obscure regulation forbidding nudity, regardless that the mannequin wasn’t bare, and the picture was extraordinarily tame in comparison with most ads which extremely sexualize ladies.
The lawsuit turned out to be one of the best PR for Modibodi. A number of months later they produced their first tv business, which aired on Israeli primetime. “We method it with no disgrace however as a supply of delight, and, I feel that that is modified the dialog for lots of ladies in Israel,” says Tamir.