Men Create Pink ‘Period Gloves’ For Changing Tampons, Women Can’t Stop Making Fun Of Their Idea

A few men from Germany thought they had a wonderful idea for a product aimed primarily at women but it has completely backfired.

According to an Instagram post translated from German, these fellows lived with women back in 2010 and were horrified at the lack of a “good solution” for discretely disposing of tampons and sanitary pads.

So a decade later, they launched Pinky Gloves—a product to be used specifically to avoid getting menstrual blood on one’s hands while swapping out products and to hide tampons from any sensitive souls who might look in the trash bin after them.

Image credits: DrJenGunter

Image credits: pinky_gloves

The Pinky Gloves gained attention after Dr Jen Gunter (who people call “Twitter’s resident gynaecologist”) made a tweet about them.

Eventually, it snowballed into a huge wave of backlash, crashing into the German entrepreneur. To their credit, the company acknowledged the criticism it has been receiving but didn’t say anything concrete.

Could things have ever gotten this far if they had asked for, received, and listened to input from women?

We already have plenty of things to make sure people get can through the inconvenience of menstruation, but accidentally touching blood isn’t high on the list of priorities.

In fact, some argue that increasing the stigma of menstruation by acting like the sight of a used tampon is so horrifying that an entire product needs to be created and carried around by half the population just to ensure no one will ever catch a glimpse of period blood in the trash is probably the opposite of helpful. And it’s hard to disagree.