"The Miracle of You": Women's Sex Education and the Marketing of Kotex. Issue 2 (November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Guadagnolo, Dan
• Is Part Of: Modern American history. Volume 3:Issue 2/3(2020)
• Page Start: 133
• Page End: 151
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Subjects: Post-1945, -- Advertising, -- Gender and Sexuality, -- Business and Capitalism, -- Women; United States -- History -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- History -- 20th century -- Periodicals; United States -- History -- 21st century -- Periodicals; 973.9005
• DOI: 10.1017/mah.2020.13
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2515-0456

Abstract

Abstract : In 1967, Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kotex, hired women's marketing consultant Estelle Ellis to create and run the corporation's new sex education program. The Life Cycle Center, which opened in 1968, did not produce advertisements, but rather developed sex education curricula for public school classrooms. Its program, the Life Cycle Library, divided women's lives into distinct stages, tethering Kimberly-Clark goods and services to specific junctures of an idealized, heterosexual life. Ellis transformed the "life cycle" into a profitable, enduring marketing concept for Kimberly-Clark. She also extended the Center's influence, rendering it a research and educational authority on women's reproductive health for teachers, social scientists, government actors, and readers. Ellis's career reveals how marketers infiltrated powerful sites of institutional and public health discourse, reshaping them to fit commercial aims and intentions.