This is a past event
During the mid-twentieth century, the ‘SABA-bus’ was a frequent sight in rural Norway, evangelizing the good news of modern ‘menstrual hygiene’ by advertising the novel technology of single-use pads. SABA became a fairy-tale business story in the post-war and pre-oil economic landscape of Norway, monopolizing the menstrual product market almost completely between the 1940s and 1990s.
Investigating the history of the Saba company adds new geographic and cultural data to the literature on menstrual product technological and scientific development, while underscoring how much influence stakeholders in the Global North continue to hold. It uncovers a novel part of Norwegian industrial history, one in whichwomen manned machines and risked their hands and health to make a new market for the emerging ‘menstrual consumer’, and one in which rapidly changing technology impacted menstrual habits. Drawing on interviews with former staff and the extensive SABA archives at Vestfoldarkivet in Sandefjord, Norway, I will document the technological and scientific development of menstrual habits in the country through the case study of SABA since 1940.
23_March_2022_Seminar_Slides.pdf
- Speaker
- Camilla Mørk Røstvik (University of Aberdeen)
- Venue
- via Teams