Somewhere in the mission statement of every ad agency in New York was a nod to their respect for the “consumer.” It had always seemed to Harriett that a good way to show real respect might be to give them a label that didn’t call to mind brain-dead omnivores. At all five agencies where Harriett had worked over the course of her career, she’d made it clear that these faceless “consumers” were flesh-and-blood women. Around the world, she would tell whoever would listen, women purchase or directly influence the purchase of 80 percent of all goods—and the women dropping serious change are usually over thirty-five. Whenever a man questioned this, she’d ask him when he last bought toilet paper. What brand was it? How much did it cost? Nine times out of ten, they couldn’t answer.
When Max had hired her as new business director, Harriett’s first step had been to put together a presentation on that very subject. Max hadn’t been in favor of showing it. He worried the agency would develop a reputation for specializing in women’s brands. Eventually, it became apparent that Harriett’s “lady deck,” as Max called it, drew clients in. People whose jobs actually depended on selling things bought what Harriett was offering. She became the bait that the agency dangled in front of them until the papers were signed. Then Harriett handed the new clients over to an organization that employed a grand total of six women over thirty-five. Two were administrative assistants. One was the office manager. One ran the agency’s feminine hygiene account. Another was a midlevel art director. The sixth was the head of the new business department.
Outside the new business department, the agency was one hundred percent devoted to making great advertising. When he’d taken over the flailing organization, Max had made it clear that that was all that mattered. “It’s all about the work,” he would say. Every year, he sat on award-show juries along with other creative rock stars. His fellow judges were almost always men, almost always in their forties and fifties, and almost exclusively white. This cabal of rich white dudes was responsible for deciding what was “good advertising.” No other opinions mattered. Their stamp of approval could lead to prize money, industry-wide adulation, and seven-figure salaries. When a creative team sat down to develop a new campaign, these men were invariably their true target audience. Assignments that weren’t deemed to have award-show potential were quickly shunted off to junior, less favored, often more female creative teams.
Harriett had spent her first years in advertising on one of those teams. That was back in the mid-nineties, a time she now recognized as a golden age in advertising, when television ads were often treated as short films and award-winning work could open the door to a career in screenwriting or directing. That was the dream—one Harriett could never have pursued directly. She’d gone to school with kids whose parents subsidized their careers in film or publishing. Harriett needed a job that would pay the bills.
That’s how she ended up writing tampon copy. Not for television ads, of course. Those were handled by a more senior team. Harriett’s first job was writing Q&A–style advertorials that would run in magazines aimed at teen girls. The ads encouraged readers to write in with their own questions, which would be answered in future issues. Will everyone know? the girls asked. Will I still be a virgin? What should I do if the worst happens?
Harriett had once wondered the same things herself, and for a while she was pleased to offer answers. No one ever needed to know it was that time of the month, she’d tell her readers. The brand’s new line of compact tampons could be easily concealed in a pocket or the palm of a hand. They would leave your virginity intact—and were designed to be so absorbent that the worst wouldn’t happen. She considered it a testament to her talent that she’d managed to write about tampons for months without ever using the words menstruation, period, vagina, or blood. At some point, she realized she’d been answering questions about periods for over a year. She’d invented new euphemisms. She’d devised new forms of camouflage. Still, the questions kept coming. Terrified, ashamed, miserable girls were scribbling their most mortifying questions on pieces of lined notebook paper and mailing them to a faceless corporation. That’s when Harriett realized she wasn’t providing solutions. She was part of the problem.
Then one day, she was handed a new question to answer. Why is this happening to me? asked Jennifer, age 13, Pittsburgh. The despair was so palpable that Harriett promptly burst into tears. You are NOT alone, she wrote back. It’s happening to me, too. It’s happening to every girl you know. It’s happening to the actress on television and the lady across the street. It is happening, has happened, or will happen to most women on earth, and it’s time we all stopped working so hard to hide it.
Harriett couldn’t stop writing to Jennifer, age 13, Pittsburgh. By the end of the week, she had a series of ads that she called the “Half the World” campaign. The executions spoke about menstruation as if dealing with your period was just as mundane as brushing your teeth. They used all the words Harriett had been trained to avoid. When fluid was shown, it was red, not blue. And most important, they encouraged girls to talk to each other and share what they knew.
Harriett took the campaign to her agency’s creative director. She’d set up a time to present to him alone, but when she reached his office, she found the new business director and a senior copywriter lounging on the couch.
The new business director, a closeted gay man named Nelson with a gentle soul and an old-fashioned fondness for three-martini lunches, winked at Harriett and nudged the copywriter. “Let’s leave,” he said. “Harriett’s here to knock his socks off.”
“No. Stay,” the creative director ordered flippantly, much to Harriett’s dismay. “She needs to get used to presenting to more than one person.”
So Harriett presented her “Half the World” campaign to three men, two of whom looked thoroughly disgusted by it.
“Did it ever occur to you that there might be a reason we use blue fluid instead of red?” the creative director asked when she was done. “No guy wants to think about what that shit really is or what hole it comes from,” he informed her.
“But these ads aren’t for guys,” Harriett had responded.
“We’re guys,” he responded. “So are most of the people who sell these tampons. Know your audience, Harriett.”
Her face was still burning an hour later when Nelson knocked on the side of her cube.
“Come work for me,” he said. “I need a right hand.”
“But I want to write,” she told him.
“I loved the honesty of what you wrote. That’s why I’m going to be equally honest with you. Do you know what happens to women creatives here?” he asked her. “Until you’re thirty-five, you’ll spend your time slaving away on shitty assignments and fending off men who want to fuck you.”
“And after thirty-five?” Harriett asked, thinking she might be able to stick it out.
“There are no women over thirty-five in the creative department,” he said. “Come with me. You’ll work on all the best business and see your ideas come to life. I’ll even throw in a good title and a raise.” He cupped a hand around his mouth and glanced theatrically in both directions. “And you won’t need to worry about me trying to fuck you.”