By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 9 years ago

Teens create “Tampon Run” video game to fight the taboo around menstruation

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High school students Andrea Gonzales and Sophie Houser created a new computer game called “Tampon Run” to fight the taboo around menstruation. 

The game is so simple I think even a non-gamer like me could figure it out: “Hit all the enemies with your tampons. Don’t let them pass you. They’ll confiscate your tampons. Collect tampon boxes for more tampons. Don’t run out of tampons or it’s GAME OVER.” (I could probably stand to take that last instruction to heart in real life too.)

The duo, who met at a Girls Who Code summer program, explain, “Although the concept of the video game may be strange, it’s stranger that our society has accepted and normalized guns and violence through video games, yet we still find tampons and menstruation unspeakable.”

Strange indeed. Play the game here and check out Girls Who Code, which is doing great work to close the gender gap in tech.

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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