Why was it a man who invented the tampon in 1936 and not a woman?

Question

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/Cambridge/entries/039/Earle-C-Haas.html

US physician who invented the tampon. A doctor in Denver, in 1936 he adapted a surgical cotton plug for use as an intravaginal sanitary towel. He patented his design, and marketed it under the name Tampax.

Answer 1

Do you mean other than the fact that there was a concerted and essentially effective campaign beginning in the 1920's to lock out all women, Blacks and Jews from medical school? Makes it a tad difficult to get a medical patent or to conduct product research on a medical product without a medical degree.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/119/11/1138

Answer 2

There is a well relevant G & WS point in this question. The point seems to have escaped most of the women answerers and many male answerers as well. May be there is another point made by this whole answering exercise of this question as well. That point is also well relevant in G & WS. It just amuses me to see these patterns unfold.

Good question! Thanks everybody for the opportunity provided by this question and your answers to observe, learn, infer and amuse at the gender differences.


the fact that it was not a woman but a man who had less necessity (the mother of all inventions) and less firsthand opportunity to devise such a thing, in *1936*, (16 years after women won the right to vote and 13 years after the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was introduced in Congress), shows that, though women are “capable” of various things, it is still men who WORK THIS WORLD and for most of it, it’s the women who are to blame.

Answer 3

He might have gotten the idea from a woman. There have been many cases of men stealing their ideas from women and then taking credit for them. It also happens with other men. How many inventions out there were first invented by someone but somebody else came along years later with a similar invention and took credit for it? Sewing machines and curing rubber are two examples I can think of off the top of my head.

Answer 4

Men are traditionally in the role of inventor in our society. That includes in areas such as sanitary products for women. That continues to this day. Men are still inventing more because women prefer to stay in their home and support role.

Answer 5

tampons have a history going back over four thousand years.

it was a man who first patented the tampon (patented a well-known technology: neat, eh?) and made a fortune manufacturing it and selling it to women, because that was the way american society worked back then.

Answer 6

I agree with slobo1 and Tera.

Does this question have any merit?

Answer 7

why was it a woman who invented the bullet proof vest.

Answer 8

I raise a glass to doctor Haas. Well done, sir. well done.

Answer 9

Its always man who takes care of woman, no matter what......

Answer 10

because he was embarrassed that when hes woman wore tight pants that the towel she used it looked like pampers lol