"Students, comrades, over the past year, I'm sure you've all seen reports in the newspapers about Jinling and the Jinling Textile Factory.
The joint inspection team from Beijing expressed high recognition for Jinling's achievements and high affirmation of the efforts of the people of Jinling.
At the beginning of the year, major newspapers also reported on the sanitary pads we launched. Of course, that was a little trick of ours—using the promotion of women's health knowledge as a pretext to promote sanitary pads.
Some comrades even wrote to curse me out without the slightest politeness—not because I promoted sanitary pads, but because I talked at length about women's matters. Naturally, they also attached other labels to it, accusing me of advertising and calling me a capitalist.
Just now, when I mentioned sanitary pads, I heard some laughter. I don't know what there is to laugh about. Men are men, women are women; our bodies are built differently. What is wrong with that?
Seeking truth from facts is the principle by which we conduct our affairs. You are all educated, cultured people—how can you resemble those pedantic old scholars from the Republican era? I criticize those students who laughed. Go back and think it over yourselves. Your ideological awareness still needs improvement."
Wang Yan swept his gaze around the room, letting it linger on a few individuals before clearing his throat and continuing.
"Since sanitary pads have come up, let's start there. The reason we began making them was that our factory had quite a lot of female employees. One person was nothing, but a thousand or two thousand people were different. Hygiene and safety were rather prominent issues.
So I looked into it. Women overseas used sanitary pads, and I heard that foreign women who came here had some complaints