Definitely not a coincidence. I've seen this in supermarkets in Australia and the US, in several major chains, including Shaw's, Giant, Woolworth's, Coles, CVS, and Bi-Lo.

It's neither - it's the fact that chocolate helps, or is at least, percieved to help, with pain / stress, which many women experiance during their period! If anything, it's clever marketing that's considerate to the customer - just like putting some paracetamol there would be, or placing sugar near coffee. Do we really have to see an anti-women slant to everything??

I think it's similar to putting chewing gums next to the checkout counter, so people who wouldn't have bothered walking across the shop to pick some up will still buy them. I can't remember the term for it, but yeah.
It might be based on stereotypes, or reality, but it's gonna make the shop money.

Why don't they put soda there too? In my personal experience, carbonated (non-caffenated) beverages help with cramps.

I don't know if this store does so, or did for this product, but many supermarkets do keep careful track of who buys what, and in what combinations. (The main reason for having "club cards", for example, is to track buying patterns.) So another possibility is that the store has made the decision to place those products together because of some (maybe misread) data from their checkout lines.

@Emma: I don't know about chocolate being thought of as helping with pain/stress in general- we don't see them put next to the ace bandages, for instance, or anything else having to do with pain.

I don't think it's about looking being on the lookout for all things 'anti-woman', but seeing where certain things are linked to gender- which this appears to be. In commercials, for example, I don't see chocolate as being linked to all pain/stress, but linked to forms of pain and stress that are gendered as female (for women after a break-up, for example, but not for men).

I suspect @Theo is correct. Most large stores do at least some level of data mining at this point and do these product placements based on correlations in buying patterns. It's the same reason bananas sometimes show up in the cereal aisle.

Even though this sort of product display does play into specific gender roles and expected characteristics of those genders, in all actuality, it is quite good advertising. Gender prescribes social roles and behaviors/preferences that men and women are supposed to follow in a given society. This gender identity is then learned and performed for a lifetime (in theory). I am not condoning gender-based advertisement without suspicions, but it has been extremely successful thus far into our history. Is it possible that there is some validity in these types of associations (i.e. chocolate and feminine products being sold together) or are we only socially constructed to believe so?

"Coincidence or stereotype," in this case, runs deeper than the decision of Walgreens to place chocolate next to the Tampax. Only the most conspiratorial mind would attribute this decision directly to "stereotype:" some executive sitting in a smoky backroom drafting store layouts based on personal prejudice. It is most likely the disinterested decision of a machine noticing that women are likely to buy chocolate. Why are women likely to buy chocolate? Certainly some of it is behavioral and structural: chocolate tastes good and is easily accessible. But there is also a cultural aspect: women buy chocolate, in part, because in Western society that is what women are supposed to do. So "stereotype" does enter the causal chain, as one of many factors which create the pattern noticed by Walgreen's data mining.

Even if the product placement is a result of datamining, it is still a demonstration of the association (chocolate-female stress relief) at work. The buying habits reflect the cultural association, and a department store utilizes this to increase (slightly) its margins (and slightly on a large scale is just enough). That a database analysis of purchases in a department store shows pink is strongly correlated with toys purchased by parents for girls doesn't mean there is no gendered association taking place there.

The sociological question deals with the evidence involved here: we understand they datamine; we also understand they use this analysis to rearrange store inventory to maximize sales; is this both chicken and egg? Rather than analyze how these larger social patterns are formed and question equity issues or political consequences, the stores use their processing power and data collection to create consumption and facilitate it.

In this case, they facilitate the "impulse buy." Impulsive purchases are manufactured, because the arrangement of choices is decided for the consumer in advance. A sociologist could study that aspect, or study how these impulsive habits are discovered through correlation and analysis, or study how there's positive reinforcement between culture and consumption, or study how disruptions to consumption could disrupt cultural associations and vice versa, or so on. (I'm a philosopher by trade, so it's not my field, but those are some things I'd look into.)

I don't think recognizing this is seeing an anti-woman theme, but pointing out gender expectations and demands a culture places on gender conformity is not itself always to point to an anti-woman theme in society. It's to point out that societies form as communities by demanding conformity. "Why is this? How do they do it? When do the mechanisms fail, and what then happens?" And so on. A lot of our advertising energy is spent on utilizing cultural imagery (hence, sociological images), but the overabundance of advertising makes it extremely difficult to draw the line between 'culture' and 'advertisement.' Then this also becomes a sociological question. It's a strange contingency of our cultures that women are in the position they are, but it is contingent. Whether we want to change this or not, either way we first should notice it and study it.

If I'm misunderstanding sociology, I apologize. I'll go back to lurking.

I think you're correct Charles.

Especially:
"...pointing out gender expectations and demands a culture places on gender conformity is not itself always to point to an anti-woman theme in society."

Unless I have grossly misunderstood this site (and my major) this isn't about assigning blame and passing judgment.

Surely I'm not the only woman here who gets chocolate cravings during that time -- and knows other women who experience similar cravings?

I mean, this isn't news right? That chocolate cravings are associated with that time of the month?

One local ice cream shop here has a "PMS Sunday" (though with an alternate title, as well) that is chocolate with chocolate toppings. Not the most politically correct label, but I got a good laugh at it. The people who work there are actually very progressive, but they have a lot of fun with things and don't take themselves too seriously, so I wasn't offended and I hope others aren't, either.

I also tend to enjoy having a bite of (very dark) chocolate while I'm bleeding, but I can't say if that's a hormone-based craving or a habit reinforced by advertising.

If the goal was actually to provide relief (and this method were more widely known, so it would be a sensible marketing decision too), you know what I'd like to see shelved next to the pads and tampons? Giant bottles of Tums/Rolaids/calcium supplements. Not just due to the need for women to worry about their bone mineral density...try chowing down on like 4 Tums and a large glass of water the next time you have a uterus that is actively cramping. The pain that comes with cramps is (largely) caused by dehydration and lack of calcium. Seriously, try it.

Don't they make chewy chocolate-flavor calcium supplements? There you go.

Just wanted to share that I went shopping in JC Penney's (crazy small) plus size section yesterday and an 8th of the floor space was taken by a godiva chocolate display.
draw your own conclusions.

Maybe its just me, but I can't think of a worse way to make chocolate seem appetizing than to put it in the tampon aisle.

Can someone explain where the "women crave chocolate during their periods" thing came from? I never heard of it until sometime during high school and I didn't really understand. I've never had any sort of craving for chocolate any time that I was on my period. In fact, chocolate actually makes me really sick during that time of the month. But every girl I know will say things like "oh I really want chocolate - my period must be coming" and "periods sucks but that's what chocolate is for!" and I just don't get it.

It's only a stereotype if you make it one. I don't know any girls who eat chocolate when they're riding the crimson wave. They do, however, turn into crazy mood changing chameleons.

I'd assume that even if women don't actually crave chocolate on their periods, the stereotype that they do encourages chocolate consumption because women are "allowed" to have foods that are often considered guilty pleasures.

Maybe each person is different. I know I had chocolate and salt cravings before I had heard about them.

Markets also put beef jerky and ping pong balls with the beer because the three are so closely connected.

wow! No one on here finds their pain reduced by chocolate? I only discovered this last year but it helps me a great deal. Sometimes chocolate is more effective than painkiller.

I thought the stereotype connected to bridge mix was something grandmas eat when they play bridge. And they no longer menstruate.

I mean, honestly, if you're going to go this route...

I do not find it difficult to believe that there is a biological/hormonal basis for desires for certain substances/foods connected to the menstrual cycle or indeed to pregnancy. Though yes, it may be chocolate only because of availability and the meme around chocolate and periods. I do not know.

So stereotype true, but stereotypes develop because they resonate as reality for enough people. Not so?

As a person who has worked in stores like this, I know that sometimes a department manager will have stuff that is supposed to be hung around the store and send somebody out to do it. The instructions are to hang the strips at regular intervals throughout the store. My strategy was to get rid of them as fast as possible to avoid walking around in departments with which I was not familiar and getting stuck helping customers with stuff I didn't know. I certainly did not put any thought into the associations that could be made thanks to the juxtaposition of products.

It's based on stereotypes that women-- people buying the products-- believe. Stores usually decide this stuff by analyzing what combination of products people buy and placing things accordingly, and if sales of the chocolate didn't rise after they put it there, they wouldn't continue it (because it's more sensible if you aren't actually making more money to put like products together). There are limes in the beer aisle, bananas in the cereal aisle, strawberries next to the strawberry shortcake rounds in the bakery, and chocolate in the PMS aisle because that makes the products sell better.

Thus, the sociological concept to look at here is not "There is a horrible stereotype that women want chocolate while they have their period" but rather "Why are women buying more chocolate while they have their periods and why are they more likely to do so as an impulse buy?"

When I got my period last, I rummaged through my pads and tampons to find that -- shock! -- I was surprisingly low on supplies, so I made a quick trip to the local supermarket to stock up.

Upon going through the til with my pads, the female cashier began to giggle and confessed how she was always amused and empathetic when any woman came up to the til with only two things: period products and ICE CREAM! "It happens all the time--and we've all been there!" she laughed. This prompted me to begin cracking up too, as I confessed that the only reason why I DIDN'T have ice cream with my purchase is because the grocery store didn't sell the super chocolatety peanut butter kind I really wanted! What's more, I was willing to make a trip to another store that I knew sold the ice cream in order to get it!

So is this chocolate product strategically placed? Of course, but then, according to that cashier, it seems that ice cream is ever more popular than chocolate is for a woman who has her period, and they definitely don't put freezers full of chocolatety peanut butter ice cream next to the pads and tampons for women (but I wish they did)!

I personally don't crave chocolate when I have my period anymore than I crave it when I don't. However, because of the stereotype I will resist buying chocolate or other sweet things if I'm also buying anything period-related (this happens rarely now, since I use a mooncup), or I'll ask my boyfriend to buy the chocolate instead. I wouldn't touch that bag of "bridge mix"(?) even if I wanted it, because I'd hate for someone to see me picking up chocolate in the "feminine products" aisle. It's probably a little ridiculous of me to be so concerned about something like that, but what can I say - I'm a ridiculous person sometimes.

Coincidence? Or based on stereotypes about women and, especially, PMS?

Talk about a false dichotomy! What about the obvious alternative that the store placed them together based on marketing data?

I don't buy the attempts of some commenters above to save the OP by arguing that the stereotypes explain the marketing data (assuming they exist) either. Even if the association reasons consumers buy chocolate and tampons/pads together is purely sociological, it's a huge leap to saying that the whole cause is stereotype fulfillment. I don't see any reason to believe that stereotype fulfillment is what Lisa was going for in the OP either.