The Monthly Visitor. Aunty Flo. Code Red. Girl Flu. These bewildering turns of phrase are just four of the 5000 different euphemisms used across the globe in lieu of the word “period”. While this habit may surprise you, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg of efforts taken by society to dismiss and conceal the perfectly natural phenomenon of menstruation. In the Asembo community in Kenya, menstruating girls are considered unclean and forbidden from sleeping in their mothers’ homes. In India, 71% of adolescent girls are unaware of menstruation altogether until they experience it themselves. And as soon as they do, they are likely to be “excluded from social events, denied entry into temples and shrines and even kept out of kitchens,” according to a BBC News report. Even in a first-world country like the USA, a 2018 poll found that 42% of women had experienced period shaming, one in five by their own male friends.
But why are periods considered so shameful? After all, aren’t they a regular biological function undergone by almost an entire half of the world’s population? Perhaps the answer lies within that question itself; this half of the population, the female half, is the same one that has been excluded, disregarded and denied since time immemorial. If it were men who menstruated rather than women, wrote Gloria Steinem, “menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.” Perhaps period shaming is just another way our patriarchal civilisation maintains control over females, preserving their place below males by condemning them for a process integral to their bodies.
And if you think the ramifications of this hackneyed idea extend only as far as the theoretical social status of women, think again! Period stigma manifests as a plethora of tangible problems. High taxation on products like pads and tampons (while less essential male purchases like erectile dysfunction pills often remain untaxed) hinders women in nations around the world from maintaining basic menstrual hygiene. The poorer they are, the more likely these taxes are to result in period poverty, an absolute lack of menstrual hygiene. The absence of menstrual products and education further impacts women financially by forcing them to stop attending schools or workplaces during menstruation.
As for their health, they are left vulnerable to health risks like reproductive and urinary tract infections. In rural areas, their seclusion from public areas can impede access to food and water, endangering their lives. Period shame takes a toll on women’s mental health, too, causing distress and depression. In Kenya and India, this degradation has driven girls as far as suicide.
In this era of feminism and social reformation, the time is ripe to end period shame. The first step, as in all widespread change, is education. Schools must begin to teach their students, girls and boys, about menstruation, presenting it as the natural bodily function it is and thereby normalising it. Schools, colleges and workplaces must also make sanitary supplies readily available to their female members. And as individuals, you and I can bring about similar change in simple, everyday ways. Let’s discard hushed whispers of “on the rag” in favour of confident, candid conversation about menstruation. Let’s replace artificial, obliging laughter at PMS jokes with open disagreement. Let’s stop shaming periods and start shaming period shame.
