If You Can Talk About Your Period Consider Yourself Privileged
By: Katherine Moffat
Tags: Periods, Womens Health, Privilege, Menstruation, Women

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

I was 14 when I got my first period. I knew what it was. I didn’t know what the hell to do with it… but I knew what it was. I called my mum from the bathroom and told her, which was a welcomed relief, for both me and her, as I was the last of all my friends to have started and I can only imagine the bitch I was turning into with puberty.

At the time I considered it a relief, a nuisance and a very confusing time. I remember also thinking it was very inconvenient timing as we were off on holiday in about a month’s time (first world problem). I didn’t know how to deal with it on a normal day, let alone on holiday in a swimsuit, or in the pool .

Naturally, I got my period on our holiday and I have a vivid memory of my mother trying to talk me through shoving a tampon up my poor vagina through a firmly closed bathroom door. It did not work so I did not swim that holiday, or take my shorts off.

What I did not realize at the time, was how fortunate I was to have all of these ‘problems’ and experiences. The fact that I even got my period (some people don’t have a period at all or get it later for various reasons) and that I knew what it was when I got is something I took very much for granted. That and the option of trying a tampon and in the event the tampons didn’t go down so well for me (we had a rough start) I at least had sanitary pads to make my week a little more comfortable. The fact that periods were a daily conversation at the school I was at amongst my girlfriends and that I felt comfortable enough to rejoice to my mum through the bathroom door that I was, in fact, bleeding (and not dying).

What I learned years from then was that not everyone has that privilege. Discrimination against menstruating women is rife in some countries.

Menstruation is a natural part of the reproductive cycle, a process that first occurs in girls between the age of 11 and 14 and is one of the indicators of the onset of puberty. Despite this, it is still considered a taboo in various societies.

In Nepal, menstruating women either voluntarily go or are sent to ‘menstrual huts’ whilst they bleed every month in a practice called chhaupadi. Forcing women to use the huts was criminalized in 2018 but it is unclear whether the law will be an effective deterrent.

Similarly in India, menstruating women are often excluded from social and religious events, denied entry into temples and shrines and sometimes kept out of kitchens. In many parts of the country, menstruation is considered to be dirty and impure.

There are various cultural and historical reasons for these and they warrant a post on their own. These taboos about menstruation in many societies have a profound impact on girls’ and women’s lifestyle, mental and physical health.

A 2014 study found that over 77% of menstruating women and girls in India use an old cloth as a sanitary towel, which is often reused. Furthermore, 88% of women will occasionally resort to using ashes, newspapers, dried leaves and husk sand to aid absorption. [1]

Poor protection and inadequate washing facilities, combined with the fact that girls’ knowledge levels and understandings of puberty, menstruation and reproductive health are limited, means that girls who get their period for the first time often don’t know to expect it, don’t know what it is and don’t know how to hygienically deal with it.

I’m on a mission to change the way the world sees menstruation. So the next time you moan about having your period, please take a moment to consider how lucky you are to know what it is, how to deal with it and how natural it is.