Yes, This Post is About Menstruation: Why Women Hide Their Periods

I recently had a 5 month stint at a job that had 95% male employees. There were 4 women and 15 men in the office, and 40+ men and 1 woman in the field on any given workday. I noticed one wintry day in January as I was using the bathroom during my period, that I made a point to hide my pads and such in the garbage can. I would move dirty towels and tissues aside to make sure my pads were buried. Why did I do that?

And! every woman on the planet has turned bright red as the period product in her pocket falls out at the most inopportune moment of a social or family gathering.

And and! I have never been out with a group of people of various genders and have periods come up as a topic of conversation for all to take part in constructively, have you? In fact, it's quite the opposite. The subject is taboo, off limits, a big no-no. Why is that? Menstruation is a completely natural, normal process. Why the stigma, the hiding, the shame?

It didn't take me long to figure out why I hid my pads in the garbage can. And I bet everyone women reading this already knows why without me having to say anything. Women hide their pads, only talk about periods amongst themselves, and act like periods are no big deal because the subject makes (mostly cis) men uncomfortable.

For example, I was in line to get into a show couple of years ago and didn't notice I had bled through my pad. The woman behind me tapped me on the shoulder and let me know saying, "I would want someone to tell me." Bless you, fellow woman. So I wore my sweater around my waist for the rest of the night because I couldn't go back to my hotel and change. My now ex husband was disgusted and unsympathetic. I got a "You should know by now how to deal with that" from him. Thanks a lot, jerk.

Guess what, guys. Women bleed monthly. And they bleed a lot. The blood can be watery, thick, clotty, dark, light, flow like a roaring river or trickle like a stream, and probably several other adjectives that I haven't thought of because it varies woman to woman. Menstrual blood gets all over our underwear, on our inner thighs, trickles down our legs, makes shower water pink, and gets all over our sheets if we start in the middle of the night, among many, many other things.

This stigma goes deeper than you might think. It was just last year that companies that produce periods products admitted they don't use blood (or a scientific equivalent) to test their products' performance. LAST. YEAR. As in 2023.

Here's an article if you don't believe me: https://www.newsweek.com/period-products-tested-using-blood-first-time-1819895.

And! women are bullied for menstruation: https://plan-uk.org/media-centre/one-in-five-uk-girls-teased-or-bullied-because-of-their-period-new-survey-finds

Campaigners against period poverty protest outside Downing Street in 2017. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/Alamy

And and! period poverty happens literally everywhere: https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2021/05/28/1383267/menstrual-hygiene-period-poverty-is-undermining-gender-equality-and-human-rights-for-school-students

And and and! I really gotta stop researching this now, as I am getting really pissed off. I haven't even looked at cultural, religious, abuse, or familial aspects. Let's move on to what to do about it.

First, start talking about it with all the people in your life, regardless of how they feel about it. Talk to your (and I am assuming male here) partner about it like you would talk to your girlfriend about it. Send them the same "Fuck, I just started my period and got blood on my favorite jeans!" text. You know how your girlfriend will react. How will your partner? And definitely talk to your kiddos from a young age about it. Here's a great article on age-appropriate ways to talk with every family member: https://www.familyeducation.com/teens/puberty-sex/talk-to-kids-about-periods

Second, stop hiding it. Leave the box of tampons on the bathroom counter when people come over. Unabashedly take the period product of choice out of your purse at a restaurant, leaving your purse at the table. Carry it through the restaurant. When you have PMS, craps for days, or the aches (I get the aches, oh the aches suck!), don't say you ate something that's disagreeing with you or that you're getting over a cold. Tell the person you are talking to exactly how you are feeling and why.

Finally, and I didn't know this until I started digging for this post, that there is quite a lot of activism around taking the stigma away from menstruation. I was so excited to find out about it all!!! Check out https://www.freeperiods.org/and https://periodeducationproject.org/for great ways to get involved on a bigger scale.

Next article: Everyone pees in the shower. Don't even try to deny it!

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-pair-of-gloves-and-a-baby-bottle-on-a-yellow-and-green-background-H2Z4PpgJ6zQ?utm_content=creditShareLink&utm_medium=referra