COMMENT: Why we’re ALL guilty of making periods a taboo subject
Remember when Laura from HR sauntered into the staff room and casually asked for a tampon while Mick from Accounts busied himself with the teabags?
Yeah, me neither.
And that’s because it never happened.
If Laura from HR needed a tampon, you can be damn sure you’ll have found out via email or through a secret gesture the pair of you perfected for moments when you’re packing and she’s lacking.
Despite the fact millions of women deal with the inconvenience of a period every single month for half their lives, many of us still act like it’s something we should whisper about in case we embarrass ourselves… or anyone else.
Yes, there are those athletes who run marathons while free-bleeding and those college students who share photos of blood-stained underwear online, but these acts are often done as a form of statement.
In general, these efforts are made in order to raise awareness of 'period-shaming', sanitation failures in third world countries or global corporations’ stance on censorship.
But when referred to in day-to-day life, periods are spoken of in brief with a friend, in hushed tones with a colleague or in confidence with a practitioner.
And while menstruating is as normal a bodily function as peeing, sneezing or yawning, it’s only the former we approach in a covert manner.
If your co-worker began sliding packets of tissues up her sleeve before whispering she needed to sneeze in the other room, you’d begin asking questions.
If she commando-crawled to the bathroom so no one would guess she needed to pee, you’d definitely have a quiet word.
And if she assigned a non-specific gender to a common complaint by calling a headcold 'human problems', for example, you'd reassess your relationship.
When it comes to periods, we’re all in this together which – on the surface – sounds comforting, but it doesn’t do much to remove the taboo.
When they whisper, we whisper back. When they nudge, we nudge back.
And while no one’s suggesting we forego public decency in the name of our monthly cycle, is it too much ask that we don’t feel the need to go Ocean's Eleven on a co-worker when looking for a tampon?
Earlier this week, Chinese swimmer, Fu Yuanhui, left viewers slackjawed when she dared to refer to the arrival of her period in a matter of fact manner… in front of billions.
Unlike other instances where periods are discussed on a public platform – think stand-up comics, for example – it wasn’t said to provoke a reaction, but merely to help account for her performance.
“I didn’t swim well enough this time because my period came yesterday, so I felt particularly tired – but this isn’t a reason. I still didn’t swim well enough,” she told reporters.
These moments offer hope that there might come a time when periods will be referred to on a public platform as nothing more than a fact of life, and not something to be used as comedy club fodder, a political tool or a vehicle for men to express their repulsion/ wonder (delete as applicable) for the menstrual cycle
Although if the response to a recent furore in Georgia is anything to go by, we may be waiting.
A fitness centre in the city of Tbilisi recently made headlines after advising women they should bow out of that week’s swim sessions if they were wearing anything other than a pair of togs.
You know, like a tampon.
Concerned that menstruating women may contaminate the pool’s water, the powers that be went to the effort of creating and distributing signs that told women they could essentially eff off if they were on their period.
Ladies, if we make figurative lepers of ourselves by acting like our bodies are something to be embarrassed by every month, these guys made it literal.
And, unfortunately for us women, a worrying number of people agreed with the policy.
“Some people have strong periods that even when they use Tampax the blood leaks out,” wrote one Facebook user named Nawrus Akkam. “I am sorry but if I am swimming in the pool I do not want to see that.”
Really, Nawrus? Tell that to Fu Yuanhui.
