Do you have an embarrassing story about your period? I know I do.
Just check out my most embarrassing period story of when I was first getting to know my boyfriend, it’s ***chef kiss,*** the worst period story but actually turned into a positive.
But when you actually start to unpack the embarrassment you suffered at the hands of your period we can start to acknowledge that it’s really how society taught us to feel about our periods as women and menstruators and what we’ve been conditioned to feel.
While having a period and menstruating is a normal biological part of half the population, it is still a cause for both humiliation and discrimination.
Menstruation has been characterized over time as dirty and gross and so has the take that it’s something shameful – but half the world menstruates and it’s part of being a human. It’s a part of reproductive and sexual health and yet has come to be considered quite taboo.
Think back to when you first started menstruating. Did you feel shy carrying your little case to the bathroom? Did you look at tampons and feel stressed to try putting it in so you could go to that pool party? Did a pad fly out of your pack and you had to pretend it wasn’t yours? Did you bleed and get some blood on your jeans or on a chair? I know I felt all of this and dealt with so many feelings of shame and embarrassment related to having a period. I wished that my period could be over so I could just make it to menopause and stop having a period every month – and who wishes for menopause?!
According to the New York Post, among surveyed menstruators, 58% felt a sense of embarrassment just for being on their period, and 42% have experienced some sort of period shaming with most of these being made by a male friend.
And yet your period is completely natural. It is a mark of fertility and a long part of the life of a menstruator. And for some reason, women are shamed or embarrassed for going through menstruation when it’s a part of life.
These comments that come from family members or people close to you make an impact on how you feel about having a period. The study also said that when at work, of the men surveyed, 51% of them believed that women would not mention their period at their place of work. And so we as women and/or menstruators have concealed the fact that we’re on our period with about ¾ of women concealing a pad or tampon from view on their way to the bathroom.
But period shame isn’t the only way women are forced into this societal norm of viewing bleeding as something to be embarrassing. Women and menstruators are also pushed to feel ashamed about the other parts of their cycle like the PMS mood swings like anxiety and stress.
Have you ever called a friend and said you needed to stay home because of your period? And how often would you just make up another excuse to get out of plans when you’re PMS-ing? About 40% of women admit having created a false explanation.
There’s not only this sense of embarrassment and shame but also not being believed when they talk about how bad their period is. Whether the struggle with period pain or the mood swings of PMS, there is a taboo about talking about the problem and also difficulty in getting the issue to even be addressed.
There needs to be a clear shift in the dialogue between menstruators and non menstruators about what happens biologically. There’s no shame in how a body works and our embarrassment needs to shift to acknowledging this.
Even though we still may drop our bag of tampons all over, we might bleed through our jeans, or call off a party because we’re PMS-ing, we can do this and change our shame to acclaim. We’re women and menstruators, we’re powerful because of this. Shift your mindset to recognize that this is a part of life and move forward with your period holding your head up high.
Grab that tampon and don’t conceal it when you head to the bathroom, laugh when you drop that pad on the floor, tell the truth about your bad cramps or grumpy anxiety from PMS. And if you start acknowledging it among your friends, male and female, they’ll start to better understand it too.
