The Significance of Dialogue in Menstrual Health by Rabia Husain, Communications Intern
High school was a very stressful time for me, as I’m sure it was for many of you too. One thing I’m really grateful for is that I got to share these trying times with a tight knit group of friends. Rain or shine, tears or laughs, all-nighters or absurdly early mornings, we were there for each other through it all. Nevertheless, I always felt lonely when it came to my menstrual health. I experienced extreme symptoms that would make me miss days of school. And when I was lucky (cue sarcasm), I would be at school when my period started.
This began a whole repetitive sequence of events each month of me having to explain to (mostly male) teachers how I was suddenly not feeling well when I was participating normally just a few minutes ago, walking across the whole outdoor campus in agonizing pain, and having to lay down in the school clinic until I felt better. My one motivator to push through was to get to the clinic for Ibuprofen (Advil) that my mother authorized I use only in the clinic when needed. I was a goody two shoes, I didn’t want to risk getting caught outside of the clinic taking medications by an administrator or teacher because it was against the rules. I couldn’t always call my parents to come pick me up because they were both at work from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm daily. With some of the school day spent in the clinic bed without a heating pad, I mustered up the strength and courage to go back to class.
You see, I felt alone because I would have to pull myself together and I would be too embarrassed to talk about how uncomfortable I felt with those around me. I really thought people would downplay what I was going through. When everyone was in class, I was getting left behind. No one I knew of would go to the clinic as much as I did or even missed class as much as I did due to my health. I would feel like the weakest person ever. To speak in plain, layman’s terms, I would have bouts of nausea, excruciating cramps (that rendered it difficult to walk), pain-induced cold sweats, and period diarrhea. I know many of you may be thinking, Seriously, Rabia? That’s way too much information, excessive really.
However, I’m here to tell you it’s not inappropriate and it’s not too much. It’s absolutely alright to speak in a direct manner when it comes to your menstrual health. Frankly, it should be the most normal thing to talk about for it’s the life process that paved the way to the existence of every single being on this planet. To avoid talking about periods and to use euphemisms are dangerous, and it further solidifies the patriarchy that keeps us from opening up about it. Why did I spend a majority of this blog so far to tell you how I feel during my periods? Because it shouldn’t be embarrassing, because if you feel the same thing, you are not alone, and because it’s completely vital to talk like this in the name of progress for menstrual health.
Furthermore, I recognize that even though I have struggled, I still have a lot of resources to take care of myself with. I understand that many, many people go through the same thing or even worse situations; however, they seldom communicate about it. They’re conditioned not to speak of it because their elders barely utter a word of it. I’ve heard of numerous experiences where teachers and parents avoided telling their children about a period because it was too “unladylike” for them. My own mother found out about a period for the first time at her village’s girls school where her own teacher didn’t try to help her when she was bleeding through her uniform. She ended up sitting there bleeding the whole school day with her head down in her arms at her desk. When adolescents get their first period, many are unaware of what it is, thinking they’re dying or have some sort of blood cancer (George). Menstruators feel the need to hide their period rags in dark, damp spaces, like underneath their beds, because they’re ashamed and worried that they’ll get into some sort of trouble, when really this opens a whole gate to urinary and vaginal infections (Gupta). Many men either don’t know what a period is or think periods are signs of disease and sickness, which further isolates menstruators (Period. End of Sentence. 00:01:40-00:02:14). Some menstruators are even separated from their families and community during it (Gupta). Many face countless of unfair experiences from the general lack of knowledge and education about menstruation (Sanchez and Rodriguez).
In fact, a couple of years ago, I spoke to my newly-made friends in the Indian village my mother is from. The girls in the neighborhood told me that they struggled with going to the school bathroom since it was always guarded by some sorry excuse of a human who required that all girls pay their lunch money if they wanted to use it. They told me how their teachers didn’t do anything about it and were practically in on it. They barely had enough money for lunch that day, so they would decide to not go to the bathroom at all until they were home, but it was an even bigger obstacle when they had their period that week. In addition to this, if they didn’t have pads or sanitary napkins with them, they couldn’t make makeshift pads with toilet paper either (a lot of bathrooms in India only have a bidet or lota, a sort of pot with a spout to help pour water to clean the self with after using the restroom). A lot of girls even felt shy asking their friends or others for a pad.
Now, imagine menstruators going through the same dire symptoms as I did with these additional problems from cultural stigmatization. To hide what we go through averts people from knowing and understanding these issues, and permits people to continue believing centuries of myths and negative ideologies (Gunter). This extra veil prevents people from trying to find solutions. Solutions to figure out ways to encourage and act on empathy in regards to this issue, to make bathrooms more accessible to everyone, to make menstrual sanitary products more available to people, to stop misconceptions from brewing, to prohibit unnecessary infections and other serious health conditions, to come up with more inventions and clinical medications or treatments, and more for menstruators to live comfortable lives where they don’t have to miss school, work, or any other important day to day events.
On that note, I want to tell you that it’s wrong of society to silence and shame you. It isn’t wrong to talk about your body. I urge you to get a conversation going about menstrual health and to share your experiences more often. I promise you that a simple, honest dialogue goes a long way.
Works Cited
George, Rose. “Bad Blood: The Taboo on Talking About Periods Is Damaging Lives.” The Guardian, 2 Mar. 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/02/taboo-period-menstruation-damaging-lives-euphemisms Accessed 8 Oct. 2020
Gunter, Jen. “Why Can't We Talk About Periods?” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, Dec. 2019, https://www.ted.com/talks/jen_gunter_why_can_t_we_talk_about_periods Accessed 8 Oct. 2020
Gupta, Aditi. “A Taboo-Free Way to Talk About Periods.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, May 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/aditi_gupta_a_taboo_free_way_to_talk_about_periods Accessed 8 Oct. 2020
Period. End of Sentence. Directed by Rayka Zehtabchi, Netflix, 2018. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/title/81074663 Accessed 8 Oct. 2020
Sanchez, Erica and Leah Rodriguez. “Period Poverty: Everything You Need to Know.” Global Citizen, 5 Feb. 2019, https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/period-poverty-everything-you-need-to-know/ Accessed 8 Oct. 2020