Recently, I’ve been rewatching Modern Family, and I got to the episode where Mitchell and Cam ask Haley to help Lily navigate “shark week,” and that’s where I got my idea for this week’s column. For anyone who hasn’t realized what I’m referring to yet, when I write “shark week,” I am referring to menstruation. As a woman myself, I can confirm that periods suck. They suck for so many reasons: you are bleeding, you may be in so much pain, the week leading up to your period, you’ll probably feel like crap, and of course, the fact that all this is something you’re stuck with for a good 40 years of your life really, really sucks. However, what I believe sucks more is the stigma that surrounds being on your period, and that’s exactly why we should talk about our periods more.
One of the reasons why the period stigma exists is because many cultures view it as an “impure” or “shameful” thing that happens to girls when they are transitioning into womanhood. For example, in some parts of southeast Asia, there is a practice called “chhaupadi” in which women must leave their homes and communities and seclude themselves in makeshift huts called menstrual huts while on their cycle. This is because of cultural beliefs that a woman is “impure” and thus “untouchable” while she is on her period. These women are isolated and are responsible for cooking and sleeping away from their homes. They also aren’t allowed to touch others, pray, or visit temples. A study done by the National Library of Medicine states how women suffer greatly as a result of this, as they are subject to animal attacks, assault, rape, and suffocation to death due to poor ventilation. This is horrific, and the fact that girls and women are subject to all this just for a natural biological process is appalling. Another thing I’d also like to address in this case, is the mental trauma that is an after-effect of this. Likely, any girl or woman who has been subjected to this type of experience will associate their body’s natural processes with shame and disgust. Even worse, this kind of trauma could be passed down, causing a generational stigma of menstruation.
However, there are some cultures that actually celebrate a girl getting her period. For example, an anecdote shared from a woman in South Africa to BuzzFeed stated, “You have a party thrown to celebrate your transition into womanhood where you don’t leave the house for three days, then get presents and a huge party (typically).” I find the difference between the two cultures fascinating, and it makes me question how people interpret the same concept in two completely different ways.
Moving on, conversations regarding our periods need to continue. I’m glad that with the age of social media and in an era of mass information, women are speaking out about the biological processes they go through. However, it is still something that has yet to become commonplace. While we are moving in the right direction, we still have a long way to go. In my ideal world, everyone would be educated about menstruation, which would be seen as a normal biological process. Since this is not the case, the best we can do is talk about our experiences and attempt to destigmatize the discussion around periods while working towards the longer term of destigmatizing periods overall. After all, this is something half of the population experiences — why should it be something we hide?
