Code red. Shark week. Surfing the crimson wave. A visit from Aunt Flo. It didn’t take long for my short search of witty period slang to become an extensive catalogue ranging from euphemisms to crude and offensive expressions used to describe menstruation. Wiktionary.org is where my online rabbit hole started as it provided me with 89 alternatives to saying that a person is menstruating. It presents what it describes as“euphemisms”, “slang”, “jocular slang” and “jocular vulgar slang”.However, my own vocabulary was limiting as I searched for the meaning of the term“jocular”.I familiarised myself using the ‘Cambridge English Corpus’which confidently claims that“[their]English language teaching materials [are] guaranteed to be natural, relevant and up to date”.I was surprised to find that the second“natural, relevant and up to date” example the Cambridge dictionary so kindly provided me with said, “First, the narrator frequently intervenes to make jocular and sometimes obscene comments about women’s character and anatomy”.These innocent, and supposedly informative sites, sparked an interest in me about how menstruation is talked about in social and political conversations.
A 2022 survey from Plan International carefully exposes ‘deep-rooted’ taboos around periods. According to their research involving 4,127 boys and young men from Brazil, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Uganda, more than 1 in 3 boys (37%) think periods should be kept a secret. Not only have respondents said the reason for avoiding the topic of menstruation is because it is a ‘private matter’ for girls and women, but the respondents aged between 16 to 25 also admitted they frequently associate periods with words such as ‘dirty’ (55%), ‘embarrassing’ (31%). This highlights that we, as a society, have been socialised to think that periods are exclusively a ‘female’ issue. These negative social norms have resulted in girls being stigmatised and their confidence being knocked down in already turbulent times of puberty. Unfortunately for young girls, menstruation has become a source of shame and embarrassment rather than a natural physical process which indicates good health.
Starting when a child begins to learn about their own anatomy, children should be learning about male and female biology alike. In primary school sex education, at the age of 10, we were separated into girls and boys to talk about puberty and sex. We came back to the classroom feeling awkward and left curious about what the other gender learned about. For years ignorance was bliss for the boys in our class who were not taught about menstruation. The idea that conversations around our bodies should not be in mixed company reinforces cultural taboos and passes it on to future generations. This also sustains the idea that periods won’t ever affect men and, by leaving them out, we also exclude trans men and non-binary people from menstrual conversation.
Feelings of discomfort around other genders develop over time but can be avoided by teaching children to recognize and reject stereotypes. By all genders receiving the same messages alongside each other about sex, gender and relationships, they have the most to gain as everyone is taught the same standard and can keep each other accountable for the way we speak and act when it comes to these types of conversations. In a survey of high school students, Louisa Allen, a professor of sociology and education from Auckland, found that 65% of students prefer mixed-gender instruction. Students told her their ability to learn in sex education had more to do with their teacher’s comfort level rather than the mix of genders in the room. Luckily, Gen Z has been able to take it ‘upon themselves to be comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. Young boys and men are becoming more confident in having open conversations and respectfully asking women about their experiences with menstruation because as gynaecologist and author Jen Gunter says “It shouldn’t be an act of feminism to know how your body works.”
It wasn’t until as recently as 1985 that the word“period”, referring to menstruation, was said by actress Courtney Cox in a Tampax advertisement, with pads and tampons only being able to be advertised on TV 13 years earlier in 1972. Hollywood films haven’t exactly helped the stigmatism as coming-of-age films often display adolescent girls in a panicked whirlwind of terror and embarrassment. For many girls, the reliable source of the silver screen is the only exposure to menstruation available to them. Their televisions often portray a shameful, possibly comedic for others, picture of characters who let their imaginations go wild, leading them to believe they’ve drunk something strange or are bleeding to death through a hole they didn’t know they had and if all this wasn’t enough, this tragic end to their short-lived life must be kept a secret. Dramatic? Yes.Accurate? No. In reality, for the majority of females who have been educated and have had people available to them to have conversations about menstruation and puberty, getting their first period is a normal, possibly even mundane, event.
Talk about menstruation has also taken the stage on various social media platforms. Indian Canadian poet, author and illustrator, Rupi Kaur, is a prime example of this as she took her art to Instagram with a post in March of 2015. Kaur posted a photo of herself, fully clothed, lying in bed with a stain of period blood on her trousers and bed sheets. The photo, left to each viewer’s own interpretation, was removed by Instagram, twice, as it allegedly went against community guidelines. Kaur cleverly reposted the photo thanking Instagram for the opportunity to show the hypocrisy and misogyny that the platform was displaying. Our timelines are frequently filled with women, often underage, objectified and, as Kaur said, ‘pornified’, yet these posts stay on our screens because as proven over and over, sex sells. Our media is painting a picture for the young people who use Instagram that this is the way women are seen and treated. Kaur, who is from a Punjabi community where menstruation is often a taboo subject, recalls people in her community sharing the image and openly talking about its impact and its censorship. Despite the many debates surrounding her post and Instagram’s intentions, Rupi Kaur’s post was an ice breaker for many communities where menstruation is seldom talked about, especially for men and boys.
Luckily, the UK has come a long way since MP Bill Cash struggled to say the word“tampon” in parliament during a 2015 debate about tampon tax. On January 1 st of 2021, the tampon tax wasabolished by Rishi Sunak, who was chancellor at the time, meaning there was now a zero rate of VATon sanitary products, almost a year after Britain’s exit out of the EU. However, according to a survey by Plan International UK, representing 1000 girls and young women aged 14-21 in the UK, 1 in 10 girls can’t afford to buy menstrual products, while 1 in 7 have struggled to afford them. Not having a hygienic way to deal with menstruating can have significant impacts on a person’s life particularly if they are still in school. Plan International UK found that 49% of girls have missed an entire day of school because of their period and, over the course of a year, 137,700 children in the UK miss school because of period poverty. Scotland has been able to set an example for the rest of the UK as they become the first country in the world to make period products free. According to the ‘PeriodProducts (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act’ 2021, it is the legal duty of local authorities and education providers to make period products free of charge to anyone who needs them. This act ensures that anyone in Scotland who menstruates can have reasonably convenient access to period products, for free, as and when they are required showing that these personal issues are in fact political. The Scottish government believes being able to access period products is fundamental to equality and dignity. This is part of the policies the Scottish Government have been putting in place since 2018 to support equality, dignity and rights for those who menstruate.
To conclude, in recent years, more is being done to ensure that people feel comfortable and educated on topics surrounding menstruation and reproductive rights. However, continuous research and work needs to be done in order for the stigmatism and shame around periods to be eradicated. Historically, sex education in Scotland was never a mandatory subject in the school curriculum but is now becoming an essential part. Has become more progressive and inclusive, ensuring that every child receives the same message and includes topics such as sexuality, sexual assault and relationships. As social media has become an increasingly bigger part of our everyday lives in the last decade, we are shown that it can be used positively as people promote important messages using their platforms. However, we, as a society, need to continuously question and keep these sites and apps accountable for what is being posted, censored and advertised on our screens every day. In our ever-changing world, it is important that we adjust our old ways and views around periods in order for people who menstruate to feel comfortable, safe and hygienic without the shadow of shame and stigmatisation being another thing they need to worry about every month. So next time someone brings up their period and you feel like changing the subject, instead of blushing in and amongst the inappropriate euphemisms, be open to conversing about this natural and important topic that seems to cause so much unnecessary discomfort.