Aunt Flo comes every month so there’s no avoiding it.
It’s no mystery why every month women seem a little more on edge or annoyed: it’s called the menstrual cycle. The biggest problem we seem to have is a choosing a brand of tampon or the high price on our feminine products. In reality, it’s just a small part of the feminine health crisis going on in the world. So buckle up girls, it’s time to talk periods.
It’s almost an unwritten rule to never talk about your period and to even feel embarrassed about it. I remember hiding my tampons in the pockets of my school cardigan even though I went to an all-girls Catholic school. So why was I so embarrassed when probably a quarter of the girls in my school had their periods too? I look back and think about health class wondering how I ended up feeling this way. Health class in Catholic school is basically you get your period and you buy tampons. There was no time to answer questions or to have any discussion about concerns you had.
I thought health classes in the United States were bad until I read girls in Africa and India weren’t going to school because of the lack of feminine healthcare and the shame they received if they needed to use the restroom to put in a new tampon or pad. Why are these girls being shamed for something natural? Another big issue is countries, like Africa and India, they don’t have enough money to provide proper feminine products or have a class on how to practice good feminine hygiene.
After reading that shocking information I remember organizing a drive to collect feminine products to send abroad. The bigger question is: how do we rectify this and educate girls on proper feminine hygiene? The answer is to talk period. Once we become more comfortable speaking about it, the more comfortable we will feel with our own bodies.