If you’ve seen anything of my blog or business site, it’s probably pretty obvious that I’m passionate about the subjects of periods and body literacy. In this post, I really want to talk about how my interest in these topics came to be and why I’m so insistent on working to break down period stigma, one conversation at a time. 

Early experiences with period stigma

I grew up in a moderate-sized town in South Wales, UK. I went to a pretty average comprehensive school between the ages of 11 to 18, which happened to have an on-site swimming pool. The school pool was used in rotation during our PE lessons – in other words, there would be a couple of months per school year where swimming would be the chosen sport for us to take part in during our compulsory lessons. The pool area was lined with windows on both sides –  one side looking to the grass outside, the other a corridor leading to the other PE changing rooms (separate from those used for the pool). While PE lessons were segregated by gender, the windows still allowed for the non-swimming class to look into the pool area before their lesson began in the nearby sports hall. 

Inevitably, when it would come to the girls’ time to do swimming, there would be a number of us with notes to get out of the session. Sometimes those notes were for medical reasons (like injuries or illness) but most of the time, it was because of periods. One of those times, it was me handing in a period note. After submitting it to the teacher and receiving a harsh comment about ‘why couldn’t I just use a tampon’, I walked off to the changing rooms to talk to my friends before the lesson began. Once everyone was changed, I headed to the poolside to help with handing out floats. It wasn’t too long before all of the boys from the other class lined the corridor to look through the windows at the girls in their swimwear – it was at this moment many of them noticed that I wasn’t joining in with the lesson as normal.

After the swimming lesson had come to an end, I headed off to my next class – English. Taking my usual seat, next to a close male friend, he quickly turned to me. 

“Hey Sarah, I noticed you weren’t swimming today,” he said quietly in a way that I wasn’t sure whether it was a statement or a question. 

“Yeah I wasn’t today,” I returned, unsure of exactly how much to say considering other people in the class would probably overhear. He gave me a knowing look and didn’t say anything further, something I respect to this day. 

Despite this relatively unproblematic experience (minus the windows looking into the pool area and my teacher’s comments about tampons), my other experiences at school were shaky at times. Much of my biology classes focused heavily on a female’s ability to conceive after menarche as opposed to much on any of the other important hormonal systems at work throughout the menstrual cycle. Education on male anatomy was also quite sparse from what I remember. 

PSE classes consisted of mostly talk of the negative effects of drugs and alcohol then later, sex education. Though not the focus of this article, sex education, for me, was also missing some key features (I can go into this in another article in the future if there’s interest). The closest thing to period/body literacy education I received was before I even went to comprehensive school.

In year 6, a nurse came to our primary school to show a video detailing male and female puberty. After a brief Q&A session, the girls were asked to come to the hall for a ‘private’ talk away from the boys. This talk consisted of going over what to expect from periods in more detail as well as being shown pads and tampons (only disposables – reusable options weren’t really a big ‘thing’ back then compared with now). I distinctly recall part of the session where the nurse asked whether anyone in the room had already started their period. I had but was too scared to raise my hand in front of everyone. One girl did raise her hand though – despite her and I never really being friends, I was proud of her for being brave enough to admit it in front of the group. 

Reflecting on these memories, I can clearly see that I wasn’t exactly helping the situation regarding period stigma. But I can also honestly say that I didn’t know what to do at the time. In 2007, when the nurse came to my primary school, the world was a very different place. That time my friend called me out after the swimming lesson, I was only just finding my feet in the world as a teenager, let alone the fact I really liked the guy as more than a friend. In reality, I should have told him “yeah, I didn’t swim today because I got my period yesterday so didn’t feel up to it,”. In reality, I should have raised my hand in that room full of girls in 2007 – if nothing else but to make that other girl feel less alone. 

My background on this topic

At the time of writing this, I’m 25 and have been getting my period for 14 years. If I average that out to 13 cycles per year, that’s around 180 times I’ve been through it and will go through it a whole lot more before I hit menopause. 

It was some time around my first year of university where I really internalised the levels of period stigma in our world. Despite the above fact – that women have a whole lot of periods in their reproductive lifetime- there didn’t seem to be many conversations happening surrounding the subject. TV adverts traded blood with strange blue liquids and friends would go quiet if I told them I felt like crap because of painful period pain. When I first got into reusable menstrual products then went on to start a business making them, people told me I was disgusting. I knew that if I could be anything in this world, I wanted to be the change. I knew I couldn’t do much as just me alone but I could at least try to make some waves in an otherwise still ocean. 

To begin, I chose to do one of my dissertations on how sexual education has changed over time in Wales – an interesting exploration that led me to thoroughly read the curriculum documentation as well as the thinking behind them. I did a deep dive into everything I’d covered throughout my own education, as well as everything that led to the development of that specific era and all that followed to date. While this dissertation topic did not specifically focus on period stigma, I could certainly see where we, as a country, are slowly heading in the right direction in terms of educating young people to be body literate and respectful of others vs the more vague curriculums of years past. 

Aside from starting my cloth pad business at university and speaking with the press regarding this, I also began my journey to becoming a qualified Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) Instructor with NFPTA. It was at this time that I truly realised how little knowledge we had been given about the menstrual cycle throughout our school lives, a factor that further intensified my interest in the subject of sharing information and breaking down the taboo that often surrounds menstruation. 

The future of fighting period stigma

When it comes to period stigma, in my opinion, there are a few things that we could change to help the situation in the future. Firstly, providing a full education to young people is vitally important in terms of setting the foundations for body literacy as well as forming a respectful understanding of other genders. While my own education got me by at the time, I would have loved for more thorough coverage as I found myself supplementing my knowledge with things I found online. Naturally, the internet isn’t always full of the best quality sources for young people to use for educational purposes. 

Aside from a better education at a younger age, I believe it’s important to keep open lines of communication as older teenagers and adults. Due to my history with being a part of the cloth pad and FAM communities, I’ve been in a position where there wasn’t an option to remain silent on menstrual-related topics. Not only as I needed to market my business but because I was genuinely proud to have the skillset/knowledge and wanted to share it with others. From maintaining this level of communication with others, it quickly became apparent how many questions other adults around me had about cycles, periods or just generally how the human body works.

I’ve been asked things by men like “what does it feel like to have a period?” and “why do some people only use tampons rather than pads?”. I’ve also been asked several versions of “am I normal?” from other females. Where I could, I answered questions to the best of my ability but it also breaks my heart a little that they’d come to me rather than their girlfriend, close friends or other females in their lives. My ultimate dream is a world where everyone feels comfortable to ask or answer questions about these types of things to those around them rather than not having the information until they find someone they feel safe asking.

I’m not completely sure how to tie up this discussion as it’s very much an ever-evolving subject that will constantly have more developments as time goes on. I’d like to open up the comments section for anyone to share anything meaningful relating to this topic – maybe you have a period stigma story to tell? Maybe you had a burning question about periods that you struggled to get an answer for? Maybe you recieved misinformation when you were younger? Maybe you feel something specific needs to change in the school system? Tell all in the comments, I’d be really interested to read what you have to say.