When Sikh poet Rupi Kaur posted the above picture on her Instagram, it was taken down by the social media platform, stating that it crossed community guidelines. Somehow the objectification of women is alright, but not the nature of the female body. Menstruation is seen only as a punchline in comedies or sometimes completely overlooked in post-apocalyptic films. Sure, that woman can uppercut a zombie and use an AK-47 and diffuse a bomb, but once a week I expect her to bleed through her tiny shorts, curl into a ball, and ask other survivors for chocolate cupcakes. Why is this never mentioned in books and movies unless it's somehow integral to the plot? Why is the most common attribute for women around the world looked over as if it doesn't even exist?
Let's get to it:
The first time I got my period I thought I had cancer. I was only 14, and my innocent self stared at the crimson-soaked underwear, unable to move. It dawned on me that I had finally begun menarche, and I was very, very excited. All my girl friends often spoke about their periods in unapologetic joy over lunch, along with all the signs of puberty. And I, with my flat chest and dry uterus, could never join in the conversation. When I asked my mother for a pad, she smiled and handed me one like the proud momma cub she was. And the next day when I went to school—pad meticulously pasted on my underwear—I shared my happiness with my girl friends.
"I got my period," I whispered to my best friend. She stared at me wide-eyed and dragged me to our table to announce the amazing feat I recently accomplished.
"Jasmine got her period!" she told our other friends. They all congratulated me and we regaled each other with talks of blood over lunch.
For the next few days, my uterus became an ice breaker between girls. When another girl received her period around the same time, we talked about how thick the blood was, the color, the smell. We shared our private stories during class, with other more experienced girls leaning in and pitching in their two cents. We bonded by our shared pride of our imminent journey to adulthood.
Weeks, months and years went on. The novelty of our periods disappeared and became the bane of our existence. Every month some of us would skip class to rest in the clinic or miss school altogether. I saw my sister buried in a blanket on the couch, moaning every few minutes and stuffing herself with pain killers. During math class I had trouble writing on the board because of the cramps that no one else could see. And instead of talking about it like we used to, we had to whisper to ask our friends, 'do you have a pad?' We would hide the small white savior inside our skirts, or crumpled in our fists. We'd run towards the bathroom, hoping that no one would know that Aunt Flo had visited. What we were so proud of just a few years ago became something we were too embarrassed to talk about or be seen with.
The sign of our fertility became a hindrance during beach trips and romantic escapades. We learned to clean up the blood from our bedsheets and wash away the crimson ink from our beautiful underwear. We've Googled plenty of questions regarding our discharge and oh my god my period is late, am I the next Virgin Mary?
I've dealt with this for 5 years, every month, for an entire week. Yet when I asked my boyfriend to buy me a box of tampons, he expressed how he was uncomfortable doing so. This completely normal bodily function that over 3.5 billion women in the world experience or will experience, made my boyfriend ill at ease. When I told my male friends why I couldn't join them in the pool, one of them immediately expressed his disgust while the others pretended they didn't hear me.
Whenever I tell my male friends stories about my menstrual misadventures, I would always be met with repulsion. And it really wasn't my intention to gross them out, because it's something that happens so often that it's just a part of me as brushing my teeth. With all the poop Snapchats and fart talks, these boys thought that periods were too extreme a topic.
Men are oblivious to the inner workings of our uterus because we sweep our stories under the rug. We silently browse sanitary pads and tampons in the corner of the pharmacy and hide our selected material all the way to the checkout counter. We are not embarrassed about our periods, we are embarrassed because men make us feel embarrassed.
Men are never exposed to it the way they should be. When we're on our periods, we merely mention it when necessary or if it hinders them in some way. Instead of telling them about how hilarious our bloody misadventures can be, we turn to our girl friends who would laugh at how you bled all over your crush's car seat. We keep these stories and our experiences on the down low, so men believe that periods aren't a suitable conversation topic because we deem it so. We need to pull it out of the brown paper bag and talk about it with the men in our lives. Even though I often get looks of repugnance from my male friends about my odd stories, I know that I'm doing my part in making periods a normative occurrence in their lives. Because it's not just women who have to deal with the crime scene in the bathroom and on the bed. My future husband is going to inadvertently see more blood than a Quentin Tarantino movie, and he is going to have to buy me food, pads, and bear with me as I snap at him before the onset of every cycle.
I want to make periods ordinary so Rupi Kaur can post that picture on Instagram. So my sister's screaming pleas every month is recognized as strength, not weakness. So the blood that trickles down my legs signify that I have the power to create life. If women want to make the world comfortable with periods, then we have to begin by being comfortable with ourselves. There are girls in third world countries who skip school and refuse to go out of the house because young boys laugh at them if there's a mishap with their makeshift pads. Some women use dirty rags, sticks, and leaves to stop the bleeding, and never ask for a better solution because it is taboo.
The promise of life is contained in the hollows of our uterus, yet we are embarrassed to talk about how it works. You need to walk to the bathroom with your tampon swinging in hand, tell your friends about that one time you stupidly wore white pants and bled through it, and ask your partner to buy you the prettiest pad in the store. This is the nature of your body that we should embrace more than the sexualization of it. Be confident about the miracle you have between your legs. There is no shame in the ability to harbor human life.
"I bleed each month to help make humankind a possibility. My womb is home to the divine, a source of life for our species, whether I choose to create or not. But very few times is it seen that way. In older civilizations this blood was considered holy. In some it still is. But a majority of people, societies, and communities shun this natural process. Some are more comfortable with the pornification, the sexualization of women, the violence and degradation of women than this. They cannot be bothered to express their disgust about all that but will be angered and bothered by this. We menstruate and they see it as dirty, attention seeking, sick, a burden. As if this process is less natural than breathing. As if it is not a bridge between this universe and the last. As if this process is not love, labour, life. Selfless and strikingly beautiful." -Rupi Kaur
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