When I was 11, some little grotbag with an innocent-looking face full of freckles and a soul of pure evil went through my school bag. He was looking for a way to ridicule me, and he found it in the form of my sanitary towel. He pulled it out of its wrapping and threw it into the middle of the classroom so that everyone would see, and they all laughed at me for having something as embarrassing and disgusting as a period. Fortunately for me, when I went home crying later that day, my mum taught me that if he did it again, I should waggle my little finger at him, intimating that he was only acting so pathetically because of his own insecurities.
Fast-forward to 2015, and the American presidential election proves that such schoolboy shaming tactics are still rife - and not confined to the classroom. After news anchor Megyn Kelly questioned him about his attitude towards women during a televised debate, Donald Trump claimed that she did so because she had "blood coming out of...her wherever". Not because she was a grown woman with thoughts and opinions, nor because she believed him to be wrong. OH NO. The only possible explanation, as far as Trump was concerned, was that she was on her period - and as all the world knows, periods turn women into wild-eyed maniacs who want to destroy everything in their path, much like zombies or werewolves (who also work on a lunar cycle. Coincidence?). Given Trump's history of misogyny, his comments perhaps aren't surprising. But it's not just him.
Period stigma is everywhere. The UK still has a 5% tax on sanitary products, due to them being, apparently, 'unnecessary'. I'd love the government to let us know in what way they are unnecessary; maybe they expect us to go back to the olden days and walk about with old rags stowed away in our nethers? On the other hand, perhaps we should all be taking tips from marathon runner Kiran Gandhi, who decided to let her period blood runneth over, literally. When her period arrived the day before she was due to run the London marathon, she decided she couldn't handle wearing uncomfortable sanitary protection while running 26.2 miles. She says she did it in the name of feminism, because "if there's one way to transcend oppression, it's to run a marathon in whatever way you want". What I liked best about Gandhi's attitude is that she'd decided her personal comfort should take precedence over others'; she wasn't going to wear a tampon just so other runners wouldn't freak out over. She didn't care if people stared at her. She'd trained hard for the marathon, and she was going to run it the way she bloody well liked.
Of course, Gandhi's not the first woman to ask us to examine the idea of ‘period-shaming’. Performance artist Casey Jenkins sent people into a spin with her show ‘Casting Off My Womb’, in which she knitted a scarf from wool she pulled out of her vagina. She did this over a month, and the result is a pleasing dip-dyed-looking scarf that charts her cycle from start to finish. The world was, predictably, outraged, and although I admit to having felt an initial ‘eugh, blood’ reaction to her project, I soon got over myself and realised that she’s doing a good thing; anyone who helps to de-stigmatise periods - and everything periods represent - is doing something brave and important. I won’t be making vagina-bunting any time soon - but isn’t it great that there’s someone out there who might?
There are lots of people out there who will assume that period blood is a bodily fluid, so anything to do with it is as disgusting and unhygienic as, say, wee. And they might have a point. But pee comes from men and women and adults and children. We aren't taught from a young age that weeing is something to be ashamed of; how many teenage girls are walking around school going 'OH MY GOD, I hope no one realises I've done a wee today'? Periods are associated with something shameful: developing and continued sexuality, as well as women’s feelings and emotions. Anyone challenging this stigma deserves our applause.