Vagina by Lynn Enright

Author:Lynn Enright
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2020-08-24T10:46:42.878679+00:00

But is there hope? I will continue to get my period every month until I go through the menopause, perhaps stopping for pregnancy and periods of breastfeeding. So, you know, only roughly 20,000 more hours of bleeding left. Will those hours take place in a world that is more understanding of periods? And I don’t just mean my world – I am a white, privileged woman who works from home and can easily afford tampons and sanitary towels and expensive period-proof underwear from brands like THINX.

What I mean is: will the world become more understanding of periods? Will life improve for the almost two billion people who menstruate?

There are reasons to be hopeful. Several international media outlets declared 2015 as the ‘year of the period’, with frank conversations about menstruation taking place on websites and the radio, in magazines and newspapers.

It began in January of that year with the British tennis player Heather Watson remarking that ‘girl things’ had contributed to her losing a match at the Australian Open. Of course, periods are likely to affect sportswomen but the subject has been largely overlooked – both in terms of sports science research, and coverage and analysis.18

In March 2015, Rupi Kaur, the bestselling poet who is followed by millions on Instagram, challenged the social media platform when it removed a picture she had posted of herself with period blood on her pants. That summer, Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon while free-bleeding, making headlines and vowing to stand up to oppressive shaming. Three months later, two activists protested the tampon tax by free-bleeding outside the UK Houses of Parliament, their tracksuit bottoms stained red, their point powerfully made.

When periods are discussed with honesty and compassion in our culture and media, we see real and significant results. In the 2016 film, I, Daniel Blake, a heartbreaking scene showed a woman stealing a pack of sanitary towels from a supermarket. That moment – that fear and desperation that flicker in actor Hayley Squires’s face – led to an increased awareness of period poverty and a surge in donations of menstrual products to food banks and charities.19

In the last few years there have been major wins for activists: at the time of writing, the tampon tax – the levy placed on menstrual products because they are bafflingly deemed as ‘luxuries’ – remains in place in the UK (due mainly to complicated EU law) but the government now uses the money the tax generates to fund women’s projects and charities, including initiatives to fight period poverty.20 Tesco, meanwhile, announced in 2017 that it would cover the cost of the 5 per cent tax for consumers, having reduced prices.21 In 2018, Liverpool Football Club committed to help fight period poverty by providing free sanitary towels and tampons at its stadium, Anfield.22

And that blue liquid that has been a symbol of period squeamishness in advertising for decades now? Well, it – and its close friend, the leaping, laughing menstruating woman – is beginning to feel more than a little ridiculous.

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