Screw TMI: Welcome to a girls’ bathroom at school. I am entering a stall, when I hear a purposely-muffled plastic crinkle. It’s someone opening a feminine hygiene product as slowly and as quietly as she can—a pad or tampon—and I can’t stand that she feels the need to hide it.
This moment is part of a bigger problem. Shame and stigma around menstruation at school and beyond are prevalent. Periods are still deemed as unclassy and meant to keep hush-hush. My message is simple: it’s 2024, and this is so yesterday!
But, at 11 years old, I got my first period and felt a regretfully similar pressure. It was like an unspoken rule to hide it, so I quickly mastered technique in concealing the ugly sin. Tuck your tampon under your hoodie sleeve, change your hygiene products at strategic times to avoid suspicion, and never—NEVER!—talk about it too loud. That would be far too unsophisticated.
Even in girls’ bathrooms, I was ashamed and hid my period. Even though some said the development made me a grown “woman,” it was hard to believe it. On top of uncomfortable PMS symptoms, I subconsciously absorbed from other societal cues—for example, learning about menstruation in a very unempowered puberty ed class—that periods are scandalous, and meant that I was… nasty.
Looking back, I cringe at how anxiously I would wait for another toilet to flush, so I could time quickly ripping open a pad; or how I dedicated five minutes to delicately opening my tampons. I wish I could tell young Kayla that there was nothing to be ashamed of, despite what anyone else said.
I’ve realized that there are so many people out there who know what it’s like. According to a study completed last year, about 1.8 billion people across the world menstruate every month. Thus, on any given day, 800 million women and girls are menstruating, making up 26% of the global population. (Not quite half—menstruation does not occur in a woman’s entire lifetime.)
As such, the stigma surrounding periods has affected, affects, or will affect millions of people. It manifests itself in small ways that start to hurt. I feel it when you roll your eyes and say, “It must be that time of the month for her!” It weighs on my shoulders when you grimace as I complain to my friends of cramps. It gnaws at me when you give me dirty looks for buying tampons at Safeway.
The more I think about it, though, I realize how unnecessary and unproductive period shame is. Without sounding too textbook, it is a natural biological process. Additionally, many women who experience periods already feel physical pain or discomfort; in fact, limited research shows that it can get as extreme as a heart attack. Since we’re expected to go on with our lives like normal—or, some advertisements even advise horseback riding, IYKYK—adding emotional or mental stress to our existing pain is avoidable and necessary.
In the face of period stigma, I call on all of us to collectively combat it. It starts with you: Never shame or judge people who get periods, and instead seek ways to uplift them.
Most of all, for my friends and peers experiencing periods, please know that in women’s restrooms there is no need to hide your period—or yourself. Rip that pad or tampon open with pride!
