OP-ED: Menstruation Education Affects Us All
Education empowers us, period.
*This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of PERIOD.
In most American schools, sometime around junior high, students sit through lessons about sex education and bodily health for pubescent tweens. These lesson plans usually glide through the topics without real discussion, such as teaching how babies are made and the high statistics of teen pregnancy, but not the range of resources for safe sex nor guidance for sexually active teens. Thus, middle schoolers emerge from this vague classroom discussion, usually remembering only the following: use condoms, pregnancy biologically affects female bodies, junior high schoolers are terrible at maintaining their B.O., and those with uteri get periods.
Menstruation is rarely ever discussed in-depth. Neither is the range of period products that menstruators can use during their periods (menstrual cups, period-absorbent underwear, etc.) nor how to use those period products (such as how to insert a tampon properly).
In junior high, I thought that getting a period would make me feel different, more womanly somehow. Maybe I would suddenly feel like those Maybelline commercial models with wind blowing through their hair, or confident and powerful like a queen. I wish someone would have shared with me that having a period would indeed change me, just not entirely in the sudden and cinematic way that I had imagined. Instead, getting my period would be the start of a learning journey to many realizations.
The most important of those realizations was the bond formed with my fellow menstruators. We know what it feels like to try to hone our “spidey” senses and predict when our periods are coming, only to get paranoid at random moments because we fear standing up with blood-stained pants in school or at work and being ridiculed. Plenty of online research and muscle work have gone into removing blood stains from our clothes from unexpected period accidents. Friendship and solidarity have blossomed from simply giving a fellow menstruator advice on foods to eat to decrease cramps or offering a period product. When a kind stranger offers you a pad in the bathroom because you unexpectedly got your period, it is out of empathy. It is a sign of a mutual understanding that periods are a part of life and that we can be each other’s greatest supporters. An invisible sisterhood forms between us all that share this life-changing yet regular experience.
Sharing period products has long been a form of solidarity between menstruators. However, for those who do not menstruate, much of this may be new information and a valuable learning experience that should not end with this article about one menstruator’s personal experience. It should especially not end with the minimal information relayed in school sex-ed classes.
Nationally and globally, we need to transform our sexual health education to grow our support network for menstruators beyond menstruators themselves. We need to emphasize that, although certain issues such as menstruation may not seem to affect certain portions of the population, these issues still do matter to and concern everyone. Non-menstruators may never have to personally experience the aches or pains of periods but they can learn and know how to support a friend or family member on their period.
Non-menstruating politicians and lawmakers who understand the importance and relevance of menstruation can help spread this awareness and accurate knowledge by advocating for measures that support menstruators and opposing those that create barriers for menstruators.
For non-menstruating teachers or health professionals, this knowledge will be useful to understand why a young menstruator may be shy about talking about their menstrual problems and keeps asking to use the restroom or does not show up to class at all. Both of these scenarios can keep them from successfully pursuing their education. In fact, according to a 2015 global update on the Millenium Development Goals by UNICEF and WHO focusing on sanitation and drinking water, at least 500 million female menstruators do not have access to menstrual resources. In many countries around the world, a lack of support for female menstruators has led to absences in schools, thus missing out on educational and future career opportunities that can affect the rest of their lives. The list goes on.
Rather than continuing to discuss all of the potential ways that menstruation affects us all, I urgently encourage non-menstruators to learn from and listen to the experiences and struggles of menstruators in their lives.
Already, we are changing the world and working towards an equal place for menstruators, but it will be a lot easier with support. We don’t need pity; we need an understanding that the needs of menstruators deserve to be heard and addressed, and a readiness to defend our rights alongside us.
