Periods are fun, said no one ever
by Janae Rodriguez, photo illustration by Paige Acosta
Editor’s note: That’s not period blood in the photo. It’s strawberry jam.
The day you find the first drop of blood in your underwear is an unforgettable one. It marks the transition from childhood to adulthood, and the power to bring life into the world. But with this new chapter comes challenges — cramps that make you feel like someone is taking a chainsaw to your insides. Then there are the extra expenses of having to buy pads, tampons and pain medicine. Every month people with periods are suddenly strapped into a rollercoaster of emotions that was neither asked for nor fun.
Menstruation is a normal part of life, yet still a taboo topic. According to UNICEF, 26% of people around the world are of reproductive age. When periods should be regarded as a beautiful thing that gives the power to populate the planet, they are often seen as a financial burden that is gross or embarrassing.
Even in the U.S., periods are not a part of common conversation. While most American health classes dedicate part of their curriculum to address what puberty entails, including menstruation, in some parts of the world menstruation is still withheld from public knowledge, to the point even menstruating people themselves don’t have a clue what is happening with their bodies.
The Pad Project started in a high school classroom with a group of upperclassmen learning about young girls in developing countries dropping out of school due to maintenance of their menstruation. Co-founder Sophie Ascheim and the rest of her classmates wanted to help these girls stay in school and get an education, so they partnered with a school outside of Delhi, India.
“Three or four years ago when we got the team together and said ‘OK, well we have a partner school outside of Delhi,’” Ascheim said. “And we know about this machine that uses locally-sourced, biodegradable materials to make pads and then the women can sell the pads. This can not only make product for the girls to use so they can stay in school but also makes a macro economy in the community and [furthers] conversations about menstruation in general, which was one of the biggest [taboos] in India at the time and still is.”
What started out as a little individual project became an Oscar-winning documentary, “Period. End Of Sentence,” which catapulted the organization into the mainstream. The documentary, directed by University of Southern California graduate student Rayka Zehtabchi, followed a group of women in India starting a pad business all while educating women on how to use pads and the biology of menstruation.
“I can’t stress this enough. We never did this to make a Netflix documentary or to win an Oscar or do any of that,” Ascheim said. “We did this because it was a project we were tackling with our partner school [outside of Delhi] and from there we saw the opportunity to spread the word in the U.S. and that is why we made the documentary.”
After the Oscar win, a flood of support came for the organization but the most important thing to Ascheim is that the documentary started a conversation around what Ascheim calls “period poverty.”
“I think the documentary has widened the conversation around periods,” Ascheim said. “Period poverty in specific because I think this is a problem most people don’t conceive of … but I think when you start to have a conversation with them ‘like no, this is a problem everywhere including in developed nations, including the U.S., including wherever you live.’”
Homeless people are already in a vulnerable state as is. Adding menstruation to it is another level of stress.
“Low-income families, homeless people, this is always going to be an issue because we don’t talk about menstruation so no one thinks to provide [feminine hygiene products to these people] when they do toiletry donations to homeless shelters,” Ascheim said. “We still have the tampon tax in the U.S. and most schools don’t provide menstrual products in their bathroom[s]. Even if they do, they do it in designated girls’ bathrooms, which is gonna create a whole other barrier for trans men and non-binary people. It is already complicated enough being trans and in school, and we stigmatize menstruation so much so the idea of a man to get their period is crazy.”
To combat the period poverty in the Bay Area, the nonprofit Blossom Project, whose mission is to support homeless women, has created the “period bag” that provides homeless people who menstruate in San Francisco with pads, tampons, hand sanitizer , rain ponchos, water and an encouraging note from a volunteer. Tine Christensen, the founder of the Blossom organization, moved from Denmark to the Bay Area and was shocked at the level of homlessness in her new city.
“I moved to San Francisco with my husband because of what he [does] and then we lived in Marin. I often took the trip to San Francisco and found it very hard to see so many people in need,” Christensen said. “I think when you live in a community or area you need to take responsibility for what happens in your community and that’s kind of how it started. It was not actually my goal to make it into a big organization, how it actually is today but it was more out of this … I did not know what to do but I felt that I had to do something.”
Walking around San Francisco State University, there is an abundance of condom dispensers, yet there is still a lack of free resources for menstruation in the bathrooms. Karen Boyce, the director of Health Promotion and Wellness center, said that there are three locations on campus to get free menstruation items. The Women’s Center in Ceaser Chavez on the terrace level, the Health Promotion and Wellness office in Village A across from City Eats and at the Student Health Services Center.
“Students are free to take as many supplies as they need and we encourage students to stop by any location,” Boyce said. “In an effort to increase awareness and utilization of this service, [Health Promotion and Wellness office] is working on introducing a program where students can grab free pads/tampons and ask questions to trained HPW interns, similar to what we have with our Condom Caboose (a mobile sex education station). This program will be piloted as a monthly activity and see what the interest and uptake from students.”
Oct. 19 marked the first national Period Day. This is the beginning of breaking down the stigma about menstruation.
