It's Only Blood_Shattering the Taboo of Menstruation

by Anna Dahlqvist

  ‘But we should remember that this is just the beginning and it doesn’t prevent individual countries from including menstrual management as an explicit target. We’re working to include it in the Asian and African countries where we operate.’

  So why did it not work? What is this resistance about?

  ‘Oh, I don’t know! How shockingly oblivious to painful realities we remain in a patriarchal society! It’s as if girls and women, who are theoretically central in the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, remain important vehicles and instruments of development but will never be its subject.’

  On the other hand: the fact that it was even included, albeit in a circumlocutory form, can be seen as a kind of victory. Archana Patkar is convinced that it will be of significance. Menstrual management is also implicitly included in several other goals. In number three – about health and well-being – one of the targets is to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, as well as information and education. The education goal includes a line about making sure that girls and boys are given the same opportunities for education. In the goal about gender equality, menstruation falls under the target about ending all discrimination against girls and women.

  It spans a wide area. But is there a ‘core’ in human rights, in which the relevance of menstruation is at its most evident?

  ‘I would say the right to gender equality, to be allowed to be a full human being. By ignoring biology, we are discriminating against half of the world’s population. This silence is actually astonishing! The message is simply: “handle it on your own, as best you can. It’s nothing the world wants to hear about.” If we don’t provide the information and support needed, we’re preventing the person who menstruates from being herself. From there, the other rights grow, like the right to education, work, and health. How are we supposed to access those rights if we ignore the daily and monthly needs of the human body?’

  * * *

  The right not to be discriminated against returns as an overarching framework. It is also one of the pillars of human rights. In the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, states parties are called on to ‘take in all fields … all appropriate measures … to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men’. States should also work towards ‘achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women’.

  This means that every country should pave the way for a menstrual management that does not stand in the way of rights and freedoms. That includes actively combatting shame and stigmatisation based on ideas about menstruation and gender.

  But gender is not a sufficient basis. The ability to manage menstruation is affected by other factors – such as disability, for example. One’s economic situation is often a determining factor. For those who are not cis women, access to menstrual protection and bathrooms where it is possible to change and wash it may be more limited.

  Another concept intimately connected with menstruation is human dignity. It is difficult to combine with ideas about shame, dirt, and disgust. Being forced to take care of menstrual blood in secret and to smell of dried blood as a consequence of a lack of water and toilets is undoubtedly undignified.

  Inga Winkler is a human rights researcher and, together with Virginia Roaf, a former advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation. In an exposition of menstruation in relation to human rights, they both write that the neglect of menstruation reflects another aspect of the right to gender equality – the absence of women in decision-making positions.

  In contrast to the UN’s prior Millennium Development Goals, which focused on the fight against poverty in low- and middle-income countries, the new global Sustainable Development Goals apply to all UN member states. Rights that build on the eradication of menstrual shame and on providing the conditions for managing menstruation in a comfortable and healthy way are not just an issue for low- and middle-income countries. Good menstrual health education in schools, adequate care in case of menstrual problems, and the demand for secrecy are universal challenges. Archana Patkar offers another example: ‘In the World Health Organization’s guidelines about absences for those who work, menstruation-related causes aren’t mentioned. It’s simply unfair and means that people have to say that they have unspecified stomach pains once a month.’

  * * *

  The photo of Kiran Gandhi spread across the world. She had race number 34363 and wore a tank top over short orange-coloured running tights. A blood stain was spreading halfway down her thighs. Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon while on her period, without menstrual protection. It provoked a lot of reactions. Some of liberating euphoria. Others of anger and disgust.

  Bleeding freely during the race was not planned. When Kiran Gandhi woke up on the morning of her first marathon and got her period, she went through her options. The tampon might chafe. The pad would definitely become sweaty and unpleasant.

  ‘The only reason for using a tampon or pad would be to prioritise the convenience of others, those who watched the race. I can’t imagine that any guy would think like “oh someone else could feel bad about seeing the blood”, when he’s the one running a marathon. If you’re going to perform a task, you need to do it with maximum possible comfort.’

  Like Archana Patkar, Kiran Gandhi is in Copenhagen. She has just been on stage during the conference on women’s health. In a black T-shirt printed with the words ‘The future is female’, she talked about stigma, luxury taxation, school absences, menstrual protection, and menstrual huts. She aired the talk live online with the help of the moderator, who was tasked with filming.

  A lot of people are walking up to talk to her afterwards, inspired and impressed. Eventually, the group of fans has grown thinner and we sit down on the floor outside the room in which the next item on the programme starts. Kiran Gandhi says that she let go of her shame when she bled freely and publicly.

  ‘While I was running, I realised what a radical act it was to openly show that women menstruate. Bleeding freely for 26 miles felt punk.’

  She is a professional drummer – previously for M.I.A., among others – and a devoted feminist. She had not engaged in any menstrual activism before and only realised later what an opportunity the race presented to shine the light on something ‘so normal, yet so taboo’.

  ‘My initial driving force was my own comfort. The big shock factor was that I showed the blood we so rarely see, not even in advertising for menstrual products. It upset sooo many people all over the world, and all those reactions made it clear how important it is to talk about menstruation.’

  After 4 hours and 49 minutes, she crossed the finish line. She posted the image with the blood stain on her website. Another few months would pass before it got picked up by the media in the UK, the US, India, Nigeria, Australia, Sweden, and many other countries.

  She continues the struggle for menstrual rights and other feminist issues through making music, writing, and speaking.

  ‘I want those who menstruate to be able to say what they need. For us to stop being silent. I want to live in a world where you can go to the school nurse and ask for menstrual protection without feeling ashamed. I want menstrual products that cost less and a push for new innovations. It’s just crazy that we get a new iPhone every six months, but there are only three different types of menstrual protection!’

  Kiran Gandhi hurries on. Tomorrow, she is going back to Los Angeles and tonight she wants to see Copenhagen.

  * * *

  On 7 April 2016, one of the walls at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan, was covered with pads. ‘This blood is not dirty’, ‘Don’t hide me’, and ‘Why am I more embarrassed to buy a pad than a condom?’ were some of
the messages written on the pads. Several of the students behind the action had painted red stains on their clothes.

  It began as a school assignment, but became much more than that. One of the students wrote on social media: ‘We are made to put pads in brown paper bags when we buy them, we are made to talk about periods in hushed voices as if it’s a dirty secret. … I don’t think I should feel shame for this, even though I do feel very embarrassed and self-conscious about this whole experience.’

  Among those who expressed their reactions publicly were people who thought that the action was immoral and that there is good reason to keep menstruation secret. There were also condescending comments about the ‘elitist middle-class women’ behind it. But encouraging and supporting voices were also heard.

  Almost exactly one year earlier, a similar action had been performed at Jamia Millia Islamia, a central university in the Indian capital Delhi. After the many notorious rape cases in the country, the view of menstruation became connected with the view of women, with focus on sexual violence. On the walls and in the trees of the university campus, there were pads with messages like ‘Menstrual blood is not unclean, your thoughts are’, ‘Menstruation is natural, rape is not’, and ‘What if men were as disgusted by rape as by menstruation’.

  While the university management were taking down the pads, the activists went out onto the streets and within just a few days students at another university in Delhi had picked up the baton. But it did not end there. After a few weeks, students at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, 1,500 kilometres southeast of the capital, organised a protest with the title ‘Come and See the Blood on My Skirt’.

  In the autumn of 2015, the previously mentioned campaign #HappyToBleed was launched as a reaction to the fact that women of childbearing age are denied entry to the Sabarimala temple in the South Indian state Kerala because they menstruate. By way of social media, it became well-known both in India and in other countries. Nikita Azad, who took the initiative, writes in an email that the response was overwhelming – from women both in India and abroad, but also from a smaller group of ‘gender-sensitive men’. She also writes: ‘the fact that menstruation has become a public affair is the achievement of the campaigns.’

  The goal, according to Nikita Azad, is to break the cycle of shame and have a necessary conversation about menstruation, but also to give all women access to what they need in order to manage their menstruation. On the question of how that will happen, she writes that it will require ‘a lot of ground work among the masses and organised work instead of charity’.

  For many activists, the annual Menstrual Hygiene Day has become an obvious opportunity to get the word out. 28 May 2016 saw the launch of slogans on placards and social media about everything from the VAT rate in the UK to free menstrual protection in Cameroon, the fight against school absences in Kenya, and for the involvement of men in Nepal.

  * * *

  The breakthrough for the public dialogue about menstruation in Sweden began like this: ‘My name is Liv Strömquist, I’m a cartoonist. This summer radio talk is going to be all about menstruation.’ This was on 24 June 2013 and, as promised, Liv Strömquist spent her almost 90 minutes on Swedish radio talking about menstruation. It became the second most shared episode of the summer talk radio series of that year.

  By way of introduction, Liv Strömquist talked about a male cartoonist whom she met at a party. He ‘hated women cartoonists’ because ‘women only draw comics about menstruation’. Unfortunately, Liv Strömquist noted, he was wrong because menstruation as artistic theme has been ‘incredibly neglected in the history of the world’. Then she listed menstruation as one of the top three most interesting artistic themes, together with love and death.

  The following year, Liv Strömquist’s book of comic strips The Fruit of Knowledge (2014) was published, including the 40-page menstruation strip ‘Blood Mountain’. The same year, more than 30 menstruating cartoonists brought out the anthology Women Only Draw Comics about Menstruation (2014), edited by Sara Olausson, as a direct result of Liv Strömquist’s summer radio talk.

  The neglected artistic theme of menstruation found its expression in several ways during 2014. In Gothenburg, menstrual art was put on display in the exhibition Period Pieces. Zayera Khan’s two documentaries about menstruation were screened and Kobra, a TV show about culture produced by the national public broadcaster, made an episode about menstruation. In 2015, two plays about menstruation premiered: Menstruation in Gothenburg and Menstruation: The Musical in Stockholm. The YouTuber Clara Henry began to talk about menstruation in 2013, including in a clip that now has 762,727 views, and in 2015 her book I’ve Got My Period. So What? was published.

  In Norrköping, the project More Menstruation was launched with lectures and workshops. In Gothenburg, Sweden’s perhaps most experienced menstrual activist Josefin Persdotter took part in founding the organisation MENSEN (‘THE PERIOD’). She had been writing about menstruation on her blog ‘Lost in the Lingonberry Forest’ since 2009.

  Nowadays, Josefin Persdotter is both an activist and an academic who wrote her master’s thesis in sociology on European menstrual activism.

  ‘In one way or another, it’s about trying to shake up the status quo when it comes to menstrual norms. After all, menstruation is a very big part of our lives and you can’t just make that a side note. Making it invisible is without a doubt a kind of oppression that pushes the experiences of menstruators to the margins,’ Josefin Persdotter says over the phone from Gothenburg.

  Even though menstrual activism existed in Sweden long before Liv Strömquist’s summer radio talk, it became an important turning point – an opening to a space that had been closed off. For many years, Josefin Persdotter’s ideas about putting on workshops and other activities focused on menstruation had been met with silence, even in feminist contexts. The explanation she was given went something like: ‘No, we need to devote ourselves to the things that make us stronger.’ In the absence of the siblingship she was looking for, she started her own menstruation blog. With time, she discovered that there were others, around the world, who were doing the same. And the blog was read.

  ‘When Liv did her summer talk, Arvida Byström and I were already planning our menstruation exhibition and all of a sudden so much was happening. I’d been drudging on with menstruation for eight years and taken quite a lot of heat for it socially. But when we had our opening, there was a long queue outside! That’s a rare thing for a small gallery.’

  The exhibition was Period Pieces, a collection of art on the theme of menstruation by Swedish and international artists. One of them was the organiser Arvida Byström, who had previously published her fine art photography online in the magazine Vice: images of people with menstrual blood on their underwear and legs. When I now visit Vice’s website to look at the pictures online, I am asked whether I am over 18 because the content can be described as ‘naughty’ by ‘busybodies, legal types and (probably) your mom’.

  Most of the major media outlets in Sweden wrote about Period Pieces and the visitors were enthusiastic, in some cases all but blissful.

  ‘It was as if it had been simmering underneath the surface, this pent-up need to talk about all the experiences that are silenced. It was really liberating,’ Josefin Persdotter says.

  So, after several years of struggle for Josefin Persdotter and a few other menstrually engaged people, there was a breakthrough. What happened?

  ‘One thing that seems to be a trigger is the menstrual cup, as a gateway to new thinking. Like: “I didn’t know this existed, what else don’t I know about?” And the menstrual cup requires that you approach the menses in a different way, you have to hold it and look at it. It unlocks your thoughts and makes for a less shameful relation to menstruation.’

  The fact that the menstrual cup also had a breakthrough in the 2000s may largely be due to the environmental movement, according to Josefin Persdotter. Perhaps environmental awareness cuts out menstrual shame and makes room
for the menstrual cup, which challenges the idea that we should not see or in any other way be confronted with the menses. The cup must be emptied, rinsed, washed. It is not possible to close your eyes and throw it away.

  But there are several reasons why menstruation is part of a public dialogue in Sweden. What has been called the ‘menstrual trend’ should be viewed in the light of the global menstrual awakening.

  ‘The feminist movement has had to stay clear of concepts like “woman” and “womanhood”. But now, it’s possible to talk about menstruators and there are other tools for inclusion. At the same time, people are in general less afraid to talk about bodies and biology within feminism. The Internet is also important. Experiences that have been silenced can find space on forums that are available to a large number of people. I think the connections between activists in the US, Bangladesh, and Sweden are crucial.’

  The organisation MENSEN (‘THE PERIOD’) is devoted to dealing with menstrual taboos and increasing knowledge about menstruation. At the moment, they are gathering information through a survey about menstrual knowledge in order to design a study circle and, at a later stage, be able to offer menstrual education.

  ‘We think that there’s a value in having external actors who can go out into schools and preschools and focus on menstruation – so that it doesn’t become a side note. I also think that an organisation like MENSEN contributes to making this something that lasts over time, rather than a passing trend,’ Josefin Persdotter says.

  The activists and non-governmental organisations that push for change are critical actors. But the state cannot be relieved of all responsibility for an issue that is about gender equality, education, work, and health. Some things have happened on that front too, Josefin Persdotter notes and mentions endometriosis, the treatment for which the government in Sweden has acted to improve.