Normalizing menstruation in the media

Menstruation is still a public secret. The Sri Lankan journalist Thilak Senasinghe reinforced this unfortunate reality in a recent column of a Sri Lankan newspaper, Aruna. Senasinghe not only questioned the way in which women purchase items to maintain their menstrual hygiene, but also assigned a morality to that process. Women wear “westernized wear of T-shirt and jeans” to purchase sanitary pads in public, “shamelessly, even with their credit cards,” and do so by enacting the “modernized behavioral traits of driving to the supermarket,” an action that has resulted in “a loss of parking slots for men.”

In Sri Lanka, as in many other nations, women’s periods are taboo. While families celebrate when a girl bleeds for the first time, as she is seen to have come of age, every month from then on patriarchal values are applied to this natural cycle of life. Menstruation is perceived culturally as “unclean” or “impure” by many in the nation, including some religious institutions. There are places of worship in Sri Lanka that still restrict women from entering if they’re on their period. Female students are kept from going to school while on their period, according to a 2015 UNICEF survey of adolescent Sri Lankan girls. According to another study, many women feel restricted from openly seeking help for menstrual problems because of this cultural stigma, which can impact their health.  

This shame and ignorance are perpetuated by a lack of education. Growing up in Sri Lanka, I learned about menstruation and how sex works at the age of 16 only because I had a teacher who dared to defy the norms and teach it in school. Many female teachers in my school skipped teaching that lesson to their classes, even though the students were all female. There are only a few other ways girls can learn about their bodies, and this lack of education is perhaps why only 30 percent of 4.2 million menstruating Sri Lankan women use sanitary napkins, according to the SAARC Chamber Women Entrepreneurs Council.

Thilak Senasinghe’s article, which appears to have been removed from Aruna’s website, only compounded this already culturally ingrained taboo. While this may be one writer’s opinion in one newspaper, it represents the broader phenomenon of the crucial role the media can play in reinforcing — or, potentially, breaking down — the stigma that surrounds menstruation.

I viewed menstruation as something women need to keep secret from men until I encountered media that changed my perspective. In 2015, the artist Rupi Kaur posted a picture of herself sleeping in pants stained with period blood. Instagram deleted that image, and in response, Kaur wrote, “I will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be ok with a small leak.”

Reading Kaur’s response encouraged me to learn more about menstruation, which helped me come to accept it for what it is: totally normal and natural. Normalizing the female body is not just the job of public figures and activists, but the responsibility of us all so that when the next generation of girls start to bleed, they do not view that blood as a stain to be ashamed of, but one to be celebrated — from its first appearance to last.