From the time you get your first period, the whole experience of menstruation can be pretty awkward. You have to learn special behaviors and acquire special products to cope, but somehow we’re expected to keep our use of tampon coupons and the fact that we’re bleeding for days at a time totally secret. It’s not easy!
According to Susan Kim, co-author of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation, a lot of women feel anxiety about their monthly cycle. It’s normal to feel "scared of anyone noticing even a trace of the process: a tampon falling out of one's handbag, a spot of blood on the toilet seat or on the shower floor, a used pad left in the garbage, even someone glimpsing our unused tampons in the bathroom or a male clerk checking us out when we have to buy a box of pads," she says.
If you feel this anxiety, it may be soothing just to know that you aren’t alone. Half of the population knows what you’re going through! Kim says that, from ancient times, menstruation has been culturally constructed as a shameful thing – but despite the superstitions, it’s natural and healthy to menstruate.
You don’t need to go around announcing your period to everyone you cross paths with, but open conversation can help to dispel the stigma around menstruation. The more you talk about it in a way that is straightforward and unembarrassed, the less stressful menstruation will be, says Kim. So next time you head to the store with tampon coupons in hand, don’t get anxious – every woman goes through this, and every guy has a mother/sister/girlfriend/wife who goes through it, too.
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