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2020 showed the world the power of healthcare equity– and not just regarding the pandemic. Scotland just announced that it would be tackling ‘period poverty’ by providing free menstrual products to whoever needs them, making it the first country to do so.
Menstruation and the social issues around it are clearly having a moment – but how do we make this a movement in 2021??
Prof. Inga T. Winkler, co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies, wrote the compilation of a volume of over 1,000 pages by 134 contributors from more than 30 countries on the diversity of menstrual experiences and the social issues surrounding it.
Menstrual stigma results in discrimination, disempowerment, and even delays in crucial medical diagnosis– it is another facet of the movement for gender justice. So how exactly do we turn this menstrual moment into a movement? There’s something everyone can do:
YOU: Stop using euphemisms. Speak about your menstrual experience. Don’t panic at signs of blood on your towel or your sheets. Have sex during menstruation if you feel like it. If you don’t menstruate? Listen.
PARENTS: Let menstruation out of the [water] closet. Normalize. Familiarize. The kids are taking their cues from you, and they do so early on. It’s not about having “the” talk about menstruation, it’s about menstruation being part of everyday life.
EDUCATORS: Find creative ways to address menstrual health and politics in your curricula. Teach body literacy. This can be part of sex ed, but doesn’t have to be.
HEALTH WORKERS: Pay attention to the menstrual cycle as a vital sign. Take pain seriously. Take time to listen to your patients’ symptoms. (The diagnostic delay for endometriosis is about 8 years, and that hasn’t changed in a decade. We need to do better.)
ACTIVISTS: Make the menstrual connection: How is fighting menstrual stigma related to the social change work you are doing?
ALL OF US: Build a broad movement that includes people from different backgrounds along the lines of race, ethnicity, disability, and gender identity and make space and amplify the voices of people who face marginalization.
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