2 days ago
Period talk needs to stop. Period
When the supermodel Brooks Nader's period started at Wimbledon, naturally she turned to social media. 'Tries to be chic. Starts period at Wimbledon,' Nader wrote, alongside a snap on TikTok showing blood stains on the back of her skirt. 'A canon event for all us girlies!', someone bleated in response. The American model was praised for being 'real' and 'NORMALISING' periods. May I be the first to say: Nader should have kept this to herself.
This is just the latest example of a disturbing tendency among women to overshare about their menstrual cycles. Nader flaunting her uterine shedding in a white designer outfit is being hailed as a victory for feminism. Her fans would lead us to believe she is single handedly upholding the very notion of women's empowerment. She isn't.
The grisly celebration of women bleeding only confirms the way menstruation has become a hot topic. Women are obsessed with talking about their periods, in what we are told is not an icky example of TMI (too much information), but a brave victory towards finally ending the (alleged) shame and stigma surrounding periods.
BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty has spoken frankly about her experience of debilitating painful periods, giving talks at book festivals and popping up on the radio to speak about her menstrual cycle. Her BBC colleague Emma Barnett has written a whole book, Period: It's About Bloody Time, on women's bleeding. Davina McCall has made an industry out of women not having periods, cashing in on the menopause©. McCall has released two documentaries on the subject – Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause and Davina McCall: Sex, Mind and The Menopause – and co-authored a book called Menopausing. Am I the only one longing for a time when professional women were not reduced to talking about their hormones?
This onslaught of menstrual chat has become so bloody relentless. 'It's that time of the month again…to shout about periods!' the Wellbeing of Women website says, having celebrated Menstrual Hygiene Day on 28 May. No, it isn't.
Bookshop shelves are streaked with the blood red covers of tomes imploring readers that it's Not Just a Period (although it is). Oscar-winning films explore the impact of our time of the month. Athletes, pop-stars and actresses clamour to share yucky details of what it's like to dare to appear in public while having their periods. Do these ladies not realise that women have been doing this for centuries without fuss?
The excessive sharing of details about bodily fluids is bad enough, but what's worse is how totally disingenuous the whole conversation around the 'shattering the shame' of periods is.
Sure, in some countries around the world women are still compelled to isolate themselves or hide during their periods. This is appalling. These women deserve our help. But that's hardly the case in the UK, where it's been years since Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon 'free-bleeding' with crimson stains streaming down the inner thighs of her red leggings. That was in 2015. We've seen it all before. Women have been making art out of their menstrual blood since the 1970s.
A decade on, the enthusiasm for celebrating women's periods is becoming unbearable. Our foremothers fought hard for women not to be defined by their bodies; they pushed back against the limiting notion that women are too fragile, or emotional at certain times of the month, to function. They resisted the attempt by some men to reduce us to our child-birthing capacities. But by focusing obsessively on periods, women risk reinforcing that message.
A recent survey of Gen Zers found that 78 per cent of them supported companies bringing in menstrual leave. Some countries, including Spain, have implemented such policies, although luckily Italy saw sense – perhaps realising that this idea risks reinforcing harmful sexist stereotypes, not least the idea that women might be emotionally unstable during their periods or incapable of normally functioning in a workplace. This, of course, is a notion that's been used forever to keep women out of public spaces.
This whole discussion of periods is especially triggering for me as I grew up with hippies. I was thus forced to see in my first period with a family celebration. My teenage years were haunted by trips to Glastonbury (the hippie town not the festival) where we celebrated the sacred yoni (google it. Or on second thoughts, don't).
You can't imagine what it does to a teenage girl's sense of her body to be inundated with images of trees carved into the shape of vaginas and sung chants celebrating her divine feminine flow. If anything, it was that creepy perving that made me ashamed of my period in the first place. It showed me first-hand how a culture that ostensibly celebrates 'earth mothers' is used by leftie men to keep women as breeding grounds, home makers and carers. Meanwhile, men get to do the fun stuff like getting stoned and whittling spoons.
It's the year 2025, and I refuse to believe that anyone is really still ashamed of having periods – and I'm sick of hearing about them. While it's true that women wait too long for gynaecological care, it doesn't mean we have to ruin every dinner party with chats about periods. God knows I'm a prolific over-sharer, but even to me that feels a bit bloody much.
