Public Perception of the P Word

Periods have often been a taboo discussion in public with many shying away from even acknowledging their existence. I feel this has a contributing factor to women often staying quiet about their struggles with them and thus not being diagnosed when there are serious issues.

Take the movie Carrie for example. Carrie has her period in the shower at school and finds herself the subject of ridicule from the other students. Even her mother thinks shes a sinner and persecutes her for it.

In a recent season of RuPauls Drag Race All Stars, drag queen Manila Luzon, planned to wear a dress fitting the runway theme but was not allowed to do so as it was "bad taste". The dress is an obvious refernce to a maxi pad and as Manila writes, "i think it celebrates a perfectly normal human experience!". And that is what it is. A perfectly normal human experience but this is an example of it being seen as something we dont talk about.

 

With all of that said, there may be change on the horizon. At the Academy Awards 2019, an unlikely Oscar winner was announced for the Best Documentary Short.

The short follows The Pad Project in a rural town in India. "A man named Muruganantham created a machine that makes affordable, biodegradable pads from locally sourced materials."

https://www.thepadproject.org/ . The machine creates pads from local and biodegradable materials that also creates a source of income for the women creating them.

The film begins by highlighting how difficult it is talk talk about. Girls shy away from saying the word, women dont completely understand what it is and the men consider it an "illness". They say that the Gods dont answer their prayers during menstration as they are considered "dirty". 

The idea that a natural occurance in a womans body is seen as dirty and as an illness is something that needs to be rectified.