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Period.
I mentioned it in the previous chapter. But stop for a moment to consider the phrase. It consists of two words you don’t often associate with one another – let alone see written down together. And that’s what I would really like to inspire in you. I want to infect more women with period pride and, in turn, cure men of their need to retch when the topic arises.
Period pride doesn’t mean you have to enjoy your period. I certainly never do. My periods have been defined by bone-grinding pain; I have never been one of those women who breezed through their monthly bleed. It wasn’t something I felt I could or should ever ignore.
At school, I didn’t talk about my period much, though I found it odd that no one else was screaming about this strange monthly occurrence. The only place I found any more information about it was within the comforting pages of Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, in which the protagonist begs God for her period to come so she can be normal. Incidentally, this tome is one of the most challenged and banned books from US children’s libraries – make of that what you will. ‘Put up and shut up,’ was the vibe around periods.
Once our paltry sex education kicked in when I was around 13 or 14, they were only spoken of in the truest biological sense. No mention was made of our hormones, moods or other parts of our bodies and mind. The tone was also rather glum, portraying it all as a bloody cross to bear rather than something faintly ludicrous, or an experience to exalt in any way. Had just one teacher broken ranks to tell us her worst leak story, we might have at least enjoyed a giggle at our shared shedding of innards.
Unfortunately, there was not that kind of female solidarity at my school, nor really thereafter, but that didn’t dent my natural period pride. In fact, I became even less meek about occasionally busting out some of my period’s greatest hits to my appalled male and female university housemates and, later, to my closest pals and colleagues. Even now, my husband, despite often being a better feminist than me, still occasionally wrinkles his nose in squeamish disgust.
My openness about my period is why I found it uncontroversial, perhaps weirdly easy in fact, when I made a spot of broadcasting history on 19 May 2016. You see, I am the first person, certainly in the UK, to look down the barrel of a camera lens on a popular 24-hour news channel and unashamedly utter the words: ‘I’m menstruating, right now.’
The TV programme? The Pledge, a free-talking evening panel debate show I used to co-present on Sky News. The reason? I wanted to debate menstrual leave in the workplace. And the panel? Duly horrified.
The subject was in the news that week because a small Bristol-based company, aptly called Coexist, had become the first in the country to introduce a ‘period policy’ in a bid to help its large female workforce be more productive. Practically, this meant employees could take time away from the office around their menstrual cycles and work more flexibly at that time of the month, instead of – as the boss put it – being hunched over their desks in pain.
Menstrual leave is a common policy across large parts of Asia but has yet to catch on as a Western phenomenon and I had very mixed views about it. While I applauded the concept of breaking the taboo around periods, and giving women the option to work more flexibly during heavy or difficult bleeds, I also loathed the idea of periods being weaponised against women as a badge of weakness in the workplace. Or, that it could become a fashionable policy, writing off our periods like some politically-correct fad, something that is simply a ‘hot topic of the moment’ only then to be forgotten and glossed over.
I soon realised I could use my lack of squeamishness about my own periods to great effect. I had the chance to kick off a real debate and duly wrote my autocue script with a wry smile on my face, knowing it would get a reaction. My wonderful producer, always encouraging of anything that would enliven our conversations, was thrilled, almost titillated. I was happily putting myself out there, the subject was fresh, and she knew it would expose divisions in our diverse panel about a genuinely controversial issue.
Usually we rehearsed our opening statements in front of each other before recording, but for this topic, we decided I should do it on my own, to keep it fresh. The hilarious thing was that everyone apart from me – the camera crew, the producers in the gallery and the editor – were jittery and on tenterhooks about my big reveal. Especially as one of my co-hosts was my faux adversary, the masterful broadcaster Nick Ferrari. Off air, I love Nick and he is a very good pal, but on air we pretty much disagree about everything, especially gender issues. It was a subject that had the potential to generate fireworks and Nick certainly didn’t disappoint. From the minute, I began describing my painful clotting flow, he slowly lowered his head into his hands, muttering: ‘Why, oh, why did we need to talk about this, Emma?’
His cheeks were bright red and he looked like he might vomit.
He wasn’t alone. Both my female and male colleagues – including journalist Rachel Johnson and international footballer Graeme Le Saux – were howling with shock and dismay. Intelligent adults howling on national TV. They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But, because I’m a good humoured kinda’ gal, wanted a proper debate and loved my fellow Pledgers, I swiftly helped my colleagues through the shock of ‘Woman Admits Period on Live TV’ and attempted to move them on to the issues at hand.
The irony was of course that, by attempting to lead by example and not be ashamed of talking about my own period, we never really fleshed out the debate. I was genuinely trying to start a conversation about whether menstrual leave was an appropriate response by company bosses, or whether it was a policy ripe for enforcing the age-old idea of women as the weaker, less capable sex. Instead, the laughter-filled conversation became more about why I felt it was necessary to make a big deal of periods. Put simply, my co-panellists couldn’t make it past the fact that I’d mentioned my own pulsating uterus on TV.
But what was even more striking was that the reaction of my female panellists was just as strong as the men – they too argued that this cone of silence should continue. I ended up feeling terribly alone, as their shock – and I believe, embarrassment – drove them to giggle and sneer about the whole discussion. Trust me, this isn’t a group who shock easily, but they couldn’t get over the fact that periods were being discussed out loud, on TV. And when other women aren’t setting the tone for men to follow, it’s hardly a surprise that my male co-hosts couldn’t bring themselves to go beyond some gentle scoffing and a few end-of-the-pier jokes.
Interestingly, once we were off air, one of the lovely female panellists said to me in the make-up room: ‘Perhaps I should have been a bit more supportive of you out there on second thoughts, but there we go.’ Rachel Johnson, one of the most open and outspoken journalists I know, had turned period pink with an uncharacteristic bashfulness, over something so natural.
Several weeks after the programme aired, I was thrilled to hear that one of the women in the editing gallery (often a male-dominated space) was suffering from particularly painful cramps, and when asked if she was OK, gruffly replied, ‘I’ve got what Emma talked about’.
I was also cheered by the reaction of viewers at home, with messages of support for my efforts pouring in on social media. Men revealed that their female partners never spoke to their colleagues about their discomfort. Women thanked me for my candour, realising how rare this kind of honest conversation was – and their response has stayed with me ever since.
A few months later, a woman stopped me in my local fruit and vegetable market, clutching at my arm with fervour that was slightly alarming. She was a lawyer and told me that she’d seen The Pledge episode – it had been a lightbulb moment for her. Close to tears, she recounted how her heavy period had flooded on the bus on the way to work one time. Ashamed and panicked, she’d desperately scrubbed and dried her suit in a coffee shop loo in case her colleagues noticed. Sadly, it wasn’t an isolated incident and she was diagnosed with fibroids – her monthly downpours forced her to quit her full-time job, turning her into a part-time shift-worker so that she could manage her working life around her cycle. She’d never spoken about this to anyone and wanted to thank me for speaking out about periods without shame – it was this that had really struck her, how simply I had admitted I was menstruating and in pain on national TV.
It was like I had started to unleash something people hadn’t known needed releasing: the shy hunger to talk about periods. It dawned on me that enabling others find their voice on periods and engaging in this forbidden conversation could be an important step in helping women stop judging and shaming themselves in all walks of life. Stories of pain, shame and hilarity have followed me around ever since.
Sitting in that glamorous, shiny-floored studio, what I didn’t realise was that I was about to be diagnosed with endometriosis – a common but often poorly diagnosed menstrual condition (where tissue similar to the lining of the womb starts to grow in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes) that causes millions, yes, millions, of women colossal amounts of bone-grinding pain every month and can have serious consequences for fertility. It turns out those painful early periods I’d had weren’t normal or acceptable. Me, the one with the big mouth and period pride, actually had a proper period illness all along. One I’d never heard of, couldn’t spell nor explain.
I soon underwent the most painful forty-eight hours of my life, as a surgeon lasered my insides for nearly three hours. Although it’s estimated at least one in ten women in the UK have endo (as it’s called by those in the painful know), it takes a scandalous seven and half years on average to be diagnosed with this progressive illness. It took me nearly twenty-one years to get my diagnosis – and even that came down to pure luck.
By chance, I’d opened up about the pain I was in every month to a doctor mate over Sunday brunch, and she’d tentatively suggested that endometriosis might be a possibility. I’d had over two decades of medical appointments in which I complained repeatedly of severe menstrual pain, but I’d still failed to convince my doctors to take my period pain seriously. I’m someone who thrives on bashing down doors and demands answers for a living, yet I still hadn’t got anywhere – so what hope was there for others?
To be frank, I am fucking furious that nobody knows what causes endometriosis – mainly because it’s a ‘woman problem’ and there hasn’t been enough investment in scientific research. And people, even gobby folk like me, walk around ignorantly ill because no one takes our complaints of abnormal pain seriously, so we just stop talking, afraid of looking like we’re moaning.
As I hobbled around for three months recovering from my debilitating op, I felt as if the rug had been pulled from beneath me. But it meant that periods were back at the top of my personal news agenda, and I felt bloody foolish.
Back at work and intrigued by the silence and ignorance surrounding our periods, my team then commissioned a study for my radio show. Over 57 per cent of women who told us they had period pain (which was 91 per cent of the total number of women polled), admitted it affected their ability to work. But only 27 per cent of them told their employer the real reason they felt poorly, with most preferring to lie, often opting to say they had stomach problems. Interestingly, many British women were open to the idea of menstrual leave.
Before presenting the findings in our programme that day, I was invited onto BBC Breakfast to discuss the results – an invitation I happily accepted. Here’s how The Sun decided to write up my calm and measured conversation with my BBC colleagues: ‘Woman Sparks Furious Debate About Menstrual Leave on BBC Breakfast – BBC Radio 5 Live’s Emma Barnett Has Sparked a Sexism Row.’
Now who’s hysterical eh? And people still wonder why women lie about their periods, preferring to tell their bosses (of both genders) they have the shits. Go figure.
Periods need to come out of the darkness because of the potential benefits to women’s health around the world. But the cultural benefits of smashing the period taboo would be major and just as important.
Alisha Coleman, an American 911 phone operator, sued for alleged workplace discrimination after being sacked for leaking during two particularly heavy periods. Once, on her seat, for which she received a written warning, and then again on the office carpet. Can you imagine how mortified she felt? How you would feel? Perhaps you’ve been there too. Alisha was dismissed for failing to ‘practise high standards of personal hygiene and maintain a clean, neat appearance whilst on duty’ the lawsuit states. I am utterly dismayed that women can lose jobs over leaking on their office chairs.
‘I loved my job at the 911 call centre because I got to help people,’ Alisha, a mother of two, explained. ‘Every woman dreads getting period symptoms when they’re not expecting them, but I never thought I could be fired for it. Getting fired for an accidental period leak was humiliating. I don’t want any woman to have to go through what I did, so I’m fighting back.’
Quite.
But Alisha isn’t alone in struggling to conceal her period. One woman confessed to me, in the bespoke period confession booth built for my BBC 5 Live radio show, that she once had to call in sick because of severe period pain. She decided to the bite the bullet and be honest when she spoke to the HR director (who happened to be a man): ‘I could hear him on the phone being squeamish [when I told him the reason] and then he said, “Well let me know when you are fixed.”’ Fixed. As if she was a broken doll. I interviewed six other women that day, in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties, and they all had their own coping mechanisms for making sure their period experiences remained as hush-hush as possible. You can understand why.
The very fact that my production team, who happened to be all women that day, had been delighted to build a beautiful confession booth (complete with a gold grill), spoke volumes about the need to have the conversation. The storytelling power of radio may be in its facelessness, which emboldens even the meekest guest, but we still felt the need to create a further physical divide to coax these successful and confident women (with the strict assurance of anonymity) into the box to talk about something as natural as their periods. Upon reflection, it was utterly ludicrous.
This censorship and secrecy that engulfs periods was highlighted by the global shock, teetering on outrage, when Kiran Gandhi decided to run the 2015 London Marathon free bleeding down her Lycra leggings. Kiran came on her period the night before and, deciding it would be uncomfortable to run 26 miles with a stick of cotton wool wedged up her genitals (you think?), chose to let it flow. Admirably, she also did it to raise awareness for poorer girls and women who don’t have access to period products. Whether it did that or not, I cannot say. But I do know many newspaper picture editors will have furrowed their brows as to whether they could run such a ‘distasteful’ image – despite it being all over the internet and the very same news outlets thinking nothing of filling their daily feeds with graphic images of bloody wars. You will hear more from Kiran a little later on.
Does that not strike you as terribly odd, now you stop to consider it? The fact that the sight of a woman’s menstrual blood, coming out of the hole it’s meant to, provokes more consternation than the image of lifeless children’s bodies being pulled out of the Mediterranean Sea in their failed fight to find a permanent home? One image can be published without question, while the other is censored, out of fear of poor taste and offence.
In China, tampons are still thought of as sexual items rather than basic sanitary goods. Caught short on holiday, when I asked a young female shop assistant in Beijing where the tampons were (whilst making unedifying finger gestures as I stood next to rows of sanitary pads), she looked at me like I was a strange slut.
There is still a fear, especially amongst younger Chinese girls, that tampons break the hymen. Recent figures show that only 2 per cent of the country’s women opt for tampons, compared to Europe’s 70 per cent. According to my friend and fellow journalist, Yuan Ren, Chinese medicine is also to blame for the cultural fear of tampons. It propagates the idea that putting a foreign object into the body is not good for you and can be harmful to girls who are still growing. Add this to the lack of education in the country as to how to insert a tampon and you have the perfect combination of factors to ensure that millions of women never experience the joy of a less cumbersome absorption method.
Instead, they have to waddle about with a cotton surfboard jammed between their legs. Lovely.
So why don’t we just say it how it really is? Periods are the blood of life and in many ways go to the very heart of being a woman. Simone de Beauvoir, when writing her seminal feminist text, The Second Sex, in 1949 wanted us to have jobs and work through them. She believed distraction from our pain was a good thing and the only way to cope. Germaine Greer, in her similarly iconic 1970 bestseller The Female Eunuch, famously wanted us to taste them as a test of our emancipation (full disclosure – I haven’t). She wrote: ‘If you think you are emancipated, you might consider the idea of tasting your own menstrual blood – if it makes you sick, you’ve a long way to go, baby.’
Periods, whether you are into tasting yours or ignoring it as best you can, are part of the essence of being female.
And yet we vilify them, disproportionately.
We know that men, particularly recent American presidents, have difficulty with them. But women also hush up other women on the topic, mainly out of fear that they will be seen as weak. Just because periods come out of our nether regions and, by their nature, are messy things, women worry this renders them worthy of censorship. But why? Is there just a horror and shame linked to blood in the pants? Granted, many men wouldn’t want to talk about their bleeding haemorrhoids. But they aren’t a normal monthly part of life and a vital sign of health. Quite the opposite. Or is it something that runs deeper and proves that women have bought into the age-old myth that anything uniquely female is filthy, reductive and not quite right. That we are broken and yucky in some way.
We can’t continue as a human race without periods – and yet we still can’t acknowledge their existence. In the twenty-first century. I am not calling for women to walk down the street in short skirts with their tampon strings dangling out, armed with megaphones screaming: ‘Look at us! We’re bleeding!’ (Although if you want to do that – go for your life, sister.) But what I do want is for this juvenile shaming attitude towards women and a vital part of our anatomy and health to stop being such an embarrassing mysterious and dirty secret.
Most women I know wouldn’t walk to the toilet in their office – a place they go every single day – without a dainty ‘special zip-up bag’ (ladies, you know what I’m talking about here) or even their whole handbag, just to take a tiny tampon into the loo for a change. Can you imagine if men bled for a week every month? Some form of menstrual leave would have been written into HR policies around the world, period-pain-bragging would be an Olympic sport and bleeding males would dramatically stagger to the office bog with their tampon proudly gripped in their fist. There would be no need to hide sanitary products in tiny zip-up bags. But men don’t have periods. And history has meant that they were the ones who designed society and the world of work without women – or our monthly downpours – in mind.
It’s time to perfect your period patter and swagger with pride, but it’s also important to know what you are up against: generations and generations of debilitating myths and anti-women, fear mongering nonsense.
Just as I began this chapter, that’s why it’s important to remember that ‘Girls are superheroes. Who else could bleed for a week and not die?’. I’ve got this. You’ve got this. We’ve got this.
Turn this page, turn a new leaf. Our work begins now.
CHAPTER TWO
‘The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.’
Alice Walker, author and poet
Before I tell you how periods unexpectedly took centre stage in the run up to my wedding, I thought it first prudent to share a list of some of the codswallop that women on their period have been blamed for and prohibited from doing while menstruating.
Menstruating women must not:
Believe it or not, some of these nonsensical outright lies are still doing the rounds today. The teeth-breaking one? Still frighteningly alive and well in modern-day Malawi. The mayo gem? Still very much in rude health in Madagascar.
While we’d like to believe many of these myths – religious or otherwise – have died a death (along with believing women aren’t capable of doing loud smelly farts or pumping out logical thought), stories have a way of burrowing invisible roots deep into society. Even if there’s no basis for the prejudice or superstition, a grain of belief can still linger for a long time afterwards, colouring people’s views. So, although no doctors in the UK today believe that menstruating women could spoil meat, as some writing in the respectable British Medical Journal in 1878 did, there’s still a hangover from that type of ‘intellectual’ discussion which saw women as being ‘dirty’ during their period.
