In primary school a female teacher would one day ask the boys to step out of the room and ask the girls to stay behind for a very uncomfortable “talk”.
For an hour or so there were lectures and videos about ovaries, fertilisation and menstrual cycles that needed to be hidden from the boys.
After that, the girls would be given a packet of sanitary towels, which they would then be asked to take home for when “the time of the month arrives”.
This talk has been in schools for decades and its nature has made periods a gender specific secret. The result has been that periods now seem like a monthly curse.
Psychiatrist Rhoda Mutuku says it is no wonder women have devised secret codes such as Aunt Flo, code red, girl flu and lady business when referring to their periods. “The idea that girls at a young age are told this in such secretive ways makes it feel like they have been inducted to a secret club and should then talk about periods quietly,” she says.
This notion, however, is starting to change with women on social media now boldly talking about their periods online in an effort to reduce the stigma around the topic, which has been considered taboo.
Through an online campaign on Twitter, women are using the hashtag #FreePeriodStories, in an effort to tackle stigma around menstruation. The campaign is calling for increased access to information and education to help break the silence, stigma and taboos.
UN Women, which has been at the forefront of the campaign, said on their website that it was time for affordable tax-free sustainable sanitary products, wider access to menstrual hygiene management and sanitation facilities as well as better workplace policies.
Some women have used the platform to share stories about awkward encounters with friends. While others have talked about approaching the subject with men. "Once on a date I dropped my bag and about seven tampons spilt out on the floor. As my date bent down to help me scoop up my belongings, I panicked and shouted ‘they’re not mine’,” says Twitter user Natasha Devon.
The conservative culture around menstruation is still alive and even grown women hide sanitary products owing to stigma and the taboo nature of the topic.
In Kenya, a recent case of a 14-year-old girl committing suicide in Kabiangek, Bomet, after being embarrassed when she first got her period, sparked debate about the issue.
The girl’s mother said her daughter was found dead after she got her period during class and stained her clothes. Her teacher allegedly called her dirty and expelled her from the classroom. Since it was her first period, the girl did not have a sanitary pad.
Ms Mutuku says while simply getting girls to talk about periods more openly certainly won’t fix everything, it will go a long way in making menstruation a normal issue. “If you cannot even articulate the problem, there is no way to start working on solutions that will keep girls healthy and in school,” she says. This is not the first time women have started a spirited campaign on the matter.
For example, early this year, Kenyan women openly shared about their experience with Always pads which opened a can of worms on the quality of the sanitary towels in the country compared to Europe.
Hundreds of women took to social media to complain and gave several examples on why they think that the pads they use in Kenya were not of the same quality as those in developed in Western countries.
Procter and Gamble were forced to respond through a newly created Twitter page and defended their pads in Kenya, saying their quality was similar to those in other parts of the world.
