Yes, I Just Took a Tampon to the Bathroom. Get Over It.
Posted by Kristen Barton
October 2, 2015
News flash everyone: periods are a natural part of a person’s body that, for the most part, they cannot really control. Periods happen every month, they are going to keep happening every month. Get over it.
Every single time a period is brought up I notice men and women around me cringe and act so disgusted, and I do not understand it. Especially from people who say they want to have kids, menstruation is a sign of fertility and a natural part of someone’s body. So why does society shame people for something so natural?
Like why will you watch an R rated movie filled with violence and blood and people’s insides spilling out of them but a period is so unbearable?
Here is my biggest issue with period shaming: it makes people experiencing their period feel like they are disgusting and have something to be embarrassed about.
I am so tired of feeling like I have to hide my tampons at work or feeling embarrassed when I walk to my desk after going to the bathroom only to dig through my bag and go right back to insert a tampon. Why should I be embarrassed for something my body does that honestly, kind of makes me a badass?
Another issue with period shaming is it makes young people who started their period ashamed for something they cannot control at all. I was so terrified when I was in junior high and high school I would get blood on my pants and never hear the end of it from my peers and it led me to constantly stopping in a bathroom to check myself in the mirror. It’s not fair that young people experiencing their periods in school have to worry about, not only how terrible they’re feeling, but how everyone else is perceiving them. That causes them to shift focus from school to something that a large part of society goes through, yet is still disgusted by.
It is time we stop making people embarrassed for their periods and just accept it as something we have to go through as people, let me carry my tampon anywhere I want. Let young people adjusting to their periods feel comfortable in that adjustment, puberty is already hard and confusing, don’t make it worse.
There is so much society already uses to try and tear young people down, don’t let our bodies be one of them. Raise your tampon proud.
Image by גביע האלופות, via Wikimedia Commons
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