Menstrual Health and Vitality: Breaking the Silence, Stemming the Flood

A large section of people from the Mithapukur region, over 300 people, young girls and women, female and male teachers and local and national media attended the 'Labonno' project training and capacity building workshop. Credit: News NetworkBy Archana PatkarvGENEVA, May 23 2017 (IPS)Menstruation matters to everyone, everywhere. But it still matters so much more to women and girls, who have historically been asked to bleed in stoic silence so that no one even knows they have their period. It is slowly but surely becoming socially acceptable to start talking about periods, a biological fact as old as womankind itself— even as the United Nations commemorates Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28.Society is finally coming of age and suddenly everyone is coming out about their vaginas.At the Women Deliver conference in 2016, Jessica Biel bemoaned the world’s reluctance to talk openly about women’s bodies. “[Body talk is] very shameful, and that’s the problem — why is it so shameful?” she asked. “I feel completely embarrassed talking about this stuff, even with my gynecologist, and why is that? It makes no sense. I am here because I want to pull the stigmas off female reproductive everything.”For every celebrity willing to break the silence, slow and steady web chatter is successfully whittling down those deep prejudices and walls that we have built at the intersection of multiple biases. Take male sexual identity and preference and add a monthly peri...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Education Gender Global Headlines Health Women's Health Source Type: news