Boys Need To Learn About Menstruation Too!

I remember when I was in Grade 6 a girl in our class spotted her dress. The boys in our class went wild. So wild she had to spend half her school day in the toilet. We found her a jersey to cover herself and our teacher let her go home. She didn’t come to school for the rest of the week.

I never experienced this myself, I got my period at home so I was one of the lucky ones. I am a mother though, a mother to a daughter so what will happen when my child gets her period at school? This is probably years from now but why as society are we quiet on this “taboo” we have created around periods?

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Its amazing how this stigma is global. The stories related in Dominique’s poem above could easily be mine.

When we teach our girls that periods are normal let our boys be there too. Let them know that this is how nature works in the same way they grow beards or their voices grow deeper, girls get periods. Let’s teach them what the symptoms are that they maybe kinder to their sisters, aunts, mothers and friends.

We all go through our periods differently. When one cramps so bad she can’t walk she is not exaggerating just because another does not. Or if my period lasts for 3 days its not abnormal for another to last 7. Let’s have them understand female sexual health in order to end stigma around menstruation. Only then can men stand by our side when we petition for things like free pads because they understand.

Knowledge is the only way to break norms. It is the only we can end the stigma. Let’s bring the boys and men in, side by side let us end period shaming!

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