Imagine being given a piece of cotton with one sticky side or a cotton tube encased in plastic and being expected to know what to do with it — without having accidents on your underwear.
That’s the reality for many girls when they start their first periods. Some don’t even realize why they’re bleeding when they get their first period due to a fundamental lack of education about how to handle periods in a hygienic way.
In a study from 2016, almost 50% of participants, all young girls, didn’t know anything about the process of menstruation prior to getting their first period.
In 2017, a company called the Red Box Project was created to stop girls from missing school due to a lack of access to period products. Lack of access to these products continues to be a problem for women in poverty across the world.
The problem isn’t just the lack of information regarding the process of menstruation. It’s a lack of education regarding how these products should feel when women use them. In our society now, periods are taboo topics, generally viewed as “gross” or “dirty.”
That stigma makes it harder for girls to ask questions about their periods because they think it will make others feel uncomfortable. When I first got my period, I was given pads and told how to use them, but I wasn’t never told how it should feel.
When I tried to use a tampon for the first time, I couldn’t because it hurt so bad. The women in my life told me I was “being a baby” or being too emotional about it. This caused me to never want to ask questions about the pain or even talk about it. Now that I am older, I know having the amount of pain I experienced then while wearing a tampon is not normal.
Explaining how period products should be properly used — and how they should feel while being used — needs to be taught in schools during the same time as sexual education. We are already told what periods are and what feminine hygiene products are, it’s not that hard to explain how they should be worn and how they should feel.
A fairly recent trend on TikTok has been to ask men where they think the adhesive part of a pad sticks to. Many didn’t know the adhesive part sticks to a person’s underwear, rather than their vagina.
This trend may seem silly, but it’s not a laughing matter. The lack education surrounding periods and menstrual products means many people don’t understand how to properly use a feminine hygiene product. This education should not only be given to girls. It should be given to boys as well, so they can also know how menstruation works. Information regarding health should not be kept for women to figure out for themselves.
Nicole Hindberg can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @HindbergNicole