Periods are top secret. Don’t talk about them, and don’t hint that they happen. As a matter of fact, act like they’re not something that occurs naturally every month, like it’s a despicable crime.
Society wants women to keep quiet not only about their periods, but also about the tools women use to help contain them. But pads and tampons are the equivalent of tissues or diapers, yet society doesn’t hold them to the same standard.
Periods get a bad rap. They’re gross, not lady-like, and make women hormonal and rude, plus the blood is just down-right nasty, right? Wrong. Women have to keep quiet about periods, but they shouldn’t be subject to embarrassment.
Imagine a girl is in class, and her period comes unexpectedly. Instead of feeling comfortable enough to ask her professor to be excused, she sits there with fear boiling in the pits of her stomach, wondering what will happen when she gets up and someone spots the bloodstain on her pants.
All girls have experienced their periods coming unexpectedly. Sometimes, a girl miscalculates, forgets, or it just comes early, and next thing she knows, she’s struck with the feeling of horror, as she has no products with her to prevent pant stains. When that happens, being dead would be less painful than the thought of having an accident.
One way to solve this problem would be for college campuses to supply free feminine hygiene products just as they give out condoms. Students at NSU, for example, can pick up condoms in the health clinics, the residential buildings and other buildings. Why can’t NSU also supply pads and tampons as well?
Providing pads and tampons for free on campus would make everyone happy; people who cringe at the word “period” would know that women are keeping their gross blood concealed, while women would be able to live period-stain free.
According to U.S. News & World Report, NSU is 30 percent male and 70 percent female. So providing pads and tampons for students will definitely send the memo that NSU genuinely cares about its student body.
Others, especially very opinionated males, constantly subject women to their judgment. But it stops here. Women have had enough. It may seem meaningless to some, but that’s probably because those people have never had a period before.
Even if people can’t get over the “gross” stigma and see that a period is a natural cycle in the human body, the least people can do is provide women with the tools they need to conceal such a “gross” occurrence.
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