Periods Are a Bit of a Taboo Subject, right?
Let’s get personal.
In later blogs, you’ll hear our story and find out why on earth we decided to create ‘The Girl Thing’. But, I thought for my first blog entry, maybe I should share something personal about me to get the ball rolling! After all, I’m looking for this to build into a strong female community and, to be honest, when is it ever ‘too much’ information about someone?
Periods are a bit of a taboo subject, right? We ask our husbands/boyfriends/partners to go out on a Wednesday evening as we’ve only got one Tampax left, we’re half way through a heavy flow and can only describe the feeling as ‘dying’ and they look at us like rabbits caught in car headlights, horrified at the thought of nipping to the shop to buy something like tampons. Luckily my husband gets up, goes out and buys me some pads … and often comes back with chocolate too … (yeah, he’s a keeper), but not all men are so comfortable with being asked.
It seems to me that things to do with women and our bodies are a bit of a secret. Why is that? Breastfeeding, smear tests, and periods are just a few things that come to mind when thinking about subjects of taboo. This is something we’d like to try and change — why should we feel that asking a man to buy tampons isn’t something we might be totally comfortable with? Why can’t we breastfeed in public without people staring or having a problem?
You can probably tell these subjects and being women in general is something of a passion of mine. And I’m sure there are more of you too.
I’ve had my periods since I was 13, and when my first one arrived, it started at home. My mum educated me as we went. It wasn’t too traumatic and it hasn’t been since — I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones. The only thing I hate is that I don’t get the good ol’ period pains. Literally once a month I’ll go for a wee and there’ll be blood. Well, great — thanks for the warning! And some women will read this and tell me I’m lucky, but I’d like something to just tell me that I’m about to bleed so I can at least prepare — although maybe the urge to eat buckets of chocolate for the three days beforehand might be the only warning I’m going to get and perhaps I should take notice!
I’ve had two beautiful daughters: one birth was quite traumatic and the other an absolute dream, but that’s a whole other blog post which will come in time.
So as you guys know, I’ve approached quite a few women who have careers and businesses in all sorts of women’s health, about which they are writing posts as we speak! Some time in the next couple of weeks we’ll be launching the initial website for you fierce ladies to sign up and register your interest and I’ll write to you again with more detail about all we are trying to achieve!
For now — I hope you enjoyed the little insight to me, and I look forward to sharing more whilst we grow our community.
