In the past,there were many ways to refer to our period without using the exact word.
From “it’s one of these days”, we ended up in “I’m feeling sick”.
But are we actually sick? Do we consider ourselves sick during our menstrual cycle?
It is a fact that for some women those days are really difficult, up to a point of asking some time off of work. In essence though, we are not sick. It is not as if our own self fights us, on the contrary, it is a procedure that highlights woman’s nature.
We don’t know how these expressions started and why, but probably they are in the context of guilt and shame. It is funny how some words ended up being a taboo. The word period used to be a “forbidden” word. The problem is not the word per se, never is actually, the problem is what it represents.
For how many things we have been accused of during our period? About our temper, our outbursts, our exaggerations…
How is it possible then for a woman to admit her truth? That is, she just has her period. We just have our period!
Words have great power and we should always be careful as to what message we want to convey.
Things evolve, luckily, and nowadays we have to call them by their names. There is no reason for guilt and shame, period might be a topic that is not easily discussed, not even between women, but it won’t change anything if we call it otherwise.
Gradually, we begin to accept our self and get rid of any obsolete perception about woman’s nature. Things like, we are not mentally stable during our period so as to vote or that we are “dirty” and we don’t have the right to commune. Finally, we are building a society that comes close to nature and as a consequence we come closer to our feminine nature.
It’s rather liberating to call things how they actually are, without any filters or second thoughts. However, there is no need of becoming aggressive or force our opinions to people that they just can’t follow our thinking. We have to peak our audience every time we want to talk about a topic. It’s not everything for everyone but also it’s no time for frictions or oppression.
It will be ideal to live in a society where people would be free from the past’s taboo and they can express their truth freely, but baby steps, like the word period. It doesn’t represent something dirty or guilty. We are talking about nature’s miracle, so simple, for a body’s function. There is no need to make it look more serious than it is or put it in a wrong context.
Period, pads, blood, simple, innocent words that can be used without shame from women and men too.
Well, if there is any awkwardness, it doesn’t matter. Let’s give some time, eventually we will get used to them.