In a group women’s opinions piece for the Torch last year, I wrote about being nine years old and learning about my period while all the guys in my class played outside on the playground, and yet I’m still learning about my body.
I was 11 when I got my first period. I was at my grandma’s and sat in the bathroom for around half an hour trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. She was having a yard sale, and I had to walk out in blood-stained shorts in front of strangers. It was humiliating.
Later that night, my mom brought me home, gave me a tampon and sent me into the bathroom. I remember crying because I got so frustrated. The instructions didn’t make sense, and I was unaware of my anatomy as an 11-year-old. Eventually, my mom slid a pad through the door. I didn’t figure out how to use a tampon until I was 15.
The only reason why I figured it out was because my male gym teacher got mad at me when I said I wasn’t swimming. After all, I was on my period. He questioned me, repeatedly saying I could just wear a tampon or use a water-safe pad, which doesn’t exist. He proceeded to lecture me about how his wife has no problem swimming on her period as she wears internal leakproof products. To this day, I still look back in disbelief. Why was a man lecturing me about my own body and telling me about products that don’t exist? He had no idea what he was talking about, yet he pulled me aside in front of the class and argued with me.
I walked out of class, not only with lost participation points but also with a rage I still feel to this day. The issue here isn’t just men thinking they know more about our bodies. It’s the lack of education in general. I don’t need a health class to explain to me repeatedly what a period is. I need to know the things that I was embarrassed about are normal.
Why is it that we’re more educated on all the different parts of the male anatomy and just skim past the woman anatomy? Is it because we’re embarrassed? If you ask me, I feel that my health classes have failed me more than they have helped me.
For so many years of my life, I walked around ashamed and feeling like something was wrong with me because I didn’t understand what was normal for my body and what wasn’t. I was too embarrassed to talk to my mom about it because I thought it meant I was doing something wrong. In reality, the things I was experiencing were perfectly normal for all women, but nobody bothered to tell me about it. Not my mom or any of my health classes that I was required to take every year talked about that.
I know I’m not alone in this. As crazy as it sounds, I found out most things about my body over social media. I saw women talking about these things, and I would go to the comments of posts and videos and feel seen for the first time in my life. Finally, someone was telling me what was actually happening.
I started to learn more about different menstrual products, birth control and my anatomy. I ache for the little girl who used to be paranoid about my health. How many rolls of toilet paper and pads were wasted in the efforts of me trying to insert a tampon correctly?
As I grow older and experience new things, I learn more and more every day about things I wish someone would’ve warned me about. Why is it that when I talk about my body, people get uncomfortable even when I was taught everything about male health? I don’t see that as embarrassing. It’s just life and puberty, there’s nothing inappropriate about a period. It’s time we start talking and educating on the things that do matter without a weird sexual stigma around it. I deserve to know what soap I am supposed to use.