We need to stop being coy about periods and tampons

Periods are no fun, even when you’re safe at home with a drawer full of tampons, pads and a hot-water bottle. So it’s little surprise that some girls are missing school because they can’t afford the right equipment. Imagine the mess, anxiety and shame they could be facing. And that’s on top of all the other unpleasantness. This being on the women’s pages of the website, you’re probably already familiar with it: unpredictable bleeding – sometimes seeping, sometimes in worrying great blurts – the aches, smells and dealing with a part of your body that you may not be too keen on. But perhaps the people in charge of public happiness, health and hygiene don’t know all this. Maybe they think that periods are a breeze.

I have only had one tiny bad experience of having no access to sanitary products. There I was – 14, at home with asthma, mum in hospital nearly dead from a brain haemorrhage, dad at work, a childminder looking after me – and, late one night, I got my first period. The minder initially refused to give me a sanitary towel as she needed the few she had for herself. And those were the days of scratchy, nonabsorbent toilet paper. Eventually, she gave me one. Horrid, but not a microscopic patch on what those schoolgirls, plus refugees, homeless or incarcerated women and millions in the developing world have to deal with.

You’d think we’d be managing by now to supply women here in the UK with such necessities, but we’re even lagging behind the US. New York City gives away tampons, while poor women here are using old socks and newspapers. But we’re still rather coy about it. Even in newspaper features about periods, blood has been referred to as “fluid”. Blood is fine in horror films, but somehow becomes taboo when it’s pouring from vaginas. But pour it does, and we need to mop it up efficiently, and keep ourselves clean. And so, to free toilet paper, soap and towels in schools, colleges, prisons and all public lavatories, we must add free sanitary items, like the caring, compassionate country we are meant to be.

We need to stop being coy about periods and tampons