Society, worldwide, has attempted to neatly fold away real-life female experiences, into a trunk labelled ‘inappropriate issues,’ locking away our truths of consent, trauma, and everyday encounters. Even our periods.
Michaela Coel’s series, ‘I May Destroy You,’ holds the key to this trunk, as she yanks it open to uncover and bare the reality of being a Black woman.
Coel plays a millennial writer, Arabella, who’s navigating her way through her writing career, whilst dealing with the trauma of being spiked and raped. Alongside her, and her friends, we learn about consent within different sexual experiences, as her friend Kwarme also becomes a survivor of sexual violence.
Episode 3 gives us a holiday, taking us back 3 months to Arabella’s Italian writing trip, where her and best friend, Terry, giggle throughout the day and party into the night, fuelled by the drugs they’ve bought from a handsome, Italian drug-dealer, Marouane. The night ends with Terry embarking on a threesome, whilst Arabella and Marouane nearly have sex in the next room.
She’s on her period so a towel is laid down on the bed. Marouane removes her tampon, making a blood clot flop onto the bed as an unwelcome guest. He holds it between his fingers, fondling the squishiness, and observing the texture, and says,
‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’
Nor have we, at least not on our T.V screens.
I’ve seen it in my pants, on my bedsheets and floating in my bathwater, but never, until now, have I seen a blood clot openly shown on TV, even on the feminine hygiene adverts. Shock horror when we realise our periods don’t flow out of us as pretty blue liquid that a sanitary towel will easily absorb.
Periods are way messier than depicted on our TVs. They happen when a lining of a uterus builds up to prep itself for a fertilized egg to attach. When, to my relief, no fertilized egg appears, blood has to flush out the lining, resulting in a period. So, it’s not a surprise when we don’t get runny liquid, but gunky remnants of a uterus lining and unfertilised egg, as Arabella experiences.
Yet, somehow this normal function is hushed, being considered too ‘adult’ or ‘inappropriate’ to natter about in front of children. It’s common for a girl aged 9 to experience her first period without knowing they even exist, as my first sex education class was when I was 10, too late to learn that the bleeding doesn’t mean you’re ill. Then a girl aged 15 gets shamed for being ‘abnormal’ for starting ‘late,’ as though there’s a secret period club where only few women are members.
Periods have stained these girl’s bedsheets, seeping into their mattresses. Each month I’ll lose a pair of pants, bedsheets, or clothes to bleeding. But the idea that they’re ‘dirty’ has crept further into our minds, negatively affecting women and sometimes costing lives.
We’ve seen deaths related to period-shaming where girls have committed suicide; we've read about women who have been banished to ‘menstruation huts.’ But don’t be fooled into thinking that it’s not a UK issue, as period-poverty has had a shark rise during the UK lockdown.
National charity Bloody Good Period states they, ‘usually distributed 5,000 packs a month but had handed more than 23,000 in the three months since lockdown,' with people unable to access essential pads.
Period poverty spreads across the UK as tampons and pads are still counted as ‘luxury’ ‘non-essential’ products with VAT attached to the cost.
Change has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen!
Amika George started a campaign Free Periods in 2017 to push for free sanitary products in schools in England and Wales. A small ask when the feminine hygiene market is worth billions… the campaign was a success, with the government providing free products to schools this year.
Mentor Missy Project, founded by Ibukun Babarinde, helps low-income areas in Nigeria by counseling, educating, and ensuring products are accessible to an estimated 10 million girls (@mentormissy). Similarly, Megan White Mukuria founded ZanaAfrica that helps girls in East Africa by offering menstrual health support, sex education and encouraging girls to define their own future. Since 2013, ZanaAfrica has reached nearly 50,000 girls (http://www.zanaafrica.org/).
These fantastic women, along with Coel, are spreading the word that it’s okay to bleed.
A blood clot caught my attention as it was new to TV, but this is not a new issue. TV series and adverts have the power, and a responsibility, to normalise the norm and to educate everyone on the realities of menstruation, alongside charities. It invites all audiences to see what periods are like, not only the ones who bleed.
Coel’s series bursts through the silence, shaking us all awake.
Let’s keep this conversation dripping through society, and openly talk about periods in front of children, of any age. Don’t shame yourself for something that is so natural. Talk about your PMS and how it alters your mood, making you want to cry for a week.
You might feel comfortable with periods, and open about your experiences, which is great! But we never know who’s listening, and maybe someone needed to hear that you also bled over someone else during sex…
‘I May Destroy You’ covers major topics, but also glimpses at the details of reality. Coel has lifted off the ‘inappropriate trunk’ for us to shower in the honesty.
Let’s not re-shut it, but keep it flowing.
Watch 'I May Destroy You': https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000jyxy/i-may-destroy-you
Join the #PeriodRevolution Visit freeperiods.org , mentormissy.org , zanaafrica.org , to find out more about the work that some women are doing to help adolescents thrive in puberty.
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