Sofia Perez

It’s that time of the month when Auntie Flo comes around and you ride the crimson wave. It’s shark week… but also strawberry week…and also lingonberry week if you’re Swedish. It’s code red! Granny’s stuck in traffic! Les Anglais ont débarqué! If you think I’m describing a doomsday scenario with a side of red fruit and your grandma, I understand. In reality, I was describing something much more common via a hefty helping of obscure albeit artful euphemisms. 

You probably know this: There are certain words you just don’t say. This includes the p-word: “Shark week” (Australia) or “strawberry week” (Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Switzerland, and Germany); the m-word: “reverse puberty”, “second spring”, “the change”; or the v-word: papa (Used in Spain, slang for a double-chin), ke manju (Japanese for “hairy bean paste bun”). If you know what the p-word, m-word, and v-word are but cannot say them out loud, this is your turn to try. Say it with me: Period. Menopause. Vagina. These are natural and normal parts of life, but many cannot even say these words out loud, let alone hear someone else saying them without cringing. 

After indulging myself in a fascinating deep dive into why period poverty is such a pressing issue, how dance can be used to dismantle the shame surrounding menopause, how art can tackle the stigma surrounding menstruation, and the centuries-old marriage between material science and menstrual technologies, I was left with another question that called for more than just a brief web surf: Why can’t we talk about it? And more questions: When did our societal silence start? What makes menstruation and menopause different from other taboo topics like politics and religion? Why do these natural, normal, perfectly-healthy, and near-universal experiences evoke shame? 

Despite what I’d initially thought, a dig into the origin of menstrual and menopausal stigma suggested that even among the experts, it is unclear where it comes from. It was, however, clear that the stigma pre-dates the dawn of language in almost every culture, with a few exceptions. This article from Clue draws heavily on the theory proposed by Christ Knight, a social anthropologist at London University who has researched the “deep historical roots of menstrual taboo”. 

Knight’s view is that the original taboos were born of “female-led” and “female-advantaging” behaviors in early humans, which allowed them to assert menstruation as a time when their bodies were untouchable. While this originally reinforced female autonomy, it became a negative taboo when big animals became more scarce and the traditional hunter-gatherer rhythms were altered. This disrupted female solidarity as it became necessary to gather food more frequently, meaning that the menstrual cycle was no longer synchronized with the process of hunting large game. 

Knight then goes on to suggest that the response to this was men beginning to ritualize their own version of menstruation by cutting their penises and sometimes other parts of the body. The menstrual huts that females used to gather in to menstruate together were reassigned for the “new, better synced, male bleeding ritual” in which they would bleed together.  According to Knight, this is at the heart of all the world’s patriarchal religions, in which temples and churches reflect this male-controlled and dominated atmosphere. “At the base of all the world’s religions, we find one fundamental idea. Some things are sacred. And if the body isn’t sacred, nothing is,” he says. “Blood was a mark of the sacredness of the body. So the paradox is, that the very thing that benefited women throughout evolution is now made to be, and experienced as, the most disempowering.”

Regardless of whether you believe Knight’s theory is accurate, he acknowledges the paradox of power and struggle that is a hallmark of the shame surrounding menstruation and menopause. If the body isn’t sacred, nothing is, he says, and yet there is some nagging sensation that for a large chunk of history, the body is the farthest thing from sacred that there is. To speak of menopause and menstruation specifically, you need only consider the over 5000 slang terms used to describe these natural and healthy processes to bear witness to this attitude. Not only is the body not spoken of as sacred, but it is spoken of as repugnant, dirty, and worst yet, shameful. 

Shame. It’s an unassuming five-lettered word with big implications on the individual and societal level. It thrives on silence and feasts on your inner doubts, leading to symptoms such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and more. Here you might be thinking that this is making a mountain out of a molehill- or a crimson wave out of a puddle- but the excessive use of hurtful euphemisms and slang actually serves to reinforce the much more ominous force of shame. 

Brené Brown highlights this in her breathtaking TED talk on vulnerability. As she explains throughout her research, shame is something we all experience. It is part of what it means to be human and impacts who we are and how we behave. Despite how universal it is, most of us don’t want to talk about shame, as it makes us uncomfortable. Unfortunately, this is exactly what perpetuates it. “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable,” Brown writes. It feeds on silence, judgment, and secrecy. The solution? Vulnerability. 

But what about the slang, euphemisms, and centuries of casual misogyny surrounding menopause and menstruation? How do they evoke shame? According to this article by the Independent, an international survey with over 90,000 responses from 190 countries and ranging across ten different languages found over 5,000 slang words and euphemisms for the word “period”. 78% of the participants believed slang words were used when talking about periods, and in France and China, periods were spoken about in 91% slang terms, followed by Denmark at 86%. Nevertheless, many other countries were on the bandwagon as well. English-speaking participants often cited euphemisms such as Aunt Flo, code red, bloody mary, shark week, the crimson wave, code red, and “the blob”. In Finland, the expression hullum lechman tauti was used, which translates to “mad cow disease”.  In Brazil, participants used eusou com chico, which means “I’m with Chico”, referring to the socialist Chico Mendes. In France, it was Les Anglais ont débarqué, or “The English have landed”. In Denmark they said Der Er Kommunister i Lythuset– “There are communists in the funhouse”- while in South Africa they said “Granny’s stuck in traffic.” As much as  this range of morbid and obscure language might have made you roll your eyes, it still highlights a widespread discomfort surrounding the topic.   

The question that follows, of course, is what to do about it. After all, in maintaining a culture that masks the natural and healthy processes experienced by the female body, the shame surrounding these processes is only left to fester. To develop resilience toward shame, Brené Brown and her colleagues did research into Shame Resilience Theory, in which they identified that those who were able to move through shame and toward empathy all shared the following four elements of shame resilience: (1) recognizing shame and understanding its triggers, (2) practicing critical awareness, (3) reaching out, and (4) speaking shame (i.e. asking for what you need). 

In Brown’s research, she suggests using researcher Kristin Neff’s three elements to improve self compassion: practicing self-kindness over self-judgment, common humanity over isolation, and mindfulness instead of over-identification. 

For now, let’s just start with the linguistic part of self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness as it pertains to menstruation and menopause. Fortunately, there are some straightforward changes that you can make to the language you use. 

Step one is to just say the bloody word. Say “period” instead of “the blob” and “menopause” instead of “reverse puberty”. Use the clearest words possible when describing the female- or male- anatomy, and make an effort to know how your body works. 

Within the realm of language surrounding menopause and menstruation, there is also debate surrounding the use of the terms menstrual hygiene versus menstrual health, as the term menstrual hygiene has connotations more with cleaning, whereas menstrual health encompasses all aspects of menstruation, which include overall wellbeing, gender equality, education, equity, empowerment, and human rights. By placing menstruation with health rather than hygiene subsequently encourages the view that it is natural, healthy, and heavily intertwined with all other aspects of a female’s wellbeing. This is an important shift in thinking, as menstruation is about so much more than just cleaning up something “unsanitary”. 

In Liz Kleinrock’s TED Talk How to Teach Kids About Taboo Topics, she says that she believes “the first step towards holding conversations about things like equity is to begin by building a common language.” While she didn’t discuss menstruation or menopause, it is still highly relevant, particularly as her point links with the way we educate future generations. By signaling to others, especially those as malleable as children, that discussing the natural processes of their bodies is disgusting, confusing, and taboo, shame only lives on. As such, it is necessary to be open and curious in order to tackle the stigma that exists. This brings me back to Brené Brown’s words: “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.”

To speak, and how we speak, is an immensely powerful and underappreciated force. According to this Forbes article, verbal communication through language is one of the qualities that make us unique in the animal kingdom. While scientists are not absolutely sure when humans first spoke, they think that language began two million years ago from the need to communicate while making tools. Today, about 6,500 languages are spoken around the world. That is 6,500 ways to tell a stranger “hello”, 6,500 ways to tell the loves of your life “I love you”, and 6,500 different canvases by which to paint a new attitude toward menstruation and menopause. 

The human voice is one of the most powerful instruments in the human body. The Swedish Musicologist Johan Sundberg once said that “the human voice has been called ‘the mirror to our soul’”, particularly in reference to singing, but also to the speaking voice. This voice is even more than just a tool; It is an instrument for change. Indeed, saying “period” instead of “that time of the month” or “menopause” instead of “the change” might seem small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. In reality though, it’s not. When many people like you and me make these small and barely-perceptible changes over time, we eventually rewrite the centuries-old narrative of how we perceive our complicated, confusing, evolving, beautiful, messy, miraculous, stardust-laden bodies. And that narrative starts with a word. And that word comes from you. 

Thought to Action:

1. Check out the Netflix documentary Period. End of Sentence. Which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject for 2019
2. Education: Teach yourself what a period is and how it works by watching this phenomenal TED Talk, Why Can’t We Talk About Periods?, by Dr. Jen Gunter, a renowned gynecologist and author of The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto. 
3. Consumption: If you menstruate, you can opt for products that are kind to the environment and kind to your body.
4. Language: How we talk about issues like period poverty affects the way we think about them. Update some of basic linguistic habits to remove the stigma around menstruation by checking out this link. 
5. Support: Support the women in your life going through menopause by using some of these tips:
   1. Encourage open discussions about menopause with everyone, even husbands, sons, brothers, fathers, etc. A supportive community is needed to make women feel more comfortable during this transition. 
   2. If you have already experienced menopause, share your experience with others to demystify the process and alleviate the shame surrounding it.
   3. Be mindful of the “little” things women might experience during menopause, like the discomfort of a hot flash in the middle of the night, the need to keep the room a bit cooler, sudden mood swings, and the difficulty of coping with menopause in the workplace.
   4. Read this article to find out more.
6. Read: Check out Emilia Clarke’s three-issue comic mini-series M.O.M.: Mother of Madness about a single mom, Maya, who uses the secret powers rooted in the various points in her menstrual cycle to take on a group of evil human traffickers.

Sources

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Calderwood, Imogen. “12 of the Weirdest and Worst Euphemisms for the Word “Period.”” Global Citizen, 22 Nov. 2017, www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/weird-period-euphemisms-around-the-world/. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.

Devlin, Hannah. “Breaking the Menopause Taboo: “There Are Vital Stories We Should Continue to Pursue.”” The Guardian, 21 Sept. 2019, www.theguardian.com/membership/2019/sep/21/breaking-the-menopause-taboo-there-are-vital-stories-we-should-continue-to-pursue. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.

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