A Bristol-based social enterprise company, Coexist, is about to introduce a “period policy” so employees will be entitled to paid leave if in pain during their monthly cycle. “For too long there has been a taboo surrounding periods,” said one of the company’s directors, Bex Baxter. “I have women staff telling me they’re ashamed to admit they’re in pain.”
Many men will be outraged, obviously. Many men will say, “Can I have time off for shaving?” and “What if I want to stay home to rearrange my testicles into a nicer pattern?” Men will say this because, aside from anything else, it’s menstruation being talked about openly, which is always terrifying.
I once worked in a mostly male office for a male boss and if I said I had a migraine and also lupus and also scarlet fever I’d be told no, I couldn’t go home, but if I even obliquely referred to “women’s troubles” it was effectively: “Go now, oh bleeding one, before we duck you in the river then stone you to death! And do not return until you are cleansed and pure!” Often I didn’t return until I was very pure and very cleansed, so you can’t say I didn’t work that particular little number.
It would be different if men menstruated, as the American feminist Gloria Steinem famously pointed out. “Clearly,” she wrote, “menstruation would then become an enviable, worthy, masculine event. Men would brag about how long and how much. Young men would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies and family dinners would mark the days . . .”
But because it happens to women, there’s this cultural imperative to treat it as verboten, as “ick”, and to coat it in euphemistic language. Apparently, we refer to periods by slang terms 91 per cent of the time, which means “the painters are in”, along with much other silliness.
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And because there is no frank discussion, even women are shockingly uninformed, with very few being able to explain the physiological process of ovulation and menstruation, and 5 per cent of girls have no idea what is happening when “Auntie Flo” pitches up for the first time. (Auntie Flo always pitches up at the exact same time as the painters; she’s quite trying in that way.)
And it’s never treated as the envied beginning of womanhood. The best you can hope for is that somewhere along the line you’ve at least been desensitised by your mother, who will say something like: “Darling, something wonderful and beautiful is about to happen to you . . . and it’s called THE CURSE!”
The curse. It affects half the world’s population for three months of the year, yet it’s mentioned rarely in books and almost never mentioned in film and on television. Plus the surrounding secrecy forces us to buy terrible products. There is even a sanitary towel whose USP is that the individual wrappers are “quiet” and “the ultimate in discretion”, for why? Because noisy sanitary towels are so tiresome, always talking over Location, Location, Location and shouting out: “Hey, you up there. You may say it feels as if you’re being stabbed in the kidneys and kicked in the small of the back but, let me tell you, it’s no party down here!”
Is it for use in public conveniences, so that the telltale rustle doesn’t broadcast your condition to other users, all of whom will be women and all of whom have been menstruating themselves since they were 13 or thereabouts? Or is it because they might think you’re doing something else in there? Might they think you’re the sort of person who eats Quality Street on the toilet?
So women have the shame too, which is the biggest shame, and well done to this company for bringing it out in the open, and if you haven’t gone “ick”, and have read to here, well done to you too. There’s hope for us all yet.
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A royal rubbish service
So, are we turning out this weekend to Clean for the Queen, the national effort to have Britain looking its best in time for Her Majesty’s 90th birthday?
The campaign, which is calling on everyone “to do their bit in tidying the streets”, and which is due to take place on Saturday and Sunday, has certainly divided opinion. A clean-up has to be unequivocally good, say some, while others say it might as well be called “Scrub the streets, peasant!”
I don’t think it much matters whether we bother or not. It’s not going to make any difference to littering in the long run, particularly as you can almost guarantee that those who turn out to pick up rubbish will not be the people who dropped it in the first instance.
It’s a bit like when councils try to enforce that all dogs must be kept on leads in parks: those who oblige and keep their dogs leaded are not the people whose dogs should be leaded. It’s a way of being seen to tackle a problem without having to go to the extra effort it takes to actually tackle the problem. Or spend money on it.
Just as dog wardens are almost a thing of the past, so too are street cleaners — some councils have had their street-cleaning budgets slashed by 80 per cent — so I’m simply wondering: if we are going to get communally agitated, shouldn’t we be getting communally agitated about that?
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I was minded to say, initially, that I will turn out to clean for the Queen so long as she turns out to clean for me, but actually what she could do is contact my council to ask them for the outside bin I’ve been requesting for nine months now – nine months! — and have yet to receive. That at least would be one problem properly solved.