Category > The Female Cycle, Women's Body, Your Body
Myths about Menstruation – our True Period Poverty
What do we actually truly know about our menstrual cycle?
Enriching you
To find out about the 4 phases of the menstruation cycle check out our article The Menstruation Cycle
So why is it that we don’t know much about our body and the female cycle? To be in connection with and have more awareness about the menstrual cycle brings a deeper and different connection and awareness to our body that is empowering, healing and deeply nurturing. Could it be a set up that throughout history the bleeding phase has been the part that has been singled out and labelled as ‘dirty’ or ‘impure’ to make the whole topic around the female cycle taboo?
Breaking down the Myths about periods
Periods are shameful!
This myth has been around for a very long time in practically every corner of the world. Where girls were taught by either their mother or other female members of the family to hide the menstruation hygiene items, not to discuss loudly with other male members of the family or to her male friends. Upholding the myths of periods being ‘shameful’ and ‘dirty’ has led to a worldwide humanitarian crisis with many women not knowing about the power of their cycle, not having access to hygiene products and being outcasted during the bleeding phase.To make periods ‘shameful’ and reduce the female cycle to only one phase of a whole powerful cycle is designed to disempower girls and women.
Menstruating women are ‘unclean’
In many parts of the world from India, Nepal, Brazil and Colombia girls and women are believed to be “unclean” while menstruating and are not allowed to enter “clean” and holy places like temples. Told they cannot water plants or cook during their period because their “uncleanliness” will spoil the food! Or banished from their home to live in huts while menstruating!! It’s known in Bolivia that girls are misinformed and told that disposing their menstrual pads with other garbage could lead to sickness or cancer!!The myths about women’s uncleanliness are endless and it’s the most debilitating untruth spread across the world. These myths then of course lead to the main challenges menstruating girls face, which are feelings of shame and limited access to private bathrooms.
There’s no harm in supressing menstruation through artificial hormones
A very common ‘go to’, is to suppress and stop periods by using birth control pills. This of course doesn’t take into account the whole cycle, and girl or woman’s connection to their body but instead only focuses on the bleeding part that can be seen as an ‘inconvenience’ or something to not bother about too much. This modern-day discrimination is a ‘clean’ way that reduces the purpose of the female cycle to one of only reproduction, discrediting the whole entirety of the cycle and that it’s a very important internal compass.
Period myths are not only crazy and ridiculous, they are extremely harming, holding girls and women back in many ways.
The menstrual cycle does not make a woman less or weaken her in any way shape or form.
Naturally, and of course every girl and woman experiences their menstrual cycles differently and many have pain during periods. However, it is the myths and misinformation about periods that has been the most damaging. What would it be like instead if we were supported to truly know our body and how to support ourselves throughout the cycle?
Historically we can look at centuries of distorting the true meaning of the reproductive system and female body, fearing its power and instead making it a burden in need for constant correction. Could it be that this is the first and true period poverty? What has been done to disconnect us from the richness of the female body.
Don’t be period poor!
Allow yourself to connect more to your body and your cycle. Check out our article: The menstrual cycle – the ‘power plant’ of the female body.
