After a two-hours-long test, my friend stood up to find red splayed across her skirt. The boy sitting behind her gasped in horror and disgust. To my friend’s chagrin, he talked about this “gross” incident for weeks. The first time I walked into a department store to buy sanitary pads, I was dripping in shame. The male cashier made it even worse. Mortified, I exited with a newspaper-wrapped sanitary pad hidden inside my backpack. These are only a few instances where menstruation comes entangled with shame. The only way we can normalize the taboo surrounding menstruation is by openly talking about it. As a spoken word poet, I want to use storytelling as a tool to change people’s perspective on menstruation through conversation, education, and …show more content…
A young girl need not share her periods with everyone as privacy is a personal choice. However, hushing conversation on menstruation and using euphemisms force young girls to stay silent, making them ashamed of their own bodies. In such case, storytelling can initiate shame-free conversations about periods. As Ursula Le Guin says, “Storytelling is a tool for knowing who we are and what we want. If we never find our experience described in poetry or stories, we assume that our experience is insignificant,” through spoken word, I will encourage people of all ages and genders to start a conversation about periods through stories, poems, and open conversation. By creating a safe space in a monthly open mic titled “Let’s Talk about It. Period” where everyone can come together to share their experiences without being judged, we can lead a shame-free conversation about menstruation and contribute to changing the negative public discourse to a positive outlook. Sharing poems about someone’s leakage or staining incidents, we can laugh or groan in unison, and nod in agreement while destigmatizing periods, ultimately taking away mortification from …show more content…
To tackle this, I plan to spearhead a project called Literacy through Literature (LTL). As its mission, LTL aims to debunk the menstrual myths and supply accurate information about menstruation, puberty, and reproductive health to students, teachers, and parents. In Nepali education, information about menstruation is included later in our curriculum, after girls’ menarche. Even in later classes, out of shame, teachers skip it, aggravating the existing problem—with little information, girls get stranded in a cycle of fear, shame, and misinformation. By collecting stories and poems from my spoken-word community complemented by lessons on fertility, puberty, and reproductive health, I plan to create an interactive book that will deliver accurate information on the physiology of menstruation and menstrual health hygiene to young children well before puberty. The book called A Study in Scarlet: A Young Person’s Guide to Menstruation will use accurate anatomical terms dropping euphemisms and provide reliable information about menstruation through illustrated poems and stories in fun and engaging ways (with red blood instead of weird, blue liquid). The book will be written in English, Nepali, and some local dialects, allowing teachers around Nepal to educate both girls and boys. Through partnerships with local communities, I plan to contribute the proceeds from book sales to buying and delivering disposable