It’s not a stomach ache, blood is oozing out of my vagina as we speak.

 

Did the title shock you? Then you might just have been as shocked as the rural pharmacists l had asked to buy tampons from. I had to watch them stare at me in utter confusion, then call each other to the back of the shop only to come back and tell me they didn’t have ‘it’ but they could order ‘it’ so it could arrive the next week. This was after l had seen them Google what a tampon actually was, their white coats tainted with shame.

But this was better, at least l was not insulted. Before this, l had lived in the capital city and there l had gone to purchase a packet of pads. On my way out of the shop, a woman had hissed at me, *“apana chinoshamisira nechawakabata”, her face visibly cross. I couldn’t understand her or the weird looks l received from females in the streets on my way home. As l turned to ask the lady that had accompanied me to the shop, shame and embarrassment were visible on her face. Quietly with her head bowed she had told me of my crime. I had dared hold a packet of pads in public without wrapping them up in a dark plastic bag and hiding it so no one could see. I guess society still hasn’t accepted that we have vaginas that bleed every month!

This would really explain a lot. It would explain why society considers any public show that a female menstruates a taboo. In a particular year, my friend likened it to going to the toilet, he said it just wasn’t something you could talk about in public, it was too humiliating. l just couldn’t and still cannotunderstand why. It’s just as natural as giving birth, in fact it’s a necessary part of the reproductive process and if we celebrate babies why can’t we celebrate menstruation? 

It might just go back to how women just have to be ashamed of almost everything that defines them as a person and as a female, except of course getting married and reproducing for your husband. It’s as if, women cannot freely exist in our little society without being wives and mothers, in that order because those are the only roles our society expects and accepts of women. As a girl, you can’t always be talking and roaming around playing everywhere, that’s when they start teaching you about your place silently being in the home.Young girls cannot openly date, as a female teenager you can’t be seen walking with a guy, standing at the corner with him or on a date in some restaurant somewhere. Society will call you loose but no judgement will be passed against him. When it comes to clothes, you need to cover up as much as you can, because your body is not for public view but what that actually teaches you is to be ashamed of your body. Because society can’t stand a woman comfortable with her femininity, she is called a whore. But we never have time to talk about what men are and aren’t wearing do we? If their jeans are too tight or if they are walking around shirtless. We’re too busy policing everything that a female does to notice some of the rapists we’re raising. We teach men to be bold even in their inhuman ways but mould females to be ashamed of everything till they shrink themselves out of existence.

Every woman dreams of lying on a couch, with a blanket loosely wrapped around her while her partner runs around making sure she’s comfortable. She knows that he knows exactly just what to do, which pills she is to be given and how to make a hot water bottle and wrap it in a way that does not scathe her. We dream of having that freedom to be moody and irritable while knowing that we’re completely understood by the people surrounding us, male or female, because they understand menstruation. They understand the cravings that come with it and some other not so normal behaviour like locking ourselves in a room just to avoid hearing a certain male’s husky voice? As a person, l know that it is truly freeing to know that you’re understood and that the people around you are capable of taking care of you, when the need arises.As a female who’s suffered from acute menstrual pain since l was a teenager, l understand it more than l want to.

I want to live in this world. But how do we get there when we’re not raising our brothers, sons and cousins to be such men? Maybe it all starts with some little bit of honesty, like openly stating to that man, “it’s not a stomach ache, but blood is oozing out of my vagina as we speak!” Maybe as a man reading this you need to start being more curious about the other roles of a vagina, besides the one that serves you well.

 

*there is nothing special about what you’re carrying.