In this episode Ziada and Mary Ann speak about menstruation and how the taboos about it affected our lives growing up both in Tanzania and in the UK. They reflect on the fact that having periods is such a normal part of our experience as women, even if we can’t talk about it and how not talking about how menstruation and our cycles affect us it makes things harder. We do some honest talking about the particular challenges we each experience when we bleed and Mary Ann talks about how you can start to get more in tune with your menstrual cycle and plan you work and life accordingly. We also share something about how we experienced our first bleed, about the fact that the number one reason for girls dropping out of school is because they can’t afford sanitary products and Ziada speaks about why that needs to change and what the Tanzanian government is doing about it. We conclude that the change should start with us breaking the taboo and talking about our bleeding with the women and men in our lives.

Some quotes from the show:

‘To pretend that you feel fine is actually a massive effort’

‘It’s a very different state of mind when you are bleeding from the rest of the month’

‘When I am bleeding I’m tired of everything, I’m even tired of hearing myself talk’

‘Allowing yourself to say, you know what I can’t do it and if you do that even the weight of it and the struggle becomes lighter because you are acknowledging it, part of the weight of it and part of the struggle is actually because you are the whole time trying to pretend like you can cope.’

‘All the adverts for sanitary towels and tampons are about how you can do anything if you use then your life can continue as normal’

‘When you are bleeding might be a really go time to think inside of yourself, to do creative stuff, because you are in that slightly altered state of mind, even if you shut yourself in your room to be with whatever you want to be. Then when you are ovulating, that’s the time to go out and have business meetings, you should try to organise your life in a way that respects your cycle basically’

‘I guess it requires a lot of practice and a lot of acceptance’

‘There’s a few days before I bleed when I am really quite nasty, but I am so productive on day 14 or 15, I’m like, yeah, I can do this!’

‘Something that has been happening to women forever, it must have been, it’s part of how the life of our planet is sustained, this ability to create and shed life in our wombs – so why have we made it in to this thing that we have to pretend doesn’t happen?’

‘all these times in school growing up how shameful it would be because a bit of a stain would show on your skirt, you stress over that in class, you aren’t even concentrating’

‘It’s time we should teach our children that its ok, a normal thing and this should start at a younger stage, it needs to be normalised’

‘Growing up for my was different, right now you get hygiene and cleanliness education in school, children now a days know more, us growing up was different, we stayed in for seven days when we began to bleed’

‘I did not know about menstruation until I got it’

‘The thing that was weird for me wasn’t at home, and then it wasn’t like you could talk about it in school, I was like ten, quite young and you couldn’t put your hand up and say ‘I started bleeding’, so although it was factually open at home, at school it was this thing you were trying to hide the whole time, hide the tampons in your bag, not let there be a stain on your skirt, the whole day worrying’

‘We could work with them if we had that awareness, the taboo is holding us back and making it more difficult’

‘Urging everyone to normalise it, it happens to us until it stops happening, it shouldn’t be scary, it should be something as women we can talk about and teach our young woman’s that its ok, not to feel ashamed and embarrassed’