It’s Only Blood Read online

  ‘Dahlqvist masterfully moves between storytelling and frameworking how stigma holds menstruators back globally, while offering tangible solutions to many of these problems. A must read.’

  Kiran Gandhi, musician, activist, and free-bleeding runner at the 2015 London Marathon

  ‘An eye-opening and necessary book that will challenge your assumptions. Thought provoking, relevant and sensitively written.’

  Chella Quint, founder of #periodpositive

  ‘Brilliant. It was frustrating to realise how much there is to be done, but also inspiring to read about these groups of women all over the world working bloody hard toward the same ideal: that periods do not need to stand in the way of an education, a future, or a good life.’

  Gabby Edlin, founder of Bloody Good Period

  ‘Only when we call out the unnecessary shame and stigma that surrounds periods can we demand meaningful change. Dahlqvist’s deft, compassionate storytelling, and her critical global perspective, are a tremendous contribution.’

  Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, author of Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity

  ‘An insightful and inspiring read that will challenge you to think and behave differently.’

  Mandu Reid, founder of The Cup Effect

  ‘A lushly detailed and often intimate portrait of a global social movement. What’s more, Dahlqvist’s perceptive account reveals the insidious power of stigma to limit lives.’

  Chris Bobel, author of New Blood: Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation

  ‘A wide-ranging exploration of the enduring taboos surrounding menstruation, taking the author around the globe. What she uncovers in this provocative and insightful book will make us forever rethink our “first world problems” by putting periods in a global context.’

  Karen Houppert, author of The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Anna Dahlqvist is a journalist specialising in gender, sexuality and human rights. She is editor-in-chief of Ottar, a Swedish magazine focusing on sexual politics, and has previously published a book on illegal abortion and abortion rights in Europe.

  It’s Only Blood

  SHATTERING THE TABOO OF MENSTRUATION

  ANNA DAHLQVIST

  TRANSLATED BY ALICE E. OLSSON

  It’s Only Blood: Shattering the Taboo of Menstruation was first published by Bokförlaget Atlas, Sweden, in 2016 under the title Bara lite blod: Ett reportage om mens och makt.

  This edition published in 2018 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.

  Published by agreement with the Kontext Agency.

  www.zedbooks.net

  Copyright © Anna Dahlqvist 2016, 2018.

  English language translation © Alice E. Olsson, 2018.

  The cost of this translation was defrayed by a subsidy from the Swedish Arts Council, gratefully acknowledged.

  The right of Anna Dahlqvist to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Typeset in Book Antiqua by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon

  Cover design by Alice Marwick

  Cover photo © Saniphoto/Dreamstime

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78699-263-5 hb

  ISBN 978-1-78699-262-8 pb

  ISBN 978-1-78699-264-2 pdf

  ISBN 978-1-78699-265-9 epub

  ISBN 978-1-78699-266-6 mobi

  To Stella, Sally, Esther, Thelma, and all other future, present, and former menstruators

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  1 Stains

  2 Our Shame

  3 Lost Days

  4 A Comprehensive Set of Rules

  5 A Painful Silence

  6 Millions of Menstruating Textile Workers

  7 ‘I Just Kept Bleeding’

  8 Bloody Menstrual Protection!

  9 The Struggle

  References

  PREFACE

  Menstruation is when part of the endometrium, a mucous membrane filled with blood, is shed and expelled from the uterus. Without a fertilised egg, the membrane serves no purpose. This process involving the endometrium, which prepares the uterus for a potential pregnancy, occurs approximately once a month. It is an experience shared by more than two billion people in the world. Every day 800 million people menstruate.

  The shame is universal and the silence a global rule. This affects those of us who are menstruating in significant ways. We have to struggle to hide it, worry about being exposed, and feel ashamed when it happens. It prevents us from demanding more knowledge, better care, more effective menstrual hygiene products, lower prices, and more research. The silence strips us of our power.

  Even though shame and silence are experiences shared by menstruators all over the world, the consequences become far more serious when an additional dimension is introduced: poverty. Managing menstruation requires resources. Hiding the blood becomes much more difficult if you lack menstrual products, water, toilets, and somewhere to be alone. If only for a brief moment. By extension, this means that many who menstruate and live in the poorest parts of the world, in Africa and Asia, cannot go to school, work, or move freely outside their homes. This, simply because they are menstruating. If they do so anyway, it may cost them dearly.

  This intersection is what I have chosen to focus on in this book: what happens when menstrual shame clashes with poverty? Continuous human rights violations follow in the tracks of menstrual shame. Violations of the right to freedom and dignity. The right to equality. The right to education, health, and work.

  My interviews were primarily conducted during visits to Uganda, Kenya, Bangladesh, and India in 2015 and 2016. In most cases, those who participate and talk about experiences of menstruation appear with their first names only. This is by their own choice. I use the terms ‘woman’ and ‘girl’ when I consider it relevant for understanding circumstances that arise from oppression along the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ – even though not all menstruators are women (for example, some are trans men).

  The fact that we have talked more about menstruation in recent years is connected to a budding global menstruation movement. This movement is taking shape among activists, non-governmental organisations, and the media; to some extent it even reaches politicians and decision makers at the UN. What used to be unspeakable, consigned to the private sphere, is becoming politics. Menstruation is slowly being pulled into the light. But we have a lot of catching up to do.

  Our bodies are celebrated when we bear children. But menstruation – a prerequisite for pregnancy – is something that we are expected to hide. Menstruating bodies quickly turn from miracle makers into polluters. The stain becomes a mark of shame.

  It’s only blood.

  1

  STAINS

  ‘Don’t you get angry when the boys laugh and tease you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But why not?’

  ‘They’re laughing because the girls can’t keep themselves clean.’

  It is said as a matter of course, a simple stating of facts. Those who laugh are not doing anything wrong. The girls with the blood stains are. They simply have themselves to blame if they fail to hide the menstrual blood. If they cannot keep themselves clean.

  Saudah herself has never been in that situation, never stood shameful in front of the others in the classroom. But she is well aware of the risk and of her own
responsibility. Every month, she tries hard to make sure that the blood, which so persistently demands attention, remains invisible.

  That it is private, not something that should be noticed or that she should talk about, was one of the two things she first learned about menstruation. The other was that she has to stop spending time with boys when she gets her first period. The importance of secrecy and of staying away from boys. I will hear it again – as a whisper, a sharp admonition, a self-evident piece of information.

  * * *

  Fourteen-year-old Saudah lives in Bwaise, one of the poorest areas in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. She is sitting in the schoolyard shade. It is an awkward situation – for her as for any other teenager. Much of what Saudah feels and thinks about menstruation she will probably keep to herself. I can expect fragments, filtered through the demand for secrecy. She does not want her ‘auntie’, the adult relative she lives with, to find out what we are talking about. As long as the principal of the school is listening curiously nearby, Saudah replies dutifully, though in monosyllables.

  The chorus from the classroom for the youngest children breaks the silence over the empty yard, a small patch of trampled, rock-hard orange sand. Land is a hard currency here in Bwaise, which is known for extensive trafficking in sex and drugs. Many people live on less than 1 US dollar per day. That is also the price of a pack of eight menstrual pads in Kampala. An estimation of how much that would be for me: around 100 US dollars. Would I pay that? I don’t think so. In Sweden, the price of eight menstrual pads corresponds to roughly 2 US dollars.

  Saudah is wearing a school uniform with a purple polo shirt, striped tie, and dark blue skirt. She measures carefully against the skirt to show the size of the pieces of cloth she uses as menstrual protection. When she got her first period two years ago, she cut them out from an old dress. It was dark blue, just like the skirt. She folds the fabric in several layers to make sure it will hold the blood and winds it around the seat of her panties, to make it stay in place. Her nightmare is not just that it might leak, but also that the bloody cloth could fall out from under her skirt. That it could land on the concrete floor in the classroom or on the hard sand in the schoolyard.

  She wishes fervently that her auntie would give her money for disposable sanitary pads.

  ‘I’ve asked several times, but she just says no. It’s impossible.’

  Saudah’s mother lives in the countryside, her father is dead, and her auntie provides for Saudah and her brother with money sent from the family.

  The purchased disposable pads, many of the same brands as the ones sold in stores in Europe, have an adhesive on the bottom and on the sides or ‘wings’. The pads are only a few millimetres thick, made of cellulose that absorbs liquid. They do not need to be washed and dried.

  ‘It would be so much simpler,’ says Saudah, who after the first guarded answers is speaking more freely about the hassle with the cloth and the disposable pads she longs for.

  The principal has gone back to the office.

  When Saudah is on her period, she walks home during the lunch break. She gets water from the pump in the yard, which is surrounded by two rows of houses accommodating more than 50 people. One room per family. Behind one of the buildings, two communal latrines are located. She prefers not to walk there in the evening or at night, as the risk for sexual violence becomes very real when darkness falls over Bwaise. They have a bucket for emergencies.

  She brings the water into the room where she lives with her auntie and brother. If she is lucky there is soap at home, but usually not. Sometimes she borrows soap from a neighbour. Carefully, to avoid getting blood on her thighs, she removes the cloth that she has wound around the seat of her panties. She then scrubs the fabric as best she can to remove the blood. It is stubborn; blood clings hard to textiles. And it is difficult to see whether the fabric is clean. The lighting is poor and the room only has one small window. Saudah puts the cloth on a hanger inside the house, somewhere it cannot be seen. Behind a piece of clothing or under the bed. Carefully, she winds a new piece of cloth around her panties before walking back to school.

  When I ask how she feels about the cloth, she does not turn to the two interpreters. She looks directly at me and replies in English rather than her native language, Luganda: ‘I feel bad.’ That’s it.

  ‘I feel bad’ turns out to mean much more than that it is lumpy, uncomfortable – and wet, as Saudah says, because the fabric does not soak up the blood very well. The ‘bad’ is mainly about the fear. What if.

  ‘What if I get a stain? What will happen when I stand up? What if it falls out? Those days, I can’t think about anything else in school.’

  She keeps as still as possible to make sure that the menstrual cloth and the blood inside remain in place. I can’t think about anything else. For the most part, she avoids any kinds of sports.

  At home, I try this with a worn-out sheet. Cutting and folding. The first thing that strikes me is how red the blood looks when it is not absorbed immediately. After a few hours I begin to worry about my trousers, but more annoying is the fact that the cloth is moving up towards my backside when I walk. And that the wet and cumbersome fabric is making me notice my period so clearly. Which I otherwise, with a tampon, forget.

  Should I wash the fabric afterwards? Try to get the blood out? I cheat and throw it away.

  Saudah fiddles with the red pencil case on her lap. She stretches out the skirt that is already completely smooth, like the rest of the uniform, and explains what happens when someone is ‘caught’ menstruating. How the boys tease and laugh, sometimes other girls too – especially the younger ones. They simply call or whisper: ‘She’s on her period.’ A power sentence. No more is needed to maintain the fear. At worst, a stained skirt can haunt its owner for months.

  * * *

  A kind of ‘menstrual etiquette’ that involves keeping the menses more or less secret, especially in front of boys and men, is not unique to Uganda. It is a universal understanding that seems to mark people who menstruate all over the world: there is something to hide here. But this notion takes on a whole new weight when, as a consequence of scarce resources, there is a lack of the material conditions needed to manage and hide the menses: effective menstrual hygiene products, water, toilets, waste bins, private spaces. For a 14-year-old with a thick layer of cloth as menstrual protection and school toilets without running water, it becomes laborious to try to live up to this etiquette, to say the least. A 14-year-old who, moreover, is not told much about her period except that it should be kept secret and that it restricts her from being around boys.

  Nine hundred million people live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank’s definition. Close to 80 per cent live in Africa, south of the Sahara, and in South Asia. If we remove the word ‘extreme’, far more than 900 million people around the world have to manage everyday life on very limited resources. What are menstrual products to them? A luxury. Just like privacy, soap, and clean water. In East African Uganda, a fifth of the population do not have access to clean water. Out of the total population, 38 million, that amounts to almost 8 million people. Half of the 1.7 million residents of Kampala live in slums like Bwaise, where most of them get their water from contaminated sources. With rapid population growth and ever-increasing migration from the countryside to the cities, these areas are growing fast.

  In international studies about students and menstruation in countries with widespread poverty, emotional stress is the most prominent theme. Worrying about shame and humiliation makes it hard to concentrate, to keep up with lessons, and to perform well on tests. Not rarely, the stress transforms into a strong fear that marks the days before and during menstruation and prevents those who are on their periods from participating in various activities. They sit still, trying to tell: Is it coming now? Am I leaking now? The body becomes an enemy, a cause of shame, which seems impossible to control.

  A survey among students in Ethiopia showed that half of them have trouble conc
entrating during menstruation. Students in Sierra Leone have explained that they try not to answer questions in the classroom when they are menstruating – to avoid standing up. In a Kenyan study, a girl is quoted saying that during her period ‘her whole mind will be centred there’ and that she cannot feel free.

  Students in the Philippines explain that they wear double panties and shorts, preferably black, under their school uniforms to make sure that there will be no leaking. Indian schoolgirls describe how the school days disappear beneath their worries about menstruation.

  There are plenty of examples from studies that together provide a fairly unequivocal picture of menstruation as a draining stress factor. Menstruating students not only describe stress and fear, but also alienation and loneliness. Month after month. It is a vulnerability with its basis in gender, amplified by the economic position.

  * * *

  Phiona is 17 years old and goes to the same school as Saudah. She is showing me the school’s toilets, behind a wall almost two metres high and with small square-shaped holes, a kind of window without glass that lets through both light and unwanted eyes. There are three toilets for boys and three for girls, cubicles with holes in the concrete floor. With 364 students, that amounts to 60 students for every toilet.

  To change menstrual protection here is not an option, neither for Phiona nor for Saudah. They would never do that. It is too dirty and not sufficiently private. The doors cannot be locked, not even properly closed. Inside the cubicles there is no water, nothing except the hole in the floor. One must wash under the communal tap in the yard. When we walk past, two of the youngest children are standing there, four-to-five-year-olds in school uniforms splashing water at each other, laughing.

  For those who use pieces of cloth as menstrual protection and cannot afford to throw them away, there is no place to rinse them out. Those who throw away their menstrual protection can do so in the latrine – the hole in the floor – but at the risk of a subsequent visitor seeing the blood. On the other hand, it is difficult to store both new and used menstrual protection in school without the risk of being teased. Someone could see, or just understand. Just like someone could open the door. And what if you get blood on your hands? Are you supposed to walk across the yard to the tap?