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Education reform in schools could drastically decrease stigma around menstruation, according to research.
Now excuse me for being brash, but when I read that experts were calling for boys and girls to receive period education together I thought ‘umm, duh?’
This ostensibly revolutionary insight feels, to me, like common sense. And I’ll admit I was surprised it’s not already happening. Granted, when I was at school the education around anything to do with our bodies (besides memorising that mitochondria is the power house of the cell) was thinly spread. And when it comes to sex education, forget it.
I think we watched a grainy video of a woman giving birth and another bizarre film which featured a family of four running naked around their very florally decorated semi-detached house. There was no in-depth coverage of menstruation that I can recall. I was just left to my own devices, and lucky enough to have a supportive and open mother who was willing to teach me all about tampons and pads when aunty Flo finally came to town.
If the current state of sex education in schools is anything like it was back then, it’s no wonder a stigma persists around periods (and women’s bodies more generally). We’d like to think we’re all open minded individuals, but the reality is that most men I interact with are either grossed out by periods, know next to nothing about them, or both.
It’s not just men, either. There are plenty of women who lack an understanding of their own bodies in this department. I’m talking PMS, PMDD, and hormonal changes – not just the physical goings on.
So yes, I’m entirely in support of the new UCL-based study that argues boys and girls should be educated about periods together.
‘Educating pupils about periods may now be compulsory in schools in England and Wales,’ says Professor Joyce Harper, part of the EGA institute for Women’s Health at UCL. ‘But we know that for many of them, that still only amounts to two lessons in their entire school career.’
‘Our survey suggests that those lessons are still very much concerned with the basic biological facts around menstruation – what we and the women who participated in the study are calling for is that lessons on menstruation need to be much more comprehensive, and cover everything from what effect periods can have on a girl or woman’s wellbeing and academic and sporting performance, to what abnormal bleeding looks like.’
By teaching boys and girls these things in tandem, the secrecy and shame that still exists around periods can start being dismantled.
Despite period education being mandatory in UK schools like Harper notes, Stylist Magazine states that just half of UK teachers report menstrual cycle education lessons being taught at their institutions.
