leaves you with sadness acne and a
terrible stomach ache it’s Shark Week
definitely not a good time to go surfing
in Australia having the painters in the
sudden urge to paint my living room my
bedroom and even my kitchen all bright
red now how on earth are all of these
things connected because I don’t have an
aunt named Flo
I would never saw with sharks and I hate
the color red well all three of these
things are code words for a woman’s
period these nicknames these euphemisms
have become a part of our lexicon in
order for women to feel comfortable
bringing up periods within a
conversation hi my name is Glen and yes
I overreact by which I mean I
experienced a period once a month that
was uncomfortable to say out loud I’ll
admit it but by not talking about it
girls and women all around the world are
being stigmatized and isolated for
something in their body that is
completely natural so right now let’s
start this delayed conversation periods
for the time that she has mentally
active a woman will bleed for 3,000 days
which equates to about eight years
eloquent administration education
researcher said that having a normal
menstrual cycle is just another vital
sign like your blood pressure or your
heart rate that ensures that your body
is healthy and working normally so if a
woman’s period is so natural and so
vital why has it always been surrounded
by such heavy stigma well the stigma has
been around for thousands of years in
ancient times menstruating women were
heavily associated with mystery magic
and even sorcery Pliny the Elder a Roman
author and natural philosopher said that
menstruating women had the ability to
prevent hail storms and lightning
in medieval times pain medicine was not
readily permitted by the church as it
was believed that every cramp was a
reminder of Eve’s original sin but wait
that was the past things must have
changed by now
not exactly flash-forward to 1952 where
two Harvard scientists injected lab rats
with menstrual blood trying to prove
that the blood was somehow toxic when
the experiment was later repeated it was
clear that there was no correlation
between the deaths of the lab rats and
the supposedly lethal effect of the
menstrual blood so you can see the
stigma in action within advertisements
take these three advertisements for
example which are all for sanitary
products all three of them have the word
discreet within them and by doing this
companies are showing women that in
order for them to be buying a good
sanitary product it has to be one that
can be hidden its advertisements like
these that lead women and girls to
associate their period with feelings of
shame and embarrassment in supermarkets
you can see the inherent unfairness in
the sales of sanitary products with what
is known as the pink tax did you know
that in most supermarkets in America
girls and women are being taxed five
percent every time they buy a sanitary
product this is all because the
government sees them as luxury items and
yet every time a man buys say a razor
he’s taxed nothing but girls can’t
protest this tax because if they do
they’re losing their necessity they’re
losing an item that is a necessity
necessity to them regardless of what the
government thinks in countries like
India and Nepal the stigma around
ministration is affecting a woman’s
future and sometimes even her life in
most schools in India there is a lack of
clean and safe toilets making it almost
impossible to clean up and safely
dispose of used menstrual products in
addition girls have insufficient access
to affordable sanitary products leading
them to use leaves or
in rags which can lead to leaks and
infections all this would lead anybody
to want to miss school for a couple of
days each month or even drop out of
school altogether Murat zhehan who was a
member of the UN Children’s Fund says
that girls would rather miss a week of
school each month than risk an
embarrassing leak in her classroom or
teasing by her classmates in total a
girl will miss about 50 days of school
each year now imagine for a second that
you had to miss a week of school each
month imagine how much work you would
have to make up how many tests you would
have to resit imagine how difficult
finishing the semester would feel I know
we joke about dropping out of school but
what if you felt like that was your only
option in Nepal the stigma around
menstruation is also an issue in the mid
and far-reaching western regions of
Nepal 95% of girls and women take part
in what is known as child potty
although women all across the country
take part in this practice in varying
degrees child potty involves the
banishment of women to a makeshift hut
or cattle shed due to their impurity
during their period
if a woman disobeys she risks bringing
death and destruction to her family if
she touches a crop it will wilt if she
fetches water the well will dry up and
if he picks fruit it won’t ripen
chalapati has a psychological impact on
women as two thirds of the women feel
lonely or scared during their time spent
in the menstral Hut and girls as young
as 10 are being subjected to dealing
with snake attacks and wild animals in
the past two months there have been two
deaths of young girls who were found in
münster huts and since 2007 there have
been at least eight other cases of
deaths related to menstral seclusion in
Nepal ending this stigma is a worldwide
struggle ending the stigma relates to
three out of the 17 sustainable
development goals established by the
United Nations and the UN hopes to
achieve all 17 of these aspirations by
2030 ending the stigma remonstration
relates to goal 3 ensuring health and
well-being goal 5 gender equality and
goal 10 reducing inequalities
but I know that most of you in the crowd
don’t have side jobs in the UN and can’t
begin to advocate to end this stigma so
instead what you can do at this point in
your life is normalize the discussion
and here’s how number one girls talk
about it I’m not saying that every
conversation has to revolve around your
menstrual pain or involve vivid vivid
imagery of how it feels to sneazles on
your period what I am saying is that you
shouldn’t feel bad saying that you’re
feeling a little emotional today or that
you don’t feel up to go for that tanning
session at the pool or even that you
feel a little like this number two
nobody should feel ashamed ask me any
questions they may have this is relevant
to both boys and girls because anything
you don’t understand is going to seem
alien to you boys you can’t just ignore
this conversation because you make up
the other half of this population and
you have just as much say and how this
society can work towards a more equal
environment so that is an uncomfortable
TED talk even for me but hopefully soon
it doesn’t have to be thank you [Applause]