What I've Learned
Thank you for accompanying me on this journey. My goal was to raise awareness about a few aspects of not-well-known female health. While I wasn't able to cover everything, I hope these bits a pieces sparked some curiosity and motivate you to
Where does this all leave us? It leaves me with more insight and knowledge about my own experience as well as other women’s. Throughout this project, I’ve been able to solidify my understanding of how I am made and how my reproductive system functions.
On a different note, I’ve also reflected on the lack of knowledge I grew up with surrounding this topic. As an only daughter, my experience is not the same as many women, yet I am aware that girls learn about their period mainly through experience. Is this ideal?
I can’t answer that, but I can try to propose ways to facilitate learning.
After pondering the school system, I am now questioning whether lectures contribute to the majority of learning. Did my fifth-grade presentation adequately prepare me for decades of menstruation? Of course it didn’t. That’s a big ask for a 20-minute info session.
That being said, there is a place for information presentation. It is good to know what is happening, in order to make sense of it all. However, like college, the education comes from discussion. The majority of my knowledge is from dialogues. The Hormone Genius podcast, speaking with a gynecologist, learning from an NFP instructor, and listening to my friends give me a multi-perspective look on what it is like to go through menses, whether normally or abnormally.
I don’t know about you, but I want to do my part to facilitate conversation. This is done with decreased stigma and increased trust—trust to ask the stupid questions. When I got answers to the questions I was holding in for fear of seeming dumb, that’s when I started learning.
Because we can know what is happening and understand the information, but if we don’t ask about experiences, how will we ever know what is healthy? For example, I knew that my eight-day periods were abnormal because the textbook period is only five days long. However, it wasn’t until I learned that experiences vary, especially in the first years of menarche, that I could believe I was normal.
So, how can we decrease stigma and increase trust?
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The silence around periods may come from being seen as ritually unclean in the Jewish tradition. However, this meaning is far from filthy. This healthy function is getting more and more normalized, with free tampons and pads provided in some public restrooms. Recognizing that, while PMS can be ugly, menstruation is not can change our attitude and the way we will talk about it.
And talk about it we will. Conversation around menses is especially important, due to the novelty of healthy bleeding. We all know what teenage boys are like, so creating a safe space to facilitate conversation among girls—young and old—can lead to better information distribution and a feeling of being heard.
These are my ideas, but I am constantly learning and would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to comment in the forum by going to the menu at the bottom of this page. Thank you for accompanying me in this search for understanding, and I hope you, too, will continue to learn and grow.
