A Manifesto for Menstrual Equity by a Man
What does it take to dismantle stigma?
Imagine you live in a world where talking about dental hygiene is a cardinal taboo.
Every day you expend enormous emotional energy making sure your toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss are out of sight at all times. You see it as your job in life to make sure no one ever knows when you’re brushing your teeth, making excuses every time you go to the bathroom to do so. When your 7-year-old points to the dental floss in your shopping cart at the supermarket and asks innocently, “What’s that?”, you blush and whisper that you’ll talk about it after you get home. When you travel, you triple-check your luggage to make sure you’ve packed all your own dental products because you can never count on them being available anywhere else when you need them.
When you have a toothache, you try to hold your jaw in meetings at work in such a way that it looks like you’re just thinking hard — without wincing — while trying to convince yourself that you only have to push through the rest of the day until you can get home and put an ice pack on it. Only your best friend sees through your act and asks you later…
