Menstrual Blood Is Having a Moment

I was 11 when I got my first period. 

I’d heard about it at school during a “special class” (my friends and I were horrified) and my mother had told me about it, of course. She had pulled me onto a bench outside a pub on the way home from school one day to tell me what to expect. I spent the whole conversation cringing and we didn’t discuss it again. This brief conversation did little to assuage the deep shame I felt when the first drops of blood came. 

Instead of announcing the news to my mum, I kept it to myself, and managed the situation over the next 10 months by stealing sanitary pads (from family members, not stores!)—anything to avoid uttering the words out loud: I got my period. 

It seems somehow tragic and unnecessary to me now—why didn’t I just say something? After all, this was the ‘90s; hardly Victorian England. But in retrospect it’s clear my response was simply a reflection of the way periods are treated in society—like dirty, embarrassing secrets. 

A 2021 report from Always (the sanitary pad brand from Procter & Gamble) revealed that one in three young people in the U.S. have experienced period shaming: i.e. have received negative comments about their menstruation. Another study published in 2022 found that across countries from the U.S. to Senegal to India to Kenya the stigma around periods had been a key challenge in meeting women’s menstrual needs. 

It’s 2025. Are we seriously still having this conversation? Well, yes, but hold on, because there’s some good news too.

Menstrual blood is actually having a bit of a moment.