Periods and Pandemics: The world may have paused due to lockdown, but menstruation certainly hasn’t
If hindsight were 2020 am I right?!
This year will always be remembered as the year hand sanitizer prices seemed to quadruple in price and toilet paper went flying off the shelves at an insane rate… Oh yeah, and the once-in-a-lifetime viral outbreak impacting millions of people around the world (hello, COVID-19).
WHO WOULDA THOUGHT!
Had we known what we were signing up for going into this year, we probably would have put a lot more effort into mentally and physically preparing for this wild ride of navigating through life in a global pandemic.
In the early days, while panic shoppers cleared the supermarket shelves of all non-perishable food items and paper products. People who menstruate had the added concern of ensuring they had enough sanitary products at their disposal. Here in Australia this particular hurdle was jumped as our flow of pads, tampons, menstrual cups, and rocky-road ice cream never runs dry (excuse the pun).
Then, as we settled into new routines of learning TikTok dances and baking banana bread, one specific topic went essentially unreported in the seemingly never-ending news cycle: PERIODS.
It’s no secret stress and anxiety can seriously mess up our monthly cycle. As we all learned new terms such as “social distancing”, “essential workers”, and “flattening the curve”, it should have come as no surprise our constantly changing restrictions impacted the arrival of Aunt Flo.
People who menstruate took to Twitter to express their frustrations and experiences with weirder than ever flow, onset, duration, or cramps. My personal favourites:
#relatable
As preparing for the impending apocalypse has taken the backseat in our minds and we are adjusting to our new normal, it is easy to forget the fact that menstruators around the globe are still struggling to manage their periods inside a pandemic and out of it.
While a lot has changed over the last few months, there are still some 800 million people (1) around the globe on the rag any given day of the year who need to manage their periods with dignity—no matter how irregular they may be.
Period poverty, or the inability to afford or access menstrual products due to lack of financial resources, has been an ongoing issue for people who bleed around the world for years. However, the current crisis has exasperated inequalities and has made it harder for those already struggling to afford products in an even more precarious situation (2).
Shortages of products, a rise in prices on tampons, pads, and cups and increased financial strain as a result of the outbreak are a new and unexpected reality for some, but an experience endured by many long before facemasks on public transportation became the norm.
While we may all be in this bloody storm of 2020, not everyone is in the same boat.
-Kasey Syverson
Citations
1. The World Bank. Periods Don’t Stop for Pandemics – Neither Will Our Efforts to Bring Safe Menstrual Hygiene to Women and Girls. [Online] May 28, 2020. [Cited: September 7, 2020.] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2020/05/28/menstrual-hygiene-day-2020.
2. Broster, Alice. Period Poverty Is Getting Worse During Coronavirus, Warns Charity. Forbes. [Online] May 28, 2020. [Cited: September 7, 2020.] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicebroster/2020/05/28/period-poverty-is-getting-worse-during-coronavirus-warns-charity/#1aa402323f73.