Tampon Shaming Is a Bloody Mess

Name any female body part or anatomical condition, add the word ‘shaming’ to the end of it, and you suddenly have a women’s movement in full bloom. Kiran Ghandi picked up on tampon shaming. It’s fresh.

The night before she was set to run her very first [London] marathon, Kiran Gandhi got her period. After a year of training, she refused to miss the momentous moment because of biology. She had two choices: She could either run the 26.2 miles with a tampon, or she could bleed freely. She chose the latter.

No! Why? Choose the former! God damnit, door #1!

But if you understood this was a four hour bleed for justice, you’d understand why the latter. Kiran Gandhi dreams of a better world:

I have this vision that if men had their period, because we are in a male-privileging society, that rules would be written into the workplace, rules would be written into the social fabric that enable men to take a moment when they need to or enable people to talk about their periods openly.

And what a world that would be if we could spend our days discussing our periods openly while getting pap smears and mixed green salads with dressing on the side as part of our workplace legislation. I’m going to go ahead and guess every hard working, ambitious woman ever thinks this is a horrible fucking idea.

But what does this have to do with your bleeding out of your vagina into your running pants for 26.2 miles? Couldn’t you wear a giant tampon costume with an insightful hashtag and wait for Ellen to re-tweet your photo? Rambo tried to stay out, he really did. He had to go back to save those prisoners. You had a choice. Wear the fucking tampon. Light it ablaze and throw it into the Thames after your finish. Make an impression beyond an unsanitary pool of hemoglobin caking in your Lululemons. This can’t be a thing. Is this a thing? Fuck me.

Photo credit: Facebook