LAHORE (Web Desk) – In a country like Pakistan it’s not considered polite to point this out, but nearly half the world will – at some stage in their lives – menstruate.
One of the worst things about having period is that, for the most part, women are forced to suffer through the whole hormonal week alone.
Despite the fact that nearly every woman above a certain age experiences the same painful monthly visit from ‘aunt flo’, talking about your cramps among colleagues is not likely to earn you many friends.
But now, women around the world are are attempting to remove the taboo surrounding menstruation and sharing their period pain publicly on social media with the hashtag #LiveTweetYourPeriod.
Day Two: Standing up first thing in the morning. #LiveTweetYourPeriod pic.twitter.com/5LLrfATDBe
— E (@VexSlain) February 19, 2015
how do I uninstall my period if I have decided I do not want children thank you #livetweetyourperiod
— Jung Geld Niki (@_msthirdward) June 18, 2015
As staff writer for New York Times Magazine, Jenna Wortham writes the tweets are a perfect antidote to the near near-ubiquitous images of hyper-sexualised women on social media.
“These are rarely considered as scandalous as content that dares to reveal how a woman’s body actually functions,” she writes.
The hashtag started last year. Often as silly as they are funny, the tweets discuss cravings, gas, period pain, leaking and – of course – chocolate.
Disarming a bomb is less stressful than realizing you have to sneeze. #LiveTweetYourPeriod pic.twitter.com/t1ekFlsRck
— Little Alice (@LittleAlice06) June 22, 2015
Part of the reason many users on Twitter are tweeting with the hashtag is to help raise awareness and combat society’s squeamishness around the topic. Many women are also just grateful to feel like they’re not alone.
‘Sweatpants are all that fits me right now’ Twitter user @RaleighOnTheAir shared.
‘There is a war inside my body’, says another user by the name of @shinysquirrel.
Most of the tweets on the topic feature gruesome images of blood stained clothing or the iconic bloodbath scene from the movie Carrie. Others include funny gifs of cartoon women chowing down on pickles.
On Instagram however, the hashtag remains largely dormant, cites the Daily Mail . The social network has strict community guidelines and when some users have attempted to share menstruation-related images their photos have been reported or removed arbitrarily by the social network’s filter.
“The hashtag came to my attention a few weeks after Rupi Kaur, an artist and poet, posted images on Instagram of a woman, fully clothed, with what appear to be menstrual stains on her pants,” Jenna Wortham writes in the New York Times.
“Soon an Instagram user or moderator flagged it as objectionable, and the post was quietly deleted.”
Thankfully, such restrictions don’t exist on Twitter and women are free to tweet about their bodily functions to their heart’s content.
The hilarious results are over a thousand tweets proclaiming things like: ‘Am I sad or happy, or is it just that I’ve run out of almond butter’?
‘Someone rub my lower back and bring me a soft pretzel’, begs one woman.
Tracy LaFway Clayton tweets, ‘I feel like a house. I got on these too tight ripped jeans and I look like a marshmallow tied up in rubber bands,’ while writer Jenna Wortham replies, ‘I’m making a pound cake and eating chocolate. While also eating pound cake batter’.
‘Sometimes I feel like a superhero when I’m on my period because I get a very heightened sense of smell,’ says Heben Nigatu.
Some brave women are even taking their period woes to Facebook.
‘Horrible cycles of insomnia and binge sleeping!’ writes Nicole Keating.
