#MenstruationMatters: Taboo around menstruation causing women shame, researcher says.

By Kellie Scott.

Hiding a pack of tampons at the bottom of your shopping basket or popping a used pad in your handbag when there is no bin in your boyfriend’s bathroom are some of the signs a taboo around menstruation still exists in Australia.

But the biggest indicator according to University of Melbourne research fellow Dr Carla Pascoe is that money can still be made from promising women a more effective way to conceal their period.

This Saturday is Menstrual Hygiene Day which aims to “create a world in which every woman and girl can manage her menstruation in a hygienic way — wherever she is — in privacy, safety and with dignity”.

But while managing “that time of the month” hygienically may not be an issue for the majority of Australian women, managing the embarrassment is.

Dr Pascoe has studied the attitudes around menstruation over the past 100 years and said the taboo has become “subtle and complex”.

“The major way we can tell there is still a menstruational taboo is that you can still make money from it,” she said.

“If you analyse the advertisements from sanitary product companies, most of them are ‘buy our product because we can offer you a more effective way to conceal menstruation’.”

‘Women hide used tampons in their handbags’

Interviews with women of different ages by Dr Pascoe revealed the many lengths women go to “hide” their period.

“Women told me if they go to someone’s house and there is no bin in the bathroom, they would bundle up a pad or tampon into toilet paper and stick it in their bag and take it home — these are grown women,” she said.

“Even with adolescent girls — one girl was wrapping them up and putting them in a bag under her bed because she didn’t want to be seen using the family bin.”

She also said women hid their sanitary product purchases at the supermarket and struggled to talk about their period, even with people they were intimate with.

“Often even within the spaces of private relationships there can be that discomfort,” Dr Pascoe said.

“Women find it difficult negotiating whether to have sex or not during their period… whether men will be grossed out by it.”

Dr Pascoe said Australia had moved forward from the 1940s when women would refer to their period as “sponge cake”, but a reluctance to be completely open about how menstruation could impact women’s lives needed to be dissolved.

‘Un-sexy subject’ compounds issue for at risk women

In the lead up to Menstrual Hygiene Day this weekend, charity Share the Dignity is highlighting the struggle homeless and at risk women in Australia face without access to sanitary products.

Share the Dignity founder Rochelle Courtenay said homeless women, those fleeing domestic violence, and even struggling farmers were resorting to newspaper and rolled up toilet paper to manage their periods.

“Those women can’t bear the thought of spending any money on sanitary items,” she said.

Ms Courtenay said the taboo around menstruation only compounded the problem for women not able to access what they needed.

“Why do we not discuss [periods] when we are four, boys and girls both, and all the way along?

“Why did it take me to read an article about this issue for a solution to be put into play? Why was it written about without action being taken beforehand? Because it’s about periods.

“It’s not a sexy subject. As mothers and fathers we need to talk about it and ‘period’ doesn’t need to be hushly spoken. We really want to stop that stigma.”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.