Diary of a Gen Z Student: 'I was taught periods were shameful, unclean, something to hide'

Imagine if periods were celebrated, rather than driven underground.

It was an unspoken rule that we couldn’t mention periods in front of the boys.

I remember a particular instance when my primary school class was separated into two groups. I was in sixth class. Boys in one room, girls in the other. It was the first time we were taught about puberty in school. And that separation really set the tone for what would become an ingrained tendency to avoid talking about our bodies. It sowed the seeds of shame.

At 12 years old, it was a bit late for the school to begin the conversation about puberty. As a girl, I had already gotten the message that periods were not up for open discussion. That message was painfully clear. It was an unspoken rule that we couldn’t mention periods in front of the boys. But we didn’t make this rule independently. We saw the reluctance of our teachers and school, when it came to talking about periods. We noticed that we were taught about periods, only after the boys had left the room. By example, we learnt to keep that aspect of our lives, to ourselves.